This caricature is of the red-nosed comedian Harry Bedford when he was performing at the Grand Theatre of Varieties, Hanley, during the week of 31 October 1904. He was billed as ‘the original singer of “A Little Bit off the Top” and “The Cock of the North”, in his latest London successes’. Bedford was making a return appearance at the theatre that year, having already appeared there in January. This is one of the many superb caricatures of Edwardian music hall performers that were drawn by the artist George Cooke when he was based at the Grand Theatre. He compiled them in a series of albums. Bedford was on the bill that week with R. A. Roberts and Rose and Calvert, who were also drawn by Cooke.

Harry Bedford (1873-1939) began as a child performer at the Magpie Music Hall, Battersea, the Elephant and Castle Theatre and the Britannia, Hoxton. He did a variety of apprenticeships, joined a touring theatre and worked as a minstrel and clown on south coast beach shows. At the age of 15 he played cat to Vesta Tilley’s Dick Whittington at the Theatre Royal, Portsmouth. He made his first solo music hall appearance in 1889 at Vento’s Varieties, Portsmouth. In 1895 he appeared at the Middlesex Music Hall in London and soon after as a solo comedian and dancer. A popular ‘low comedian’, his earliest song successes were ‘Cock of the North’ and ‘When I Get Some Money’. ‘A Little Bit off the Top’ was his first hit after he sang it at Southampton in December 1898. It was considered saucy at the time.