VICTORIAN MUSIC HALL
with Essie Fox
Thursday 8th May 2014
Doors open at 6:30 pm, Talk commences at 7:00 pm
Wilton’s hall in London’s East End is the oldest of the grand music halls to still open its doors to the public today. Indeed, it was after a visit there that Essie Fox was first inspired to write her novel, The Somnambulist, which features Victorian characters whose lives - and fates - revolve around the dramas of that historical world.
But, as well as using the hall in her fiction, Essie Fox has researched Wilton’s vibrant past - in which the early music hall era evolved from the glee clubs that set up in taverns and led to a burgeoning theatre scene of astonishing variety.
Hear about the crumbling glory of this ‘Temple to Apollo’ - its founder, its stars, and the Temperance campaigners who fought to have the theatre closed - when Essie draws back the velvet drapes to tell some tales of its infamous stage.
Tickets are available from A Curious Invitation
