? Review by Simon Sladen (2010) "Let's all go to the Music Hall" as the old song said. And there is no time like the present to get down to Hoxton Hall for The Boy I Love Is Up In The Gallery, a title which has Miss Marie Lloyd to thank for its fame, having originally been written by George Ware for Nellie Power in 1885. Steeped in Music Hall history, Hoxton Hall first opened its doors in 1863. Nearly 150 years on, the ghosts of Music Hall past are once again summoned to the stage as this glorious form of entertainment is brought back to life for all to enjoy. The vibrancy of Music Hall lies at the very heart of The Boy I Love as it tells the tales of entertainers from a bygone era, whilst reminding us that "our lives are composed of many acts." First the audience meet Hannah Chaplin and a variety of other characters before finally getting a glimpse of young Charlie himself as they become privy to the circumstances which led to this star of the silver screen's Music Hall debut. The trio of Victoria Lupton, Tim Pritchett and Lydia Rose Bewley...

? She Stoops To Conquer After an evening spent watching The Rogues’ Gallery’s double bill of She Stoops to Conquer and The Boy I Love Is Up in the Gallery in the enchanting Hoxton Hall, I find that I have been too dazzled to make any noteworthy criticism. First up was a 1920s music hall update of classic 18th century comedy, She Stoops to Conquer. Framed by song and dance, and performed in clown makeup, Matthew Evans’s production of Oliver Goldsmitih’s already-crazy comedy is positively madcap. The actors’ high energy plays up the more ridiculous elements of this farcical comedy of errors, making this Rogues’ Gallery production of She Stoops to Conquer is an absolute joy to watch. Closing the evening was the site-specific wonder, The Boy I Love Is up in the Gallery. Devised by the company to be performed in Hoxton Hall, The Boy I Love is woven of the eponymous song, the legacy of London’s erstwhile music halls, and the story of Charlie Chaplain and his mother, singer Hannah, amongst many other things. Incorporating a guest performance by a contemporary cabaret act (I saw Beau Burlington perform an amusing burlesque number), and concerned with things like...

? She Stoops To Conquer The Boy I Love Is Up In the Gallery Hoxton Hall Rogues’s Gallery double bill at Hoxton Hall is a charmingly roguish concoction of music hall tributes that blows the dust off the genre with plenty of wit and wisdom. Both She Stoops To Conquer and The Boy I Love approach music hall from two very different angles, cleverly playing with dramatic structure and exploiting the overt qualities of the genre. If the first is a tentative and sensitive approach to storytelling, weaving in music hall elements and playing off the tragicomic nature of farce, the second joins classic music hall acts with clever storytelling and crafted theatrical inventions. She Stoops To Conquer Oliver Goldsmiths’s She Stoops To Conquer is brought to life by Matthew Evans, this year’s JMK Award winner, with precision and a genuine love of farce. The plot revolves around a misunderstanding between suitor, Marlow (Robert Fawsitt), his companion Hastings (Alex Marx), and the family of the bride to be, Kate Hardcastle (Claire Cordier). As Marlow and Hastings travel in search for the Hardcastle mansion, Mrs Hardcastle’s son, Tony Lumpkin (Jack Chedburn) deceives them into thinking they’re far away from their...