Photos

Photos: Black Performers in Spotlight at Palladium

Theo Bosanquet
London's West End

A new exhibition was launched yesterday (18 June 2009) at the London Palladium, celebrating over 200 years of black performance history. Timed to coincide with the current run of Sister Act at the venue, the Living Archive Exhibition is comprised of items from the private collection of former dancer Leon Robinson, artistic director of performing arts company Positive Steps.

Aiming to address a “major missing link in British entertainment history”, the exhibition features names such as the 18th century street entertainer Billy Waters, who would entertain audiences outside the Adelphi Theatre, and the internationally acclaimed Victorian black Shakespearian actor Ira Aldridge.

It also charts the largely forgotten black Edwardian Music Hall entertainers such as Bert Williams and George Walker, the stars of In Dahomey at the Shaftesbury Theatre in 1903, and the ‘Queen of Happiness’ Florence Mills, who starred in Dover Street to Dixie at the London Pavilion, now known as the Trocadero.

Our Whatsonstage.com photographer Dan Wooller was at yesterday’s launch, where guests included Leon Robinson, Simon Callow, Steve Clark, Andre Ptaszynski, Thea Barnes, Baroness Lola Young and The Clark Brothers. Click the ‘next’ link below to scroll through his pictures from the launch, and also selected images from the exhibition.

 

The Living Archive Exhibition, which is supported by Really Useful Group Theatres and Stage Entertainment, also throws a spotlight on 100 years of black performers at the Palladium, bringing Adelaide Hall home to the theatre where the Harlem Renaissance star made her London debut in 1931, and brings us up to date with the venue’s newest star, Sister Act‘s Patina Miller.

Speaking at the launch, actor Simon Callow paid tribute to the work done by Leon Robinson to raise the profile of black cultural history. He commented: “Too many people did not know the extraordinary achievement, the amazing variety and depth of work of black artists. If your history becomes invisible, you don’t know who you are. From that comes a reluctance to train, because you don’t feel you have a place in the world.”

Sister Act producer Whoopi Goldberg said of the exhibition: “This history is one that not many people know about. This collection brings to the forefront all those performers who put their all into British entertainment. I’m very proud of it.”