Marie Lloyd and The Art of Suggestion

I watched a TV film about Marie Lloyd the other night(see BBC web page). There were many elements to Lloyd's performance: costume, character, having a knees-up; but it was the lyrics that she had to defend, at risk of being banned or regarded as lewd.

In defending her act, she revealed the power of performance in conveying language. Singing the songs from her routine with an entirely 'innocent' delivery let her off the hook with the Vigilance Committee by proving there was nothing vulgar about the phrases themselves. The story goes that she then performed the supposedly charming and respectable drawing room ballad 'Come into the Garden Maude' 'with such a wealth of gesture that it became quite obscene' (see website about 'The English Music Hall').




Marie Lloyd


I loved watching Jessie Wallace as Marie singing 'My Old Man'; I found it genuinely amusing, the 'old cock linnet' and all...

'We had to move away, 'cos the rent we couldn't pay,
The moving van came round just after dark;
There was me and my old man, shoving things inside the van,
Which we'd often done before, let me remark.
We packed all that could be packed in the van and that's a fact;
And we got inside all we could get inside,
Then we packed all we could pack on the tailboard at the back,
Till there wasn't any room for me to ride.

My old man said, "Follow the van, don't dilly dally on the way!"
Off went the cart with the home packed in it,
I walked behind with me old cock linnet.
But I dillied and dallied, dallied and dillied,
Lost the van and don't know where to roam.
I stopped on the way to have the old half-quartern,
And I can't find my way home.'