35053668-Empire-of-the-Soul-Paul-William-Roberts

EMPIRE OF THE SOUL
Mr. Schmuck seems to have been much in demand, for he appears
with numerous performers over the next few months.
Tastes must have been fairly eclectic, too. Hot on the heels of
Miss Bonavia Hunt came the ‘SANTA LUCIA ORCHESTRA,
direct from Naples.’
Some years later came Paul Nijinsky ‘of the Imperial Russian
Art Ballet, Petrograd’ – an outfit no one seems to have heard of
before or since – presenting his ‘RENOWNED CLASSICAL
DANCES.’ These included ‘ANCIENT GREEK DANCES,’ in
full costume, performed, improbably, to the music of Chopin; the
‘GRAND BALLET FROM FAUST’; and even ‘ANCIENT
RUSSIAN NOBLES DANCES,’ assisted ‘BY WELL-KNOWN
LOCAL AMATEURS.’
There is something of a new community spirit breaking in here,
too. In the intermissions the orchestras played ballroom music for
the audience to dance to.
More acts passed through the hotel’s grand doors: ‘MASCOTLE
AND MAURICE, TALENTED CABARET ARTISTS FROM
PARIS, WHERE THEY ARE CALLED THE WHIRLWIND
DANCERS’; ‘TEDDY WEATHERFORD, A husky voiced lass
with some songs for the HARBOUR BAR accompanied by the
KING OF THE IVORY KEYS’; ‘LEON ABBEY AND HIS NEW
SWING BAND,’ accompanied by ‘VARIETY ITSELF: LUCILLE,
MERRIEL & FRANK, and AUGUSTO the magician.’
The Roaring Twenties swept into Bombay, too. Leon Abbey’s
new swing band teamed up with numerous class acts over the
months: ‘COLETTE AND COMPANY . . . a new and exciting
breath from Paris’; and an act ‘which no one should miss: RENNE
AND RAME’s Snake Dance’; as well as ‘OLE COOPER . . . a
superb human instrument [who] has delighted Paris for years’;
and the following night: ‘Latin artistes . . . MARUJA AND
MEXICAN’, who ‘combine the elegance of Paris with the fire of
Buenos Aires, and the rhythm of Harlem.’
The hotel constantly upgraded itself through these boom years,
advertising in the Times – possibly to counter those suggestions of
poor safety – that ‘Stigler Lifts’ had been installed: ‘These Lifts are
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