Viva Brighton Issue #84 February 2020

TALK
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Women in Entertainment
A history of formidable female performances
Long before Beyoncé made
headlines as the highestpaid
woman in pop, Italian
opera singer Adelina Patti
was breaking through the
glass ceiling of Nineteenth
Century Europe. Tickets
to a concert she gave at
Brighton Dome in 1901
– recently discovered
beneath the floorboards of a local home – were
sold for 15 shillings each, which was around two
days wages for a tradesman. What’s more, says
the Dome’s Senior Programming Coordinator
Alex Epps, Patti demanded that venues paid her
takings in gold. “She was quite a badass!” laughs
Epps, who bought the tickets at auction for the
Dome’s archives. “She travelled on her own
private train, wore the most expensive costume
ever made for an opera and apparently she had
a pet parrot that she had trained to shout ‘Cash!
Cash!’ at male promoters.”
Patti is one of a host of formidable women
from Brighton’s past who feature in a talk being
given this month by historian Louise Peskett,
known for the Notorious Women of Brighton and
Notorious Women of Kemp Town walking tours.
While Patti ruled the stage, figures such as
Ellen Nye Chart, manager of the Theatre Royal
from 1876, were breaking with convention behind
the scenes. Nye Chart surprised everyone
by taking over the management of the theatre
when her husband Henry died – “A female manageress
would have been incredibly unusual at
the time,” says Epps. She introduced an annual
pantomime – inviting residents of the town’s
workhouse to see it for free – and brought popular
performers including
Sarah Bernhardt and Henry
Irving to the city. By
the 1880s Nye Chart had
paid off the mortgage on
the theatre and their house
next door and turned the
business into a profitable
and respected regional
theatre.
Louise will also talk about Victorian male
impersonator and music hall star Vesta Tilley
– whose time in the city is remembered with a
blue plaque at her former home in St Aubyns
Mansions, Hove; conjoined twins Daisy and
Violet Hilton, who were born in Riley Road,
Brighton in 1908 and went on to tour England
and the United States and appear in the film
Freaks; and sisters Elsie and Doris Waters who
were considered the most successful female
comedians of the late 1940s.
“Brighton seems to have long held an attraction
for performers,” says Epps, who is working
with a team of volunteers to create an archive
documenting the Dome’s part in Brighton’s
entertainment history. “But Louise is particularly
interested in the stories of the women who
performed and even made their names here,
from figures like Patti up to the gospel and
blues musician Rosetta Tharpe, who was dubbed
‘the woman who gave birth to rock ‘n’ roll’ and
performed at the Dome with Muddy Waters in
1964. It’s an extraordinary history for a fairly
small city.”
Nione Meakin
Women In Entertainment talk at Brighton Dome
(Founders Room), 7th Feb, 1pm
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