| Main Performers | Pip, Squeak and Wilfred,
'The Gugnuncs' (the Daily Mirror Pets),
Japhet and The Noah Family (of the Daily News),
Iris de Villiers School of Dancing,
Oojah Don and Snooker (of the Daily Sketch)
Garrard's Lilliputian Circus (with live animals: miniature ponies, duck, goose) |
| Orchestra or Band | Royal Air Force (RAF) Band |
| Set List | 14:30-17:30 Grand Children's Party (Gifts from a Giant Christmas Tree, circus with galloping horses, coconut shies, hoopla, Aunt Sallies, dancing, sports, Punch and Judy, roundabouts, swings, roulette board of the bran tub, Luck Dip by Father Christmas etc.),
Live Toy Dance featuring Fumsup, Gollywog, Red Riding Hood, Bo Peep, Boy Blue, 'Charlie Chaplin' etc. (Iris de Villiers School of Dancing),
Concerts, short stories, poems, sonnets and dances for older children |
| Performance Notes | A Christmas Carnival and Children's Fair in aid of Save the Children and 10 children's hospitals and organisations for suffering British children.
"...Whoever heard before of a circus in the Albert Hall? There is to be one, Garrard's Lilliputian Circus, giving four performances a day within a little ring, and it has the smallest Shetland pony in the world, no bigger than a mastiff or St. Bernard dog. He is too clever, too. His companion Jack, is some inches higher, and after jumping stiles loves to roll and get his thick wool covered with sawdust. A duck that eludes children trying to catch up with him, and a performing goose, and funny clowns, and trapeze artists are also billed for the miniature ring. A big feature on the main floor each afternoon will be a dance of Live Toys by pupils from the Iris de Villiers school of dancing. It is a pretty idea. They parade at first with stiff movements, for they are still wooden, till a touch of the good fairy's wand brings them to life, and then, from the tiniest tots clothes almost complete by big silk bows, to Gollywogs and Teddy Bears, and Brer Rabbit, Boy Blue, Pantaloon, and the host of the nursery, all engage in the merriest dancing. You may meet, too, the Oojah, and Japhet, and Pip and Squeak, and other popular young people there to amuse, and find entertainment which only ends when lights go our at eleven at night.
...All the bosex on the dancing-floor level are fitted as neat little shops or stalls, each participating hospital having one, and Glaxo, who have heped, send nurses of the motherhood service. East London Hospital for Children shows a model ward, and has many gifts for sale. The Queen's child's pink petticoat, knitted by her Majesty's own hands, is offered by the Victoria Hospital. Elsewhere is a delightful peep into 'Wendy's home'. And, of course, there is tea, the really important children's mealm ready in the upper tiers, from which the activities on the floor may be watched, and for the special events boxes have been taken by sympathisers."
(The Daily Telegraph, 24 December 1921)
"HUMAN FAIRIES AT THE ALBERT HALL
Live Toys to Dance For Charity
The Albert Hall is to be occupied during the Christmas season by children. They will doubtless allow their parents to accompany them, but the Christmas Carnival and Children's Fair is primarily theirs. It has been organised by a number of children's hospitals and societies to aid their funds, and everything - or almost everything has been arranged to meet juvenile tastes. Starting on Boxing Day, the Carnival will continue until January 4, during which time, is it hoped, a great deal of fun will be enjoyed and a great deal money raised for institutions whose good work is as much beyond question as their need of money.
The many distinguished patrons are headed by Queen Alexandra, the Prince of Wales, and other members of the Royal Family; while an army of workers are prepared to do everything in their powers of help in the children's entertainment. Yesterday afternoon the centre of the floor of the Hall wa occupied by a party of tiny boys and girls who were rehearsing the Dance of Live Toys. Their prettiness combined with the dainty quaintness of their dresses to delight all who watched. Among them were fairies so small that one fancied they must surely go to bed in a bluebell, and pierrots on the most diminutive scale since known since [Deburau], with golliwogs who succeeded somehow being lovely as well as grotesque. More charming children never put on fancy costume and fancy costume was never better devised to bring out the liveliest beauty of extreme youth. The huge spaces of the hall made the dancers seem more tiny than they actually were, till the spectators easily imagine that they were looking on at a festival of Queen Tatania and her attendant sprites...
Help From Well-Known Actresses
Children's games are under the care of Miss Ellaline Terriss who has persuaded a large company of well-known people to work with her. Among them are Miss Helen Ferrers, Miss Sybil Thorndike, Miss Fay Compton, Mrs Matheson Lang, Miss Mabel Love, Miss Gladys Cooper, Miss Eva Moore, Mrs du Maurier, Miss Seymour Hicks, Lady Laking, Mr Leslie Henson, Mr Fred Wright, Mr and Mrs Acton Pond, Mr Jack Hulbert, Mr Basil Foster, and Mr Harry Welchman. The side shows cannot all be mentioned, there are so many of them. They include conjuring, ventriloquism, Punch and Judy marionettes, roundabouts, swings, fish ponds and coconut shies...
Half-a-crown admits to all sorts of things, at some hours even to tea, at others to dancing. It will be gathered that grown-ups, after all, are to be allowed to look in by their juvenile friends. Whether half-a-crown has ever before permitted grown-ups to dance on the floor of the Albert Hall is a question for antiquarian research." (The Times 24 December 1921)
"Under the organ stands a gigantic Christmas tree, from which every child who goes to the carnival will gather a present. Tucked away in its near neighbourhood is the smallest of circuses - Garrad Lilliputian Circus, to be exact. Here two ponies no bigger than big dogs will perform, and wonderful feats will be done by a clever goose and a duck. Dandy - that is the goose's name - appears to have been born to to support the theory of a famous living naturalist that geese are the most intelligent beings in the lower creation.
The Royal Albert Hall was given over to children yesterday, and they will remain in possession until January 4, when their run of the Christmas Carnival and Fair will come to an end. The Carnival has been organised to serve the double purpose of amusing children who are well and happy and of aiding the work of curing and helping children who are ill.
Princess Beatrice visited the carnival soon after it was opened yesterday afternoon. She made a tour of the stalls, saw some of the side-shows, and then visited the theatre, where a variety entertainment was being given
The whole of the floor of the Albert Hall has been turned into a fair ground. There is a minature merry-go-round that will probably go round until January 4, and there is every other attraction that one is accustomed to find at holiday time on Hampstead Heath or Mitcham, but all are modified to suit the occasion. Probably nobody ever had such a chance of hoping to get something for very nearly nothing - nor does it always end with hoping - as at the numerous side-shows.
The boxes on the ground floor have been converted into stalls at which a variety of articles may be brought, most of them being things that will appeal to children. An enormous Christmas-tree decorated and covered with toys has been set up in front of the organ, and close at hand is the ring where the Lilliputian Circus gives four performances a day. There is a dance floor where 'live toys' perform every day, and there is an excellent variety of children's sports organized by Miss Ellaline Terriss. Characters from old and new fairy stories may be met at any corner of the fair, and some of the children in familiar advertisements have stepped down from the hoardings and entered real life.
There is to be a children's party on December 29, and a Cinderella dance on New Year's Eve. The Albert Hall was thronged yesterday, and if so large an attendance can be maintained throughout the run of the fair, much sorely needed money should be secured for the funds of the 12 societies by whom and in aid of whom it has been organised." (The Times, 27 December 1921) |
| Related Archival Material | Handbill (RAHE/6/1921/38) |
| Ticket Prices | 1s 3d (13:30-18:30) - 5s (19:30-23:00) |