The portents look good for the vibrant Pavilion Theatre of Varieties. Littlejohn ISBN 1 05 4. Our members come from both sides of the footlights and include many artistes who are still performing in Variety, theatre historians, journalists and, above all, the theatre going public who filled the seats in the Empires, Palaces, Palladiums etc, all over the country and our membership ranges worldwide.
The Society also runs various events throughout the year e. Today the Society maintains a vested interest in supporting the live Variety Theatre of today as an Art Form.
Since it opened in , the Pavilion has stayed close to it roots producing and providing a traditional venue for Comedy, Music, Variety and all other areas of Entertainment.
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A regular favourite was another local lass Lena Martell real name Helen Thomson whose international singing and stagecraft including BBC television series attracting audiences of 12m each year can be extensively enjoyed here. Six years later they put the Gaiety up for sale and demolition but it was saved by Ayr Town Council. From the late s there were a number of changes of ownership of the Pavilion Theatre , with it finally settling in under the ownership of the Martin family of Ayrshire who also own Fairfield House Hotel, Ayr.
A founder director in was William Martin, stockbroker, of Ayrshire. The above article on the Origins and Developments of the Glasgow Pavilion Theatre was written by Graeme Smith and kindly sent in by him for inclusion on this site in April It had been started by comic and singer Fred Collins real name James Nelson who in his earlier years wrote over songs for performers including Sir Harry Lauder.
Before forming his own Fred Collins Entertainers of pierrots the two toured together and remained life-long friends. Collins soon commenced the production of pantomimes, with Collins Productions Ltd writing and producing major pantomimes and seasonal shows for their own expanding bases and for other circuits.
They produced all the scenery and costumes for each production and tours, at their workshops in Edinburgh. His son Horace Collins, shown left, succeeded him in , developing their own Five Theatre Circuit - one major theatre in each city of Scotland and one in England, to comprise a full year seasonal variety circuit - which included the Tivoli Theatre Aberdeen , the Palace Theatre Dundee , the Theatre Royal Edinburgh , the Shakespeare Theatre Liverpool and the Pavilion Theatre Glasgow in which he was a major shareholder.
Horace Collins was also a keen film photographer, and excerpts of his filming of pantomimes have been secured for public delight, set to music in association with the Orchestra of Scottish Opera and the University of Glasgow. The restored films include Sinbad the Sailor starring Dave Willis filmed at the Glasgow Pavilion Theatre during its run, which can be seen here. And Forty Thieves starring G.
Elliot and Jack Anthony filmed in colour at the Glasgow Pavilion Theatre during its run, which can be seen here. Accompanying images are Courtesy Ross Collins. He helped his brother run a hotel and spoke a little French and a little German. He was sociable, generous to staff and charitable causes. Many North Sea fishermen attended, of all languages, including some deaf and dumb, for whom Tom learned sign language.
They entrusted him as a banker with their large earnings from fishing voyages and would draw it out as and when required. He developed a range of variety halls, usually named Tivoli, and later Hippodrome, including Newcastle-on-Tyne, Leeds , Hull , Bristol , Nottingham , Birmingham , and Liverpool , moving his headquarters to Leeds where his Theatre became his "little gold-mine" and later to Brighton.
He decorated his playbills with red and blue spots, his racing colours. Barrasford used to reflect that it was the Turf that first made him prosperous. Enterprising as ever, he invented the Barrasford Starting Machine used in races and approved by the Jockey Club.
He lived modestly in Queen Square, Leeds. Barrasford was skilled in identifying new turns for his circuit so much so that he and his representatives were barred from entering Moss Empires and Stoll Theatres because of his ability in poaching artistes. The antagonism was mutual.
Wherever Barrasford opened, Moss Empires opened up nearby. With clockwork precision as accurate as a railway timetable, Tom Barrasford perfected the system of shows twice-nightly in England and Scotland. Its creation was partly funded by a day's big winnings at Paris horse-racing.
It was followed by taking up the Alhambra, Brussels in Germany, Austria and Italy were in his thoughts, involving British architects in each case, most notably Bertie Crewe. Impresario Charles B Cochrane recalls Tom Barrasford as "one of the cleverest and most interesting of music-hall magnates.
He studied the psychology of his patrons from every angle. One rule he made was that every 'gentleman' in the gallery must wear a collar. I remember going round the gallery queue with him one night. Tom picked out two or three men without collars and told them they would not be admitted. One of them said: 'What the I ain't a dog!
Barrasford explained to me the mental effect of a collar. He said that when a man had dressed up he felt he had something to live up to, and he regarded the collar in his gallery the equivalent of evening dress in the stalls of the West End.
It increased a hoodlum's self-respect, and he claimed to have cured the toughest audiences by the Order the Collar. North of the border he co-leased in the short-lived Tivoli in Edinburgh , which would become the Grand under Eade Montefiore and a Dundee syndicate. He concentrated on Glasgow and helped open three new Theatres in the city — always with architect Bertie Crewe - the 3, seater Glasgow Hippodrome in in a co-ownership partnering with E.
Bostock at the Scottish Zoo , New City Road; the new Pavilion Theatre in Renfield Street in as programming contractor and managing director; and on the Southside entered a partnership with Rich Waldon - opening in Waldon's Grand National Halls as the splendid 2, seater Palace Variety Theatre , while partnering him in making the Lyceum a variety theatre in Govan.
Often partnerships would be short-lived. In Glasgow, E. Bostock bought back his assets in It was only unsuccessful because he was not granted a drinks licence. By mutual consent the Palace Theatre partnership ended in with Rich Waldon being sole proprietor again. In the first ten years of the 20th century Tom Barrasford had expanded at a fanatical pace.
His Theatres virtually doubled to twenty, of which, as he stated himself, he had some fifteen different business partners as co-lessees or co-owners. He died, age 50, in early at home in Hippodrome House, converted from a warehouse next to his Hippodrome, Brighton — a variety theatre well attended by all families including the Duke and Duchess of Fife and royal youngsters, as Mrs Barrasford would proudly proclaim!
A contemporary wrote "Tom Barrasford was the very apostle of popular recreation. It was a matter of sincere delight to him to feel that in his many music halls he was affording innocent pleasure to a hundred thousand people at once. Unfortunately his Achilles heel proved to be gambling at races and continental casinos, which included owning his own racehorses. While a number of impresarios did gamble he was a compulsive gambler.
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