Red plush and greasepaint

"Set against a pageant of rich and robust years, beginning with a glimpse of his own Victorian boyhood - when, from the age of six onwards, he lived only for the theatre and all that the word included - Clarkson Rose traces the story of the music-hall from its early beginings in the clubs and pubs, right through the glittering and glorious years of its heyday, down to the present time, describing also something of the kaleidoscopic background to the momentous history of the music-hall."--Jacket.