Unexpected theatre history: Gertrude Lawrence and a comedy Ku klux klan song

From The Sketch, 7th March 1923

​This was an unexpected find!
Musical comedy darling and Noel Coward's long time friend, performing partner and muse Gertrude Lawrence dressed up as a member of the Ku Klux Klan for a comedy number in the revue "Rats!" which ran from February to September 1923 at the Vaudeville Theatre in London's West End.

The lyrics were written by Ronald Jeans, and music by Philip Braham. The publicity for the show, as in the image from The Sketch above, mentioned Lawrence's name as she was very much the top billed performer alongside a talented cast that included Norah Blaney and Gwen Farrar, and Alfred Lester, but the programme for the show lists that particular song as being performed by Velma Deane and Company.

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Here's the full text of the song, as submitted to the censor, the Lord Chamberlain. I looked it up in the Lord Chamberlain's Plays Collection in the British Library.
The licence was granted for performance at the Vaudeville Theatre on the 16th February 1923.

KU KLUX KLAN – Lyric by Ronald Jeans

1.
Whist! Whist! What on earth was that?
Did you hear a woman shriek?
List! List! D’you think it was the cat?
Or someone treading on the Peke?
Hist! Hist! If you are in doubt
I am neither ghost or man
Don’t let it out
I’m the Chief Boy Klout
Of the terrible Ku Klux Klan!

REFRAIN

In Ku Klux Klanguage
I’m a Kleage of the Ku Klux Klan
Small boys will quake and lie awake
For a spank them on the quiet for their moral’s sake.
I search for sinners
And sandbag all I can
And if you break a Ku Klux law
Then Ku Klux Klan will break your jaw
So beware
Take care
Not to quarrel with Ku Klux Klan

2. 
Hark! Hark! When it’s growing dark
Then I get my air-gun out
Tip-toe round and round the Park
To see if anyone’s about.
See me – hide behind a tree
Sheltering behind the bark
And to every miss
Who receives a kiss
I enter up one bad mark.

REFRAIN

In Ku Klux Klanguage
I’m a Kleage of the Ku Klux Klan
If you’re a thief your end is brief
I hang you from the bedpost with a Klandkerchief
I search for sinners
And sandbag all I can
And when I catch a real bad lad
I kill him first, then tell his dad
So beware – take care
Not to quarrel with Ku Klux Klan

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The Ku-Klux Klan number was fourth on the bill in the first half of the show, which featured skits, sketches, songs, and musical interludes. 

A promotional extract for "Rats!" can be seen below in this Pathé footage, which includes a train scene set in 1943 - twenty years in the future - but not the KKK song.

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While it doesn't feature in this film, the song was advertised in the programme as being published and available for purchase at the Vaudeville theatre.

"Rats!" was a topical revue, but why was the KKK particulary ripe for theatrical parody in 1923? Perhaps in could have been in response to a widely reported announcement in January of that year by American Klan leader Edward Young Clark that he intended to bring the organsation to the UK and Europe.*

Here's some of what I found about what else variety audiences were seeing around this theme. Please note, it appears that both "Ku" and "Klu" were being used in titles.

In The Stage in March and April 1923 Herman Darewski Music Publishing Co. advertised as part of their most recent and popular Comedy Songs the title "Klu Klux Klan" as sung by Harry Champion. A month earlier the same newsaper had described Champion's latest song "I'm a member of the Klu Klux Klan" as "very droll".

In Feburary 1923 escapologist The Great Handko was advertising availability for his variety show with a new act:
"The Terror of the Klu Klux Klan. The 1,000-dollar thrill just added"

By May the copy had changed to:
"KU KLUX KLAN MYSTERY,
introducing Della Ray, the Mysterious.
Only Act of its kind."

and by July:
"KLU KLUX KLAN MYSTERY
including Madam Jesta, the Human Puzzle. 
The most sensational and mysterious performance on earth."

and by September:
"KLU KLUX KLAN MYSTERY.
The Greatest Draw in Great Britain"

From looking at advertisements in local newspapers it seems this act toured in Handko's shows in the summer and winter of 1923 and into the summer of 1924. 

It consisted of "twenty swords run through a lady whilst she is being held by members of the audience", with one review implying that she was chased through the audience and captured before the stunt. The Great Handko began adding to his advertisements in the local press that the act was performed live:
"A £1000 thrill, not a film, but an illusion which has baffled two hemispheres".

[For examples see: Dudley Chronical, 14th June 1923; Tamworth Herald, 30th June 1923; Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail, 10th Nov 1923; Coatbridge Express, 5th Dec 1923;  Montrose Standard, 21st Dec 1923.] 

Another variety show called Dorothy Wills' Rhapsodies ran for a week at the Brighton Aquarium in July 1923 and featured a song called "The Klu Klux Klan", but it's unclear if it was the same one Lawrence was singing, or the one Harry Champion was singing, or something else entirely.

In September 1923 The Era announced that performer and producer Lew Lake was preparing a new and large scale show entitled "Ku Klux Klan" - and it opened in 1924 with a book by Arthur Rose, lyrics by Eric Barber, and music by Edward Caryll. 
​The show had twelve scenes set in a variety of locations including a monastery, an opium den, Salt Lake City, an Indian Encampment, New York, and a Mexican bandit stronghold.
[The Stage, 28 Feburary 1924]

The basic plot seems to to be that a British naval officer is sent to the USA on secret service and then hounded by the Ku Klux Klan who try to kill him. En route he encounters a broad range of characters - posh English aristocrats, a group of Mormons, and some nefarious opium dealers to name just a few.

The show toured the UK and was descibed in the press as a:
"musical melo-burlesque" [The Era]
"bright mixture of mirth and melody" [Croydon Times]
"super comedy burlesque" [The Era again]
"mel-burlesque" [West London Observer]
"sort of sixpenny shocker with a chorus" [Northampton Chronical and Echo]
an "attempt to couple melodrama and revue" [Liverpool Echo]
and "pretentious" [The Stage].

It was also reported in The Stage and in The Bioscope that in February 1924 Lew Lake had registered a theatrical production company called "Klu Klux Klan, Ltd".  I haven't found out what happened to that company - other research questions are more pressing at the moment - but it would be interesting to know how long it lasted. 

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Here's another publicity picture of the cast of "Rats!" performing their song:

From The Graphic, Saturday 10th March, 1923

​Intriguing as the image of Gertrude Lawrence - or is it actually Velma Deane? - dressed as a KKK member for a comic revue might be, it is also a bit unsettling in its starkness. 

However it seems that it was not an unfamiliar sight on the variety stage in 1923-4, and from what can be gleaned from my findings above, intended to mock (or in Handko's case sensationalise) the subject. 
​Perhaps the costumes were more comical in motion than a still image can convey. I do hope so.


Fancy another quirky story from the history of variety theatre? Try this curious beast: Hank the Mule

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​*The KKK did unfortunately have a British branch that emerged in Birmingham in 1965. More about that in this Young Historians Project blogpost.
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