Wolves Lit Festival: Fred Karno: The Legend Behind the Laughter

Earlier this month the Wolverhampton Literary Festival took place, and I attended one of the talks that weekend. This was ‘Fred Karno: The Legend Behind the Laughter‘* by author David Crump, who has written the definitive book on Karno which has the same title.  The talk, which was one of the free events at the festival, was a fascinating look at one of the most celebrated characters of late 19th and early 20th century entertainment, a pioneer who discovered some of the key names in early cinema, and yet faced hardship at the end of his life.

Fred Karno was an impresario, a figure not unlike an Andrew Lloyd Webber of his day, and one whose life straddled the heyday of the music hall, and the early pioneering days of cinema. His discoveries included Charlie and Sydney Chaplin, Stan Laurel, Max Miller and Will Hay, and his name has become synonymous with the sayings ‘Fred Karno’s Army’ and ‘Fred Karno’s circus’, the later a signifier of any kind of organised, or disorganised chaos. David Crump listed just how many innovations Karno introduced to the world of entertainment, not least principle boys in pantomime, and the origins of the custard pie to the face. His shows were on a massive scale for the time, and were often truly impressive in their staging. Another innovation was the very wide range of different shows he produced, he was not prepared to rest on his laurels touring one show, has had been the order of the day, but was constantly introducing more and more new ideas and stagings, many of which were later adopted in early cinema (for example, Mumming Birds). Karno was a genius, but when he decided to create an entertainment centre, the Karsino, this was a case of wrong time, wrong place, and led to his bankruptcy in 1927. He never really recovered from this.

The talk was so, so interesting. It gave a wonderful picture of those early, days of entertainment, the last hurrah of the music hall, and the first days of cinema. There were plenty of stories about the early stars, including the feud that existed between Chaplin and Stan Laurel, and also gave some indicators into the private life of Karno, including his early days as a jobbing acrobat and stories linked to the casting couch.

If you want to find more about Fred Karno, I would definitely recommend David Crump’s biography, which you can find on Amazon here. (Aff link)

 “Fred Karno is not only a genius, he is the man who originated slapstick comedy. We in Hollywood owe much to him.” Hal Roach

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