UA Professor Returns English Music Hall Entertainer, 'Little Tich,’ to Limelight of Silent Cinema Festival

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — A University of Arkansas professor will throw a spotlight on the influence that one of the top English music hall performers of all time on the beginnings of modern-day film during a presentation at the British Silent Cinema Festival in Nottingham, England.

Frank Scheide, associate professor of communication, will present the life of “Little Tich” and show three films featuring the entertainer during his presentation, "Harry 'Little Tich' Relph: English Music Hall Phenomenon and International Superstar."

Scheide’s primary interest is Charlie Chaplin and his influences, and his research into Chaplin led to his discovery of the little-studied English music hall industry and entertainers like “Little Tich.”

“In order to really understand Chaplin, you have to understand English music hall,” Scheide said. “In researching English music hall, you inevitably come across Little Tich.”

In the 1890s, music hall was overshadowing theater, judging from box office numbers, Scheide said. Variety entertainment as a business became a prototype for the motion picture industry.

“Early film, in both the U.S. and England, was very much influenced by what was happening in music hall and vaudeville,” Scheide said. “Performers getting into film were using their experiences in variety to develop their movie careers.”

The business of English music hall, as well as the star system and the types of acts that appealed to audiences, all carried over to the motion picture industry. The English music hall industry provided a model for how this new industry would work.

Perhaps most importantly, English music hall performers had developed their personalities to work with a live audience. The type of material that went into motion pictures was influenced by the comedies and music that were successful on stage.

Other performers, including Charlie Chaplin, learned a great deal from the way Little Tich, as a mime, analyzed the human condition in his comic impersonations.

“Look at Chaplin,” Scheide said. “People couldn’t believe how inventive he was. He was a genius, but he also had knowledge of the comedy being performed on the British stage.”

Little Tich appeared in at least two early French films, recreating his act, and made a cameo appearance in a third French film, “Race to Monte Carlo.”

Though Little Tich was known as one of the top music hall performers of all time, Scheide had to do a lot of digging in different trade journals to learn about him and gain a comprehensive understanding of the music hall as an entertainment medium. He couldn’t find a book summarizing the industry or its entertainers when he began his research in the 1980s.

“It’s sort of surprising to me, that English music hall has been so neglected,” Scheide said. “It reflects the fact that academics tended to neglect the study of popular culture until around the 1960s.”

The English music hall form started around the 1820s, with people casually singing in pubs. As this singing gained popularity, pub owners made it more organized by scheduling the events and creating singing rooms.

Initially, the singers were amateurs, but soon pub owners started hiring professionals to perform. Music hall became the equivalent of American variety shows, or vaudeville. By the 1880s, music hall syndicates had formed and performers were touring other countries.

Scheide credits Little Tich with being one of the first popular performers to be featured in a product endorsement in the Times of London. A cartoon of Little Tich appeared in an advertisement for “Odol: The World’s Dentifrice,” in the Times in May of 1907. Prior to that date, illustrations of performers had been used to endorse music sheets, but not in prestigious newspapers like the Times for other products.

Little Tich was born Harry Relph in 1867, to a 77-year-old pub owner in a rural area of Kent. He was the last of 16 children, according to Scheide. He grew to only four feet, six inches, and had six fingers on each hand.

When he was only 10 years old, Tich’s father told him he simply could no longer provide for the family, and the children would have to start bringing in their own incomes. Tich had grown up seeing entertainers making their living performing in his father’s pub, so it seemed the most logical direction to pursue.

An interesting aspect of this performer’s history is how he came to be named “Little Tich,” Scheide said. It started with a nobleman, Sir Roger Tichborne, who was lost at sea in 1854. Tichborne’s distraught mother refused to believe her son was dead, and sent inquiries searching for him all over the world. An Australian man named Arthur Orton took advantage of this opportunity about 10 years later, by claiming to be Tichborne, even though he looked nothing like the nobleman.

“He basically went to Tichborne’s mother, and said, 'Look, Mom, it’s me! I didn’t die!’” Scheide explained. “She believed him, but the rest of the family didn’t, so he ended up serving a 14-year jail sentence.”

This imposter came to be known as the “Tichborne Claimant,” Scheide said. While in jail, he doubled his weight, growing to nearly 400 pounds. When he got out of jail, he became a performer, appearing publicly as the Tichborne Claimant.

During that time, Tichborne came to be a common word used to describe a very pudgy person. When pudgy, tiny Harry Relph came onto the English music hall scene, he called himself Little Tich.

“Some people still use this phrase in America and England,” Schiede said. “You’ll hear them say, 'Just a little tich of a thing.’”

Though he did well in the United States, Little Tich spent most of his career working in England and France, where he was very popular. He became famous for his “Big Boots” routine, during which he stood on point on a pair of 28-inch two-by-four boards attached to his shoes like skis. He also played the tin whistle, and was an excellent singer and mimic. While his Big Boots made him famous, Little Tich grew to hate them, because this novelty act overshadowed his artistry as an actor.

The British Silent Cinema Festival, to be held April 7-10, is sponsored jointly by the Broadway Cinema in Nottingham and the British Film Institute. The purpose of the event is to promote interest in British cinema from before 1930.