| Title | : | Lost Empires |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0434603139 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780434603138 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 320 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1965 |
This account of life in the Empire Theatres of English Variety The cast is a travelling troupe of "artistes" - dancers, comedians, jugglers, magicians - which include a murderer, a depraved beauty, a brilliant comedian in decay, and the greatest conjurer on the English stage. He is knows as Ganga Dun to his enormous audience, and as Uncle Nick to the narrator of the story.
Young Herncastle is a good-looking Yorkshire boy, ambitious as a painter, whom his uncle sweeps away from a dreary office job into the nomadic, boozy, evanescently amorous life of Variety performers on tour. With them he learns the exacting craft of the stage and avidly explores the first yearnings and triumphs of both sex and love.
Lost Empires Reviews
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After some preliminary gasping and spluttering, when Uncle Nick pretended I wasn’t there still watching him, he moved off, and a minute later he had vanished into the mist and smoke of the late October afternoon. I had three large glasses of champagne inside me; I had just agreed to exchange an office stool and a sensible life in Bruddersford for some unimaginable music-hall hocus-pocus; I was only twenty and had never been away from home...
To locate the 2016 reader right away, the context of Lost Empires is exactly that wherein the blustery Mister Carson, of Downton Abbey, had practiced his talents, as one half of a comic team on the stages of turn-of-the-century England, on the playhouse variety circuit. Before his eventual entry to butler service in a great manor house. Same exact era, same exact shabby, disreputable hearts of gold.
In the United States, it was called vaudeville, or variety; in England, ‘music hall’. In the days before the movies, a live, shaggy dog collection of novelty acts, comedians, sentimental song and a magic act. Possibly an interval with a dancing bear, or acrobats, or jugglers. A populist evening out, for a few pennies a seat, designed to divert and entertain, no message or agenda involved. In Britain (as in the US) there were chains of theatrical venues that sponsored and exhibited these practitioners, called perhaps the World, the Paramount, the Ritz or the Empire. It was, for that era, more or less what we now call “cable television”.
As with other popular entertainments, the more interesting story happens backstage, underneath the family-friendly veneer of matinee-ready clowns and tap-dancers. But author Priestley finds his subject as much in the color and atmosphere of Edwardian England as he does in the Music Hall milieu or any of the individual participants. And what makes it all so interesting is just that—a predictable behind-the-footlights drama is transformed by virtue of its also being a time machine, one that bears us to a distant world that even our grandparents have forgotten. We’re carried back to just before the Great War, when the ‘motorcar’ is a futuristic conveyance, and the footlights run on gas.
Briefly, the outline of the story is the tale of an apprentice Illusionist, taken under the dark wing of his master-magician Uncle Nick. And yes, all the names in the story will have a vaguely allusive ring. Priestley frames the narrative as a present-day [early-sixties] reminiscence gazing back fondly to the lost world of 1913, gently sentimental but still-- avoiding none of the garish and gauche appointments we may expect in the circus world of music hall. The memoir here is a road movie—our narrator and his peculiar band of artificers make their way throughout the length and breadth of the England of the day, plying their wares on the industrial north as well as the seaside mainstays of the theater chain. What goes on backstage may change with the venue, and as the venues blur into one, the little company of players and stagehands become their own family mash-up, unpredictable and well, colorful.
When the unlikely bonds (and absolutely show-bizziest cliché moments) fuse the company into a working group of diverse humanity, the tour and the novel hit their stride; our wing-and-a-prayer career choice finds its groove, as does our reluctant apprentice sorcerer:
... we were all rising with the tide of packed houses and enthusiastic appreciation. Of course we were not like a theatrical company, which comes to an audience as one unit. We were so many entirely separate and independent acts, but because we were touring together, forming the greater part of one continuing bill, we could respond together to a heart-warming week like this. So for the first time, as far as my very limited experience went, dressing-room doors were left open, except when people were actually dressing, and congratulatory visits were exchanged, together with some drink, or there were smiling encounters along the corridors. There was almost a party atmosphere...
Soap opera and internal power politics aside (though there is much of both)—what Lost Empires has as card up its sleeve is that central connection to Illusionism. When the paper moons and painted backdrops are just about wearing thin, something or other allows our protagonists to engage their trick imaginations on the real world, offering what becomes the other major point of interest for the reader. In the course of these extra-curricular proceedings, the predictability of the two-houses-per-night is splintered and refocused. (In any theatrical memoir, it is always this clash of cultures & sensibilities, the outside world barging in through the stage door –that seems to be the catalyst. Truffaut’s Day For Night, and a million other backstage romances, come to mind immediately.)
The fixed points in the music hall constellation were the promenade and pier houses at the seaside. After the grim winter months touring the north, we land at what is the natural home base, the environs of Blackpool:
Anything that could claim a few pennies or trap a sixpence was in full swing. From the rowdy-dowdy South Shore to the more genteel North Shore, the holiday money of the innocents was cascading, down into the shows, eating houses, shops that sold nothing worth having, the wine lodges and pubs, into the outstretched hands of pierrots and buskers, photographers, fake auctioneers, hoarse vendors of peppermint and pineapple blackpool rock and ice cream and candy floss, fortune-tellers, dealers in comic hats, false noses, miniature walking sticks, water pistols, balloons, and the things that rolled out as you blew and made rude noises. And there were mornings when nothing seemed real except the children hurrying with their buckets and spades, and the wind blowing from the sea...
Priestly builds to –surprise—a murder in the theater, amongst the travelling company, to create his final set-piece for the book. If it weren’t such an obvious ‘coda’ and closing segment, it would be much more successful, and I’d argue that it could have been its own little mystery; where Priestley has it right, though, is that you’d never have such terrific exposition and character development, in any short mystery, as is already provided in the first two thirds of Lost Empires.
If this reader were to be completely honest, this is probably a very appealing four star novel; but there is something inexplicably dazzling to the eye and the imagination here, something maybe of an illusion-- that prompts five twinkly, period perfect silver-foil stars. -
I love this 1965 J. P. Priestley novel so much I've read it four times. A young man's peep into a smoke-swirling, footlit world as he verges on adulthood, this is classy, intriguing and sad to put down when finished.
In the last months of peace before World War I, ambitious young painter-cum-clerk Richard Herncastle's mother's dies. Not yet of age, he is taken under the wing of his maternal uncle Nick Ollanton, known publicly as 'Ganga Dun, the greatest conjurer on the English stage'.
Leaving his dull office job to join Uncle Nick's act, Richard meets his team and the other touring 'artistes' on the bill, a boozy, nomadic troupe comprised of dancers, comedians, jugglers and so on. They tour Britain performing on the legendary soon-to-vanish Empire variety theatre circuit.
Good looking young Herncastle sees all of life from backstage in music hall variety, just as his uncle has promised. He learns the ropes of stagecraft, falls in love with a depraved beauty, sees a long lost Britain in a way future generations will only hear about and even becomes privy to an intriguing murder investigation. Richard comes of age in 1914, just as the greatest disappearing act of all is looming: society as it would never again be known.
This fictional old man's fond retelling of his remarkable youth never fails to satisfy, no matter how many times I return to it, if only to flick through and browse my favourite episodes. The haunting smell of greasepaint emanates from the pages of an evocative tale about a special time and profession.
The multi award nominated 1986 miniseries featured Sir Laurence Olivier's penultimate screen performance as brilliant comedian-in-decay Harry Burrard, with an early romantic lead casting of chirpy, fresh faced Colin Firth alongside Pamela Stephenson.
Proud Yorkshire man Priestley famously snubbed the offer of becoming a lord the year Lost Empires was published. He gladly accepted his hometown, the city of Bradford, granting him Freedom of the City in 1973. He was also honoured by the universities of Bradford and Birmingham. Priestley eventually became a member of the Order of Merit in 1977 and served as a British delegate to UNESCO conferences.
I highly recommend this rare literary jewel, especially for lovers of theatre, history, nostalgia, vintage whodunnits or just die hard J. B. Priestley fans. -
Ok, I gave this 124 pages and I'm just not enjoying it. So many people love this so don't let me turn you off trying it. I just wasn't feeling a connection to either the characters (who are not very likeable) or the overall feel of the story, which is rather unhappy and coarse.
Also, in case you're wondering, this is more a "slice of life" story than plot driven.
I still have a few other J.B Priestley's to try so let's hope that when I get to them they hit the spot.
CONTENT:
PROFANITY: liberal use of B,H,A,D, as well as coarse words like piss, tits, etc
SEX: Some sleeping around and general immorality (non explicit)
MY RATING: PG-PG13 -
From BBc radio 4 Extra:
JB Priestley - Lost Empires
Episode 1 of 3
Overtures and Beginners
1913: Richard Herncastle leaves his dead-end job to join his Uncle Nick's act in the vulgar world of music halls to experience the glamour, jealousies and romances backstage...
First Night
Episode 2 of 3
It's the year before the Great War, and Richard Herncastle 's music-hall apprenticeship continues.
Richard gets closer to Nancy, but Harry Burrard's fears deepen...
Final Curtain
Episode 3 of 3
The glamour of the music halls begins to fade as Richard Herncastle embarks on a dangerous affair - and tragedy strikes the company.
Meanwhile, war is on the horizon...
Published in 1965, JB Priestley's classic dramatised in three-parts by Bert Coules.
Stars Tom Baker as Nick Ollanton, Freddie 'Parrot Face' Davies as Harry Burrard, Bryan Pringle as Old Richard, Richard Hollick as Young Richard, Steven Frost as Tommy Beamish, Brigit Forsyth as Julie Blane, Deborah McAndrew as Cissie Mapes, Kathryn Hunt as Nancy, Russell Dixon as Jenning, John Lloyd Fillingham as Johnson and Mike Edmunds as Barney.
Music: Chris Monks
Producer: Kate Rowland
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1994.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007... -
Brilliant novel, so touching, so endearing. I read it again from time to time, and it never fails to cheer me up
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Bettie's Books -
"Lost Empires" takes us back into the world of the music hall in England in the early part of this century. Mr. Priestley's gift is characterization and here he takes us on a merry dance around the traps with as fell a cast as ever graced the none-too-genteel provincial stage. It is a book with laughter for itself and for its comic characters and, as always with J. B. Priestley, it has its moments of social satire in which we can all, perhaps, feel we might be at home. Like the longer, sturdier tale, "Good Companions," "Lost Empires" will leave you on a high, having completed a very satisfactory tour of a world long vanished, but whose echoes are still recognizable today. Language and craft, satire and straight-out good fun all abound here. Happily, Mr. Priestley does not leave us dangling for want of more; numerous other works of his are still in print today, which I suppose is the proof of this particular pudding. Not to be overlooked!
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J.B Priestley was a wonderful writer and I enjoyed reading this novel once again. The tale is set in 1913/1914 up to the commencement of World War 1. The description of variety artists travelling from town to town each week to play at the various Empires is brilliant. The Monday band call, the train journeys to different places and the theatrical lodgings (both good and bad) paint an accurate picture of life on the variety stage. Although the setting is over a hundred years ago it shows that things were not very different in those days than they are at present. The only difference is that there are not nearly as many theatres now as they were then and the artists in 1913 presented a wide spectrum of different types of performers. By the mid-fifties of the twentieth century it seems that pop idols were the mainstay of "variety".
My next re-read will be "Let the People Sing". -
A novel written as a memoir, this is narrated by Richard Herncastle, the famous English painter. Left poor and on his own at twenty, Richard is surprised to be rescued by the black sheep of the family, his Uncle Nick, a magician on the traveling music hall circuit of 1913. Becoming part of Nick's act, learning about thinking on one's feet and living with the people who made their living moving from stage to stage gives Richard experiences he never would have had in his tiny Northern town.
On the surface, this probably sounds like a book of sweet nostalgia for the days of the Edwardian music halls. The world of acrobats, dog acts and audiences adoring grown women dressed as little girls are remembered, but not with fondness. Richard's dealings with his prickly Uncle Nick, his attractions to women and his growing confidence make up the real plot, but we also get an affair with an older woman, violence and infidelities, a murder and Uncle Nick's treatment of his girlfriend Cissie is the opposite of romantic. Highly recommended. -
Lost Empires by J B Priestley purports to be an autobiography of Richard, usually Dick Herncastle, an artist, a painter of watercolours. In his foreword to the book, Priestley tells us that what follows, barring an epilogue seen from the perspective of decades in the future, is the text that Richard Herncastle wrote for himself, his incomplete attempt at autobiography. But this is also only a sketch of a life, since it covers only a short period of the artist’s early adult life, a period in which, at the age of twenty in 1913, he left home to work as an assistant to a music hall illusionist. Priestley initially claims that his only contribution has been the ordering of the material, and the adjustment of the occasional word.
The bones of Herncastle’s story assemble into an enthralling beast. At the start he enters a world that feels very much rooted in the nineteenth century. Public entertainment is available largely via live, on-stage performers in the music hall, with most towns of any size having their own theatres. And this is a world at peace. By the book’s end, however, the First World War has begun and Richard Herncastle’s illusionist boss, Nick Ollanton, is already predicting that it will last for years. By the start of the next decade, of course, live theatres were very much in decline, as cinema audiences grew at pace. Thus, at the book’s end, there arises a tremendous sense of impending and inevitable change. Not only young Richard’s life is about to be changed into some new, hardly recognisable form, but the world itself is about to be utterly transformed. Interestingly, from this starting point, we note that Richard himself was born at the end of the nineteenth century, so his character is the very embodiment of that change.
Lost Empires is in effect a coming of age novel, a story of personal transition. When Richard leaves home to join his uncle on tour in theatre land, we have the distinct impression that he has thus far seen very little of life. We learn little of his childhood and adolescence, and even less of his adult life thus far. Being just twenty, of course, he would not in that age have been regarded as an adult, since that label would not have applied for a further year. And it is the months he spends on tour with his uncle’s conjuring act that form the only focus of the book.
The character himself has firmly recognised, albeit some decades hence, just how important this period of his life proved to be. In those months he left behind family life, lived independently, discovered sex and found a wife. His companions were heavy drinking performers, including dwarves and women who wore costumes that showed their bodies, something that could only happen on the stage. He met Americans and Italians, and spent most of his own time on stage impersonating an Indian. His uncle instinctively knew what would work in his act and directed with an iron grip. What might work in life off the stage, however, young Richard had yet to discover.
But there is another layer of comment embedded in this book, and it’s exactly the type of comment on would expect from Priestley writing in the 1960s and thus commenting and offering perspectives on contemporary Britain. The 1960s was the decade, we were told, when the British discovered sex. The view has become mainstream to the extent that great writers can without question present pre-1960s Britain as an era when sex was a difficult subject not to be mentioned. The 1960s was also an age of pop stars, free living, free love and almost free booze, touring bands on the road and adoring audiences, themselves drunk on celebrity. And so in Lost Empires Priestley presents the world of pre-First World War music hall, with its travelling stars, its free-flowing champagne, its astronomical earnings, its celebrities and its own free-flowing sex.
It is the character of Julie Blane who provides much of the action for Richard and for the book as a whole. Julie is an older woman, still beautiful, but scarred by life after her partner walked out. She drinks a lot, and craves sex, at least according to Richard’s acquaintances among the cast. They advise him to beware. He duly ignores them.
In the book’s epilogue, it is Richard’s wife, herself one of the travelling players of yesteryear, who suggests that her husband’s description of his physical relationship with Julie in his memoirs might raise eyebrows but, crucially for Priestley, she does this from the 1960s, at a time when thinking on such issues was apparently already liberated from the shackles of the past. In the book, it is Richard and Julie who are utterly unshackled in 1913. Nay, the author is saying to contemporary assumptions in his no nonsense, Yorkshire tones.
Lost Empires is a world of soon to be closed theatres that happen to be called Empires. Every town had one, or something like it. But, by the time the book was written by its imaginary autobiographer, Britain had also lost another Empire that it had possessed in 1913. By implication, Priestley also suggests that the nation as a whole may also have come of age as a result of the war.
Lost Empires is beautifully written, imaginative and evocative. It can be read as a simple account of a young man’s experiment with show business, but like so much of Priestley’s work, there is comment on history and especially on contemporary society so that the present may be fairly assessed. Lost Empires deserves wide and repeated reading. -
My brother loaned me this book as it is out of print. I'm still not sure if this is a novel made to read like a memoir or a real memoir. In any case, I found it delightful. The writing is very hokey, but is easily forgiven and adds to the experience when you consider it was written in the 60's by an adorable British Bloke.
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The story of Richard Herncastle, a young lad from the North of England who goes to work for his stage magician uncle as WWI is about to break loose. Not exactly great literature but highly entertaining. This is the second novel I've read by J.B. Priestley. The guy really knows how to tell a story.
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Not an easy book to read. Like his plays the characters aren't always likeable which makes thing harder in a novel. However I didn't give up and the descriptions of life back stage and front of house during a pre 1914 music hall tour are spot on. The bad comedians, father daughter singing acts, dwarfs and magic. I felt I was there. Oh and there is a murder too.
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Priestley is great fun to read, very evocative of the bygone era, yet with much smiling sadness that will twist your stomach in a knot. Good, smooth writing, without unnecessary verbiage to mar the fluent narrative.
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Really enjoyed this book. Superbly written with some fascinating characters.
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Colourful reconstruction of the travelling music hall shows in the period leading up to the First World War. Lovely, albeit bleak, introduction to Priestley.
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A dark and disturbing look at sexual relations in England immediately before the first World War. Despite all the positive reviews of the setting in the Music Hall theatre of that time, this seems to have been chosen for the likelihood the young good-looking 'Dick' Herncastle can become entangled with a 'variety' of women before escaping into the war. The implication is that there is something sexually immoral, indeed, criminal about the performing arts. Strangely people these days are not so charmed by Harvey Weinstein who shares the morals of the central character, Dick's uncle Nick.
Priestley wrote this novel in his seventies about a time fifty years earlier. In that time not one world war but two had totally revolutionalised the role women played in society and the way society looked at them. I had to wonder whether Priestley had fully digested what had happened, or whether this novel was an attempt to do so. There was also something off about the prose; despite the obvious historical setting, it didn't seem dated. It wasn't in some self-conscious way a historical fiction, the prose matched the publication date not the date of the story. I think it was to do with the way the characters spoke, they should have sounded like my grandparents, but they didn't. I look forward to reading
The Good Companions it is set in a similar mileau, but written forty years earlier. I have my grandfather's copy of this book, he read it in December 1929. -
After finishing The Stand I had a difficult time finding anything that interested me. Priestly certainly caught my attention though. The writing was wonderful and the atmosphere really added to the story. The characters were so realistic and nuanced. It was a perfect follow up to The Stand. The way Priestly crafted his story contrasted with Kings modern subject and the immersive experience of living with those characters for over a thousand pages. I guess I needed something different, something older and this hit the spot. Lost Empires followed one young man through his experiences with the Variety shows of the early 1900's and outlines the uncertain complexities of the people he worked with. Sometimes it felt like Priestly was showing a mirror and you could see a reflection of where things have gone since 1913 and '14, you could see it in the characters and the ailing Variety shows. It kind of reminded me of a mix between Barry Unsworth and E.L Doctorow. Highly recommended.
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Enjoyed reading this, as I never read anything about the life behind the theater curtains. The one thing which I did not like was the detailed descriptions of each character - and there was a lot of them. After the third you couldn't remember how they looked like anyway.
Then I found on YouTube 7 episodes from 1984, or 1086? I managed to go through the first, but I did not like it much, despite Colin Firth... -
An entertaining novel with Priestley’s usual array of colourful characters. It lacks the depth of Angel Pavement, being more of a potboiler than a work of great substance, but for sheer enjoyment it can’t be faulted. It follows a group of music hall performers as they tour the country, but focuses on a budding painter, Dick Herncastle, as he accompanies his Uncle Nick in his magical act. The tensions between the characters come to fore as the tour progresses, with dire consequences.
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Nobody could accuse JB of painting pre war (first war) music hall with nostalgic, roseate brushstrokes. August 1914 was a turning point in world history and culture and a great deal was lost; not all of it was good.
But this novel is. Novelist as storyteller; fiction as a vehicle for truth. -
Entertaining enough but hardly a page-turner.
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This is the second of J.B. Priestley’s novels I’ve read, and I am developing a definite love for his work.
Like The Good Companions – the previous Priestley novel I read – Lost Empires is a slice of life story set during the golden age of vaudeville and variety.The story is framed as the recollections of Richard Herncastle, an elderly painter, of the year he spent as the assistance and stage manager for his uncle, a successful magician on the variety circuit, before the outbreak of the Great War. The book read differently to more modern novels, and the plot isn’t set around some Big Adventure. The times and characters speak for themselves, portraying the tail ends of two worlds: The Golden Age of music hall variety, and English society before the destructive chaos of the War.
This isn’t to say that nothing happens, but rather that the event happen as they do in real life; as and when they come. Character come and go, in the way we expect in real life. Character grow no in sudden bursts of realisation and action, but over time and circumstances dictate.
But as much as you enjoy this beautiful written, soft depiction of a different time, when you reach the end you suddenly find yourself facing the sudden drop of “An Example Of It’s Time”. Throughout the book there are plenty of examples of what I came to think of as “patronising feminism”. Priestly clearly meant well, and was quite progressive for his time (Lost Empires was published in 1965). But that doesn’t free him from the prejudices of his time. You can’t say all his descriptions of women were complimentary, even if he meant them to be. We know better now. But while you can let these by, the ending is harder to swallow. The final climactic story consists of Richard and his uncle working to help a murderer flee the country because the girl he killed had been flirting with him for so long without any intention of sleeping with him that they don’t consider it fair for him to be arrested and executed for it, considering it the victims own fault that he snapped and killed her.
*Awkward cough*
So yeah, there’s that to be aware of. But as long as you can put that aside – like I said, this needs to be put aside as “And Example Of Its Time” and that the author had no malicious feelings other than the standard unconscious prejudices of the society he lived in – then this is a wonderful novel to sit back and enjoy.
