LIVES OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE
The E.J. Boys Archive

IN PROGRESS...

LAMBETH WALK - NOTES / November 2013

PB: nearby households in Lambeth Walk in 1841 included Grocers, Butchers, Greengrocers, Bakers &c., so presumably this street of shops, which became a by-word in the mid-20th century for vibrant Cockney street-life (though now sadly depleted), was already thriving at this time. See e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lambeth_Walk.

The highly theatrical Nathan Henry would surely have relished the idea that life in his street would inspire the 1937 musical Me and My Girl, filmed in 1939 as The Lambeth Walk), in which a barrow boy inherits an earldom but almost loses his Lambeth girlfriend.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_and_My_Girl

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lambeth_Walk_(film)

"The Lambeth Walk", a song from the show, and its accompanying dance (which included a hand gesture with the Yiddish "Oi!"), became a worldwide swing jazz craze. "The Lambeth Walk" became the subject of a headline in The Times in October 1938: "While dictators rage and statesmen talk, all Europe dances - to The Lambeth Walk." So popular, in fact, that it was reviled by the Nazi Party as "Jewish mischief and animalistic hopping".

Nazis Object To 'Lambeth Walk'

Nazis Object To 'Lambeth Walk', as reported in Australia in 1939.

(Click on image to enlarge)

Australian Associated Press

BERLIN, January 8. - Tne Nazi Storm Troops' newspaper, describing the 'Lambeth Walk' as a 'Jewish Enormity.' demands

its banishment from Germany. 'This bestial hopping must cease,' it adds. The Lambeth Walk, which has swept the world, was a popular dance with Christmas and New Year parties in Brisbane and holiday resorts.

It was officially recognised by 1400 members of the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing in London last year. For years Mr. Lupino Lane has been making famous in London a cockney character, Bill Snipson, a racing tipster, who struts the stage with typical coster jauntiness, thumbs cheerfully "up", and singing a song, The Lambeth Walk, in 'Me and My Girl.'

The manager of a London dance hall saw him, and realised the possibilities of a new ballroom dance. and had Miss Adele England turn it into the now popular Lambeth Walk, introducing flappings and the shouting of 'Oi!'

See Billy Cotton's big band performance (1938) here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOMro8HCxgY

Django Reinhardt (1938) here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IY07SE9H00

Duke Ellington (date?) here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pj5gWOMsl8.

Len Lye's astonishing abstract animation (1939) here: http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/swinging-the-lambeth-walk-1939.

In 1942, Charles A. Ridley of the British Ministry of Information made a short propaganda film, Lambeth Walk - Nazi Style, which edited existing footage of Hitler and German soldiers (taken from Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will) to make it appear they were marching and dancing to "The Lambeth Walk".

An evocative version, dating from the 1980s but illustrated throughout with local historic images, can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkS0lIysivQ.

See a stage performance from the 1980s here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oimHJCURbo.