Open Writing

Burke's Music Hall was known to locals as The Shed because it was made mainly of planking. It was located on the edge of Tumbler's Field in the middle of the town, and had been a public house with a large outbuilding at its rear where equestrian displays and animal shows had been held.

Ebenezer Burke had returned to his home town determined to be an impressario in his own right after half a lifetime of performance in saloon bar free-and-easies, penny-gaffs, fit-ups, legitimate theatre and such noteable late night locations as Evans's Supper Rooms in London's Covent Garden. He had seen the beginnings of a new and alternative theatre in the capital, at Miles's Musick House and Samuel Haycroft Lane's Variety of Artists, and had come home with ideas, two whicker hampers of assorted costumes and a suitcase of sheet music and comedy sketches. He had negotiated the rental of The Shed and transformed it into a music hall.

The town already had the Brittania Music Saloon and two well known public houses, The Cambridge Arms and The Argyle, had singing rooms. He suspected it would not be long before these establishments recognised the trend and followed his lead but, for once, he was ahead of the pack.
He charged entrance for the turns he presented on a stage at the front of the auditorium and took the profits from the bar at the back and the food from the side counters. His stage had a proscenium arch and he put tables in the pit, benches in the gallery and chairs and red velvet couchettes in the one and sixpenny boxes.

Singing Jenny, the star attraction of Burke's Music Hall, was in the box of Titus Hirst, a man of substantial property and girth, who could usually be satisfied with a quick fumble between songs. He had a large house on the outskirts of town, where resided a dutiful wife and four dutiful children, and he was in the habit of confiding to Jenny how heavy lay the burden of responsibility upon his shoulders in ensuring the safe and Christian progress of his family through this wicked life.

When he had laid bare his soul on that account, as she laid bare his essentials, he would tell her how the reformers and factory inspectors were in danger of ruining not just his business, but that of every righteous man of substance in the north of England.

"Oh sir, such tensions are too much for a gentleman," she would murmur, sympathetically. "No wonder your rigidity is so pronounced."

At which point he would allow her to resolve his problem of rigidity whilst he fondled her breasts.

Titus Hirst paid well for the privilege of Jenny's ministrations for she maintained an exclusivity. She only resolved the problems of a select group of gentlemen as a profitable and discreet sideline; discreet but common knowledge to the unwashed mob who thronged the pit.

This made her appearances all the more anticipated as the male element of her audience imagined the seduction of such a sweet and beautiful young maid who's popular stage performances were based on innocence misunderstood.

Oates sighed and her business was concluded. She was preparing to return to the footlights, to perform another vocal delight, when she saw a very drunken young man being shown by a waiter into a box on the other side of the clapboard theatre. Very drunk and, judging by the obsequious attention of the waiter, exceedingly high in funds.

Jenny made her excuses and retired from the company of Hirst, slipping the sovereign he paid for her friendship into her purse, and pushing aside the curtain that gave her access to the corridor that ran behind the row of boxes.

The theatre was no more than a huge curved wooden shed with the boxes raised on stilts. One day, she feared, a drape would catch light upon a gas mantle and the whole place would burn down.

But not until she had made a few sovs more, she assured herself, turning away from the stage and walking along the corridor towards the front of house. She went down the staircase below the gallery to the bar at the back, with its stacked barrels and men in white aprons.

"Jenny, have a drink with me?" called an inebriate.

"What will twopence buy me, Jenny?" shouted a man with one tooth.

"Gin heaven," she said, but smiled, because this was her public.

A young man, made bold by drink, brushed against her, his eyes wide and his face flushed.

"Fancy a young 'un, Jenny?" he said.

"Fancy a split head?"

She pushed him aside and waved for the attention of a waiter called Tommy.

"I'm busy," he said. A bottle of brandy and a glass were on his tray.

"I saw," she said. "Is he very drunk?"

"Pissed as an owl. But he's one of them with stamina. You know?"
Jenny nodded.

"Watch his back for me, Tommy. I don't want him bothered until after the next song."

He grinned, knowingly.

"You can pick 'em, Jenny. He has a wallet fat enough to sit on."

"Make sure he keeps it." She pushed half a crown into his hand. "I'll see you all right. Just keep him safe for me."

"Trust me."

Jenny smiled, knowing she could trust him as far as she could throw him, but also knowing that, in the circumstances, he would probably decide there were better prospects helping her than attempting a theft of his own.
She went up the staircase that led to the corridor that ran behind the other arc of boxes, and, when she reached the top, curtsied demurely in response to the ribald cheers of the customers in the bar behind, who undoubtedly thought she was on her way to another envied assignation.

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