Smoking concert

The term smoking concert (or simply a Smoker) was used in the 19th century to refer to a live performance, normally attended by an audience of men only. Especially popular during the Victorian era, these social occasions were also instrumental in introducing new musical forms to the public (e.g. Christy style performances). They were really social occasions, at which the attendees would speak of politics while smoking, listening to live music or comic acts and speeches.

Such events also took place in the British colonies or on board British naval vessels in the later 19th century.

South African examples include one held for the visiting English cricket team, led by C. Aubrey Smith, in the Exhibition Theatre, Cape Town, on 24 December, 1888. (For the programme, see C. Aubrey Smith)

For more on them see the Wikipedia entry at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoking_concert

Some Smoking concerts held in South Africa

The 1888 English/South African cricket tests

While stationed in South Africa, Major Robert Gardner Warton (1847-1923) organised the first ever visit by a touring English cricket team to play against a South African team in South Africa in 1888-9. The tour was sponsored by Sir Donald Currie[], founder of the Castle Shipping Line and the English team was led by C. Aubrey Smith, who would later become famous as a stage and film actor and included the popular English bowler Johnny Briggs, while the South African team included the batsman Albert Rose-Innes[1]. The teams played two games games, later designated "Tests", that took place at St George's Park, Port Elizabeth, on 12 and 13 March 1889 and at Newlands in Cape Town on 25 and 26 March.[2] Warton acted as an umpire for both games.

Shortly after their arrival in December 1888, a "smoking concert" was held in honour of the visiting English cricketers. It took place on 24 December in the Exhibition Theatre, Cape Town, and some of the team members from both teams also took part in the performances.

The concert had two parts, first a Christy Minstrel show, that included a comic ditty called "The Man that Struck O'Hara", sung in black-face by by C. Aubrey Smith. The second half saw songs by local celebrities such as Tom Graham (the later judge and politician) as well as other players, such as the tour manager Major Warton and the popular English bowler Johnny Briggs, and a talk on public entertainers by Robert Baden-Powell. The critic and chronicler of theatre in the Cape, D.C. Boonzaier, was himself involved in the event, helping to blacken the faces of the performers in the Christy show.

Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoking_concert

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_cricket_team_in_South_Africa_in_1888%E2%80%9389

D.C. Boonzaier, 1923. "My playgoing days – 30 years in the history of the Cape Town stage", in SA Review, 9 March and 24 August 1923. (Reprinted in Bosman 1980: pp. 374-439.)

F.C.L. Bosman. 1980. Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Deel II, 1856-1916. Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik: p. 389.

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