An Epoch-Marker
Cock-a-doodle-do. Charles B. Cochran. (Dent. iss.)
THE title and sub-title of Mr. Cochran's book—Cock-a-doodle-do, Reminiscences at Random—anticipate but do not disarm criti- cism. It is an incorrigibly boastful work and it is completely shapeless. From internal evidence it appears that this is not the author's first work. It is doubtful whether any life, however diverse and eventful, can supply material for more than one autobiography—and at a time when publishers are so short of material for work of artistic value it is hard to see how the publi- cation in so lavish a form of so trivial a narrative can be justified. There are 368 pages and 4o illustrations. Does one really need to purchase a 15s. volume in order to be informed, for instance, that Mr. Vic Oliver's " enormously successful ' Hi Gang! ' radio programme in which he co-operated with that admirable and popular American team, Bebe Daniels and Ben Lyon, was a great factor in multiplying his admirers " ? Almost every page of the book has one, or more, banal gobbet of praise for some perform- ance of established popularity, of the kind which a weary pub- licity agent might tap out on his typewriter in the hope of filling a paragraph in the provincial Press. Frequently the author raises a topic of wide interest, such as, for example, the origin of a joke and its simultaneous appearance at widely different points. Mr. Cochran gives an instance of this in Hess's landing in Scotland- " You'll take the low road, and I'll take the high road, and I'll be in Scotland before you " (there are various versions)—but no sooner does he raise an entertaining question upon which his opinion would be of great interest, than he is off again on his catalogue of successes.
His experiences with the Albert Hall seat-holders is another absorbing topic robbed of half its point by his trivial treatment of it. The producer of Florence Mills should have been able to hold our attention with the discussion of the position of coloufed performers in a white world. Mr. Cochran played Box and Cox with Aubrey Beardsley, but he seems to regard this as less worthy of notice than his supper entertainments at the Troca- dero, where, surely, he errs in stating that " tables for the first nights of a new show became as greatly sought after as seats for one of Noel Coward's productions." (At the time of which Mr. Cochran speaks the present reviewer was living a fairly gay life in London, but he never set foot inside that restaurant nor knew any of his quite diverse acquaintances do so.) The author seems never fully at ease unless he is handing up bouquets to his associates—" In my career as a showman there is no asso- ciation which has given me greater pleasure than that with Messrs. Lyons "; " In Helen, Olive Messel reached a pinnacle of beauty with the white bedroom of Helen "—and so on. It shows a likable character in the writer, but it makes drab reading. His generosity of praise is by no means confined to others. He records with relish one after another of the congratulations which he has so often deserved. Lord Lonsdale, the Duke of Windsor, Noel Coward—at one time or another almost every notability has expressed himself amiably towards Mr. Cochran, and here are their expressions faithfully transcribed for 15s. All this is not to suggest that Mr. Cochran's life has been any- thing but entertaining. It is extraordinary, reading it, to realise how much, not only of passing delight, but of the definitive epoch- marking (but not epoch-making) events of recent years are directly attributable to him. One can almost categorise one's own life in its various phases by Mr. Cochran's productions. Black- birds, Cavalcade, the Miracle, the Pavilion revues—anyone who grew up in Mr. Cochran's London will be able to date the experi- ences of adolescence by Mr. Cochran's calendar, and this is to say, what no one doubts, that he is one of the major figures of his period. The pity is that he did not put his history into a single, civilised, thoughtful, orderly work, if necessary by another hand. Mr. Cochran has a great respect for technical polish in the arts he understands; why did he not leave writing, as he left ballet-dancing, to more nimble limbs? EVELYN WAUGH.
Previous page
