Hall of Kings

For this month's King's Ginger expedition, I journeyed to the Far East, and the furthest corners of the Empire. Hackney, to be precise. The... er... Hackney Empire (d'you see what I did there?). To the music hall, by Jove! In the 1800s, music hall used to be a form of entertainment for the working classes, and they alone. The shows were bawdy and considered highly inappropriate for lofty ladies and gentlemen of the upper and middle classes alike; and the performers themselves were deemed the very lowest of the low. Sounds like a whole lot of fun to be honest, especially when one compares the noise, colour, greasepaint and laughter that must have abounded in such...