I saw Harry Lauder’s last professional appearance in Glasgow… [I]t was at the Alhambra — a twice-nightly engagement for a week. It was booked out as soon as it was announced... Looking round the audience, I could see that the majority were middle-aged to elderly people. Sir Harry then proceeded, once he had acknowledged the rapturous applause, to give exactly the same sort of performance he had given since Edwardian times, when things in the music hall moved at a comparatively easy pace. He sang his first song, did the appropriate patter and finished with a rousing chorus, in which most of the audience joined. Then he made his exit and the band kept playing the song he had just sung until the green light flashed on in the orchestra pit, when the conductor took his band effortlessly into the next Lauder song on the programme. Sir Harry toddled on to the stage in the costume he had evidently been donning in the interval. This decidedly old-fashioned way of presenting his act was carried through twice more, until we had seen four of his ‘characterisations’. Then he took several curtains from a largely appreciative audience, and finished off with one of his wee speeches. There were not many young people in the audience but most of them, including me, were somewhat baffled. << less