Celebrity for the week ending
Saturday, 7 September 2002

Harry Fragson (1869-1913)
English variety comedian and entertainer at the piano

Harry Fragson

Harry Fragson in his monologue, 'Le Grand Flegme Britannique.'
(photo: unknown, Paris, 1904)

'Fragson, Harry (Harry Potts), variety artist, author and composer of French chansons; b. London, 1869; s. of a yeast merchant; went to France at the age of twenty, and remained there, with the exception of a three-days' visit in 1895, until 1905, when he returned to his native country to fulfil an engagement in pantomime at Drury Lane; after some years' residence in France he became more French than most Frenchmen, speaking and writing the language to perfection; going to Paris, he sang some of Paulus's songs to M. Blavet of Le Figaro, who invited him to meet the Coquelins, Mounet-Suly, and Réjane; was cordially praised by Coquelin ainé, who gave him an introduction to the manager of La Cigale, at Montmartre, where he made his appearance; he soon became a star of the first magnitude at the Folies Bergères and other Paris music halls; has written and composed over 200 songs, many of which have met with phenomenal success in France; played Dandingy in Cinderella, at Drury Lane, 1905 (the part being specially written for him by Sir Francis Burnand and J. Hickory Wood), introducing several songs of his own composition, and scoring an immense success; engaged by M. Gaston Mayer to appear, with May de Sousa, at the conclusion of the pantomime, for a ten weeks' season at the New Royalty Theatre, in a two-act operetta by M. de Féraudy. Address: Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, W.C.'
(Bampton Hunt, The Green Room Book, T. Sealey Clark, London, 1906, p.133)

Harry Fragson

Harry Fragson as Dandigny in Cinderella
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, Christmas 1905
(photo: W. Davey, Islington, London, 1905/06)

Fragson's engagement at the Royalty was in the two act comic opera Castles in Spain, with music by himself, the libretto by Cosmo Hamilton (based on La Gran Via), and lyrics by Eustace Pnsonby. The piece, directed by Gaston Mayer, opened on 18 April 1906. It transferred to Terry's Theatre on 24 May 1906 to score an eventual run of 68 performances. Other members of the cast included Johnny Danvers, Edouard Espinosa, May de Sousa and Kitty Lindley. Besides several more music hall appearances in London, Fragson was in two further Drury Lane pantomimes: Sinbad in 1906, and Babes in the Wood in 1907.

Harry Fragson

Harry Fragson in the bonnet he wore while impersonating
Abel Faivre's picture of a concierge.
(photo: unknown, Paris, 1904)

Paris, December, 1904.
'The weather was bad and I handed two francs to the cabman, although his taxametric machine would probably, I thought, claim considerably less (writes our Paris Correspondent). Then the cabman turn round and spoke. He spoke long, flowingly, and with considerable vigour. I don't remember ever to have heard quite such vituperation, excepting from the lips of Kent before they put him in the stocks in William Shakspere's domestic tragedy, King Lear. The taxameter, which was abnormally large, claimed forty-seven twenty-five for a six minutes' drive, and, as the crowd grew, so did the flow of language from the cabman. Then he called up a colleague and explained to him, and suddenly invited my friend and myself to get back into the cab again and to be driven up for justice. On the way there, Herbert Ward, a sculptor, who was a member of Stanley's celebrated Rearguard at Yambuya, a man who has shot elephants, hunted the winsome tiger, and indulged in various other dangerous pursuits, remarked that tiger-hunting was not in it for real danger with a drive behind a cabby like the one we had, and I began to feel that he was right. The cab stopped. Jehu clambered off his box, pointed and said, "C'est là," and in we went.
'The place was more like a studio than a police-station, and, when a big man with a heavy moustache and a strong resemblance to our cabman came in and shook hands affectionately with an articulated skeleton sitting on a chair by the door, we began to smell a rat. His clothes were brick-red, save the waistcoat, which was scarlet. His tie was of a pale green, and Ward suddenly exclaimed, "Why, that is Monsieur Philibert from the Revue now going on at Parisiana!" "And Philibert is Fragson!" shouted I. "And Fragson was the cabman," Monsieur Philbert remarked, in English, " and I am Harry Fragson, at your service." But, even after we had found him out, Fragson would not stop working. His face and costumes changed with biographic suddenness; he insisted on introducing Ward, the traveller, to a young family of his from Africa, and when we, in the course of conversation, mentioned Abel Faivre, Fragson became the painter's well-known figure of a concierge in about three minuets. "And do you think that I shall get on in London?" was his parting question. "I am awfully afraid about it, because, although I am an Englishman, and a Cockney at that, I've never faced a London audience." "I don't see what you've got to be afraid of," we both said together. "Paris audiences are critical enough, and you are pretty popular in Paris. What do you fear from London?" Harry Fregoli-Fragson [Fregoli: a contemporary quick change performer] was in dress clothes by that time, and at the piano, "C'est le flegme, le grand flegme, le grand flegme Bitannique," he chirruped merrily, and gave us rendezvous at Drury Lane next winder as we went.'
(The Sketch, London, Wednesday, 21 December 1904, p.336)

* * * * * * * *

The Tivoli music hall, London, week of 9 July 1906.
'This week Mr. Harry Fragson appears for the first time in an English music-hall. In a few months he has won as much favour in his native land as he enjoys in France, possibly more, for he is now one of our most popular entertainers. He is not handsome, he has not a very pleasant voice; but he had to a very high degree the art of the music-hall singer at its best. Nothing is strained or overdone; every point is made with neatness and apparent ease, and the points are more subtle and delicate than those of most music-hall songs. In Mr. Fragon's songs there is more music, more art, and more refinement that we are used to; they are, we believe, of his own composition, and he knows exactly how to sing them. One Tuesday evening the audience would not let him go before he had sung five things from his large repertory; the Adieu to Grenada and the French-English negro ditty, which we heard in a recent musical play, his popular waltz, "Whispers of Love," and two others, a jumble of nursery rhymes and a jumble of European languages, which were both very neat and were rattled off with great spirit. To hear Mr. Fragson a few minutes after hearing Mr. Gus Elen [the well known Coster comedian] in "The Unemployed Question" was to enjoy as vivid a contrast between two styles - the French and the English - as could be imagined. Each performer was admirable in his own way, and Mr. Elen's "Song Scena" (closed doors, we observe, are not to rob us of that touch of splendour) is as good as anything we have seen him do. We hope that Mr. Elen's example in the choice of titles will not induce the Tivoli to drop the pleasant name of music-hall and call itself a Theatre of this or Palace of that. Long may it remain a music-hall - one of the few places left where the performers trust to their own powers, and a house in which the audience has a chance of seeing what they are at. It is always a well-managed house, and the programme is always good. At present, with Mr. Harry Tate [in his sketch about] fishing, Miss Vesta Victoria, Miss Millie Lindon, and other clever or attractive people, it is exceptionally good.'
(The Times, London, Thursday, 12 July 1906, p.10f)

* * * * * * * *

'One of the best things [Fragson] did was the song at the piano in which he told how he had written a tragedy and took it to [Sir Herbert Beerbohm] Tree, who "received him most politely," but advised him to turn it into a comedy, and sent him to George Alexander. Alexander sent him to Arthur Collins; Arthur Collins passed him on to George Edwardes, each manager in turn "receiving him most politely," until at last he found himself at the music-halls, and his tragedy turned into a comic song. The mimicry was brilliant and good-natured. He had a little trick which always raised a laugh, and with which he ended his performance. He would pretend that he was doubtful whether the applause was really intended for him, and ask the question in dumb show, then, pretending to be frightened at the answering roar of laughter, bolt from the stage.'
(J.B. Booth, London Town, T. Werner Laurie Ltd., London, 1929, p.127).

* * * * * * * *

'I was sent for by Gaston Mayer to produce the musical numbers and ensembles in Cosmo Hamilton's English version of La Gran Via, the Spanish operetta, in which the late Harry Fragson made his appearance in musical comedy. The leading lady was that clever little American singer, May de Sousa.
'I was also engaged to play the chief of the robber trio, and to dance with my sister Ray.
'This was the beginning of a sincere friendship with "Fraggy," which lasted until the dear chap was shot so tragically by his poor old father. In fact on his last Saturday in England, he was playing at the Chiswick Empire, and came over to say au revoir to a few of us at Woolborough House, and sing us the new numbers which he was going to sing in Paris. Alas, he did not live to sing them, and we received a communication from him the same morning as we read of his tragic fate.
(Edouard Espinosa, with Rachel Ferguson, And Then He Danced, Sampson Low, Marston & Co Ltd, London, 1946, p.108)

Harry Fragson

(photo: W. Davey, Islington, London, circa 1905/06)

Fragson was shot and mortally wounded by his deranged 83 year old father, Victor Potts, at their apartment in the Rue Lafayette in Paris about 9 o'clock on the evening of 30 December 1913. He was dead on arrival at hospital. Potts himself died shortly afterwards in a state of mental collapse in the Fresnes Prison, Paris, on 17 February 1914
(The Times, London, Tuesday, 17 February 1914, p.5a, and Wednesday, 18 February 1914, p.8d)

'… Harry Fragson, who was a careful man of business and managed his investments with some prudence, has left some £80,000. In the latter years of his life his earnings on the music-hall stage are said to have amounted to nearly £12,000 a year.' His effects were sold by auction in Paris on 11 April 1914, but following the death of his father, Fragson appears to have had no next-of-kin.
(The Times, London, Saturday, 3 January 1914, and Friday, 10 April 1914, p.5e)

* * * * * * * *

The fruits of Harry Fragson's recording career, especially in Paris, were considerable; a few titles are now available on CD from Pavilion Records Ltd, and on the Chansophone label.

For a list of some of Fragson's song titles, see Michael Kilgarriff, Sing Us One of the Old Songs, Oxford University Press, 1998, p.202.

See also UdeNap - le site official. Section chanson Française.

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© John Culme, 2002