Name/Title
Chu Chin Chow [Postcard]Description
Circa 1910s real picture postcard of "Moore as Chu Chin Chow"Context
Chu Chin Chow was a version of the Arabian Nights’ Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves tale, put together by actor, director and sometime playwright Asche as a vehicle for himself and his wife, actress Lily Brayton, and produced in wartime London at His Majesty’s Theatre on August 31, 1916 – in the theatre which normally housed the respected dramatic productions of Beerbohm Tree.
Staged with a sumptuous extravagance, it proved to be one of the phenomena of the British stage of the early part of the century.
The robber chief Abu Hasan (Asche) is preparing to pull a coup in the home of the rich merchant Kasim Baba (Frank Cochrane), and the bandit’s beautful captive, Zahrat al-Kulub (Lily Brayton), has been introduced into the house, in the guise of a slave girl, to spy out the land. Ali Baba (Courtice Pounds), Kasim’s poor, layabout brother, accidentally discovers Hasan’s lair and the riches hidden there and, when the greedy Kasim goes to steal what he can from the hoard, he is captured and killed. Hasan plans to launch his attack on the late merchant’s household on the occasion of the wedding of Ali’s son Nur al-Huda (J.V. Bryant) and the slave girl Marjanah (Violet Essex), but Zahrat foils his plan and wins her revenge, disposing of Hasan’s men with the traditional boiling oil before stabbing the robber chief to death. Ali ends the evening in the well-padded arms of his brother’s widow, Alcolom (Aileen D’Orme).
Norton provided a score which included two numbers which became standards: Pounds and Miss D’Orme billed and cooed with comical, middle-aged passion to the strains of ‘Any Time’s Kissing Time,’ whilst the Cobbler (also Frank Cochrane, whose character had by then been killed off!) hired to sew the pieces of Kasim’s quartered body back together for burial sang of his trade in the baChu Chin Chow was a version of the Arabian Nights’ Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves tale, staged with a sumptuous extravagance, it proved to be one of the phenomena of the stage of the early part of the century.
The robber chief Abu Hasan is preparing to pull a coup in the home of the rich merchant Kasim Baba, and the bandit’s beautful captive, Zahrat al-Kulub, has been introduced into the house, in the guise of a slave girl, to spy out the land. Ali Baba, Kasim’s poor, layabout brother, accidentally discovers Hasan’s lair and the riches hidden there and, when the greedy Kasim goes to steal what he can from the hoard, he is captured and killed. Hasan plans to launch his attack on the late merchant’s household on the occasion of the wedding of Ali’s son Nur al-Huda and the slave girl Marjanah, but Zahrat foils his plan and wins her revenge, disposing of Hasan’s men with the traditional boiling oil before stabbing the robber chief to death. Ali ends the evening in the well-padded arms of his brother’s widow, Alcolom.
The robber chief Abu Hasan sings ‘I Am Chu Chin Chow of China’.