Arthur Roberts (comedian)

Arthur Roberts (21 September 1852 – 27 February 1933) was an English comedian, music hall entertainer and actor. He was famous for portraying the pantomime dames and later for his comic characters and "gagging" in farces, burlesques and musical comedies. He is credited with coining the word "spoof".

Roberts was born in Kentish Town, London. The son of a Savile Row tailor, Roberts began performing professionally in 1871, after being spotted busking in Covent Garden, by a holidaying impresario from Norfolk. Roberts first performed a rendition of "The Mad Butcher" on the beach at Great Yarmouth and was paid £1 a week. The following summer, Roberts moved to Great Yarmouth and regularly performed for tourists on a makeshift stage erected on the nearby pier. He later progressed to appearing in upmarket hotels at the seaside resort.

In 1875, Roberts was engaged to appear at the New Star theatre in Bermondsey. The following year he performed "If Only I Was Long Enough" at the Oxford Music Hall, which he considered a major breakthrough in his career. In 1877 he toured the London music hall circuit and culminated each round of touring with an appearance at Evans's supper room, where he developed a reputation for performing risqué songs. In 1879, one of his "saucy" songs caused Evans's to lose its license for a year.

In the legitimate theatre, he starred as Dr. Syntax in the Drury Lane Theatre pantomime Mother Goose (1880); as Mrs. Crusoe in Robinson Crusoe (1881 and 1886); in Sindbad the Sailor (1882; a show he repeated in 1906); in H. B. Farnie's Nell Gwynne (1884); in Farnie's The Grand Mogul (1884 with Florence St. John, Fred Leslie and Frank Wyatt); Joe Tarradiddle in the English adaptation of Offenbach's La Vie parisienne; Stanley the explorer in the 1891 Gaiety Theatre burlesque of Joan of Arc by Adrian Ross and J. L. Shine, popularising the song "I went to find Emin"; in the early Edwardian musical comedy In Town (1892); Captain Arthur Coddington in the Gaiety burlesque of Don Juan (1893, by Meyer Lutz, A. C. Torr and Ross); Claude Du Val (1894), the title character in Gentleman Joe (1895); Black-Eyed See-Usan; and Dandy Dan the Lifeguardsman (1898), among others. Roberts had success in the 1890s with the hit song "Daddy Wouldn't Buy Me a Bow Wow".

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