Music hall ancestor’s right royal surprise for choirmaster Gareth
The Messenger Boy. One critic described him as a ‘little man with a very funny face with which he could work wonders’. He was also described as a ‘universal favourite and a very great comedian’.
Malone tells the programme: ‘I don’t think I had any sense of how famous he was. He was somebody who can make someone laugh, and what’s better than that?’
He said that retracing his greatgreat-grandfather’s career had helped him discover the roots of his own ‘tah-dah gene’. ‘In my DNA I am sure there is a little switch for singing and it’s on,’ he said. ‘There is a fire in my belly about music which has always been there.’
During the course of his research, Malone also discovers silent film footage of Payne performing at London’s Gaiety Theatre with his comedy partner George Grossmith Jr.
Although the family had heard rumours that the footage existed, they had never seen it and assumed it had been lost long ago.
In an emotional scene, Malone plays the film to his own 94-year-old grandfather, who was born after Payne died. He tells the programme: ‘I have waited to see this for 94 years. I have always longed to see my grandfather and I have now.’
Payne died at the age of 50 on July 15, 1914. Who Do You Think You Are? airs on Thursdays, BBC 1. called Voices. Yet Payne began treading the boards in the 1880s and ended up playing more than 300 roles.
His greatest hits included parts in The Shop Girl, The Circus Girl and remember the effect it had on my family and how much pride they had in my small role. I bet it was exactly the same for him.’
For the 2013 performance, Malone took to the stage with his choir, CHOIRMASTER Gareth Malone admitted it was a dream come true when he appeared at the Royal Variety Performance in 2013.
But the TV star has now discovered that his own great-greatgrandfather pipped him to the post – by entertaining Royalty more than a century earlier.
Malone, 39, discovered Edmund Payne’s own Royal Command Performance while researching his family tree for the BBC’s genealogy programme Who Do You Think You Are?
On a visit to Her Majesty’s Theatre in London the father of two learns that Payne – a music hall star – took part in a gala by command of the Queen’s grandfather King George V on June 27, 1911.
Malone is shown a copy of the programme for that evening’s show – which includes Payne in Richard Sheridan’s play The Critic – and even gets to the see the prompt book used by the cast on the night.
A delighted Malone, who topped the charts with the Military Wives Choir in 2011, said he understood what Payne must have felt in front of such a distinguished audience.
He said: ‘I am very lucky to have also performed for royalty and I