Danny Varney: Magic and the Home Front at the Hackney Empire (Part 1)
In this two-part blog, we hear – in his own words – the wartime story of Danny Varney, an amateur magician and a regular audience member at the Hackney Empire, London. Built in 1901, during the Second Boer War, the Hackney Empire was one of the top music halls of its day. Located in London Borough of Hackney, in northeast London, it provided the people of Hackney with their mass entertainment, taking them through two World Wars, poverty, economic depression and post-war hardships. A grand venue the Empire has more recently been described by The Guardian newspaper, as “the most beautiful theatre in London.” For over a century, the Empire has seen variety, vaudeville, plays, musicals, films, political rallies, bingo, and more on its stage. Hackney-resident Danny Varney was a regular audience member at the Empire over the years. Born in the late 1910s, Varney first started visiting the Hackney Empire as a babe ...