The Whicharts by Noel Streatfeild
published 1931
In a post before Christmas on Noel Streatfeild’s Ballet
shoes, I mentioned ‘the mysterious Whicharts, a
very strange and somewhat inexplicable grown-up version of Ballet
Shoes’.
I had been to see the wonderful stage show at the National
Theatre in London (stand-out moment: seeing Petrova fly across the auditorium,
not just for the splendour of the stunt, but because they gave it to the most
under-valued sister) but never really need an excuse to think or write about
the book, which has featured many times on the blog – along
with other books by Streatfeild .
Ballet Shoes was one of the first
books I covered, very early days of the blog, less than a
month in, and I talked about Whicharts then – and have now been thinking
that it is strange that it never got its own entry. So here it is. And I think
the best way to introduce the book is to quote myself from back then:
Ballet Shoes seems a perfectly formed book, a book that could never have been anything else. It is therefore quite shocking to read The Whicharts, Noel Streatfeild’s 1931 novel for adults about three young girls who train for the stage and support the household. The story weaves in and out of Ballet Shoes, but departs radically from it in the talents and morals of the girls as they get older. It is a very enjoyable book, but weirdly uncomfortable to find a story so much about a lack of success, and a sister who gets what she wants via men. It’s not just the disorientation, it’s thinking of Noel S taking her failed novel and thinking ‘now how can I change this to try again? Suppose I make the girls NOT illegitimate by-blows of an illicit relationship? Suppose I make Maimie not whorish? Suppose I give someone some admirable talent?’
Because – just to make it clear – NS wrote an unsuccessful
novel about three orphan girls, a novel that then pretty much disappeared
except for a reprint around 15 years ago. And then she reshaped it (with
dramatic differences) into a book for children, one that has never been out of
print, has sold in millions, and is a beloved favourite of young people down
the ages. It’s a strange trajectory, and surely unique.
It’s main interest would always be to fans of the later
book: you can see why it wasn’t successful in its time. It doesn’t seem sure if
it is a romance (but the love stories are not at all romantic), or a fairy
tale, or a stage novel…. It reminded me somewhat of books by Margery Sharp,
but not as well-written or structured.
There are deaths and disasters, and the lack of money is
even more difficult here, and – most of all – there is nothing remotely
glamorous about the girls’ stage adventures. Everything is dirty, grubby,
smelly, dusty. The first half of the book is full of short choppy verbless
sentences. Like this. Annoying.
The new stage version of Shoes actually took a
detail from Whicharts, intriguingly, so Kendall Feaver, who did the
adaptation obviously read the book. (I would say they had also watched the 2007
TV adaptation written by Heidi Thomas). It's the question of Sylvia’s time management: In my last post I raised
the question of what Sylvia did all day – well, Sylvia in the show, and her equivalent
in the Whicharts, Rose, do the same job, which is ‘gauging in a fuse factory’. (In
Rose’s case this is because everything is moved back a few years from Shoes,
and this is the First World War – she is working in a munitions factory).
The three girls have the same father, but different mothers
who have conveniently disappeared: the girls live with Rose, a former mistress
of their father (though not mother to any of them) and Nana. The name comes
because they say
Our
Father, which art in heaven
when they pray, and it reminds them of their father.
There is, sadly, some anti-semitic stereotyping.
The girls’ moral framework is sometimes hard to work out.
There is the usual audition dress panic (always the best parts of Ballet
Shoes) and Maimie (=Pauline) raises the money from a man friend – but Tania
(= Petrova) refuses, taking a high moral stance. But the unspoken truth is that
Maimie is supporting them all, and the dress is needed for Daisy (=Posy), who
is understandably put out by Tania’s interference. Incidentally, she is a very
good dancer but it is not all as classy and high-toned and Royal Ballet as in
the later book.
Maimie, meanwhile – well, I call up a certain phrase from
time to time, mentioned
in this post: ‘civilians, you might say, or in the magic
words of a Louise Brooks or a Dodie Smith, ‘just hanging onto their
amateur status’.’
It is engaging, and funny at times. The Shakespeare touring
company, with the handsome actor-manager, is particularly entertaining.
No-one is at all bothered about education, and all of them
are quitting school young. There is no Great-Uncle Matthew figure.
Nana says ‘theatricals is a trashy lot.’
And they are in this book… but still, any fan of Ballet
Shoes really really should read The Whicharts.
Pictures to show different aspects of the Whicharts stage life..
Sister act from the Provincial
Archives of Alberta.
The showgirl is Evelyn Keller, of the Earl Carroll Vanities,
NYPL.
Cheery group of dancers from NYPL.
Little Daisy Whichart is actually Dorothea Mulvihill,aged
8, NYPL
‘Two actresses and a showgirl talking’ is from the State
Library of New South Wales, the splendid Sam Hood as ever.
[the NYPL has the most wonderful collection of pictures of stage
performers and dancers of all kinds from the past 200 years, I get lost in
them, and use them frequently on the blog]
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