After the Ball *** (1957, Pat Kirkwood and Laurence Harvey) – Classic Movie Review 13,724

The 1957 British musical biopic After the Ball portrays the life of the celebrated English music-hall stage performer and male impersonator Vesta Tilley, and stars Pat Kirkwood and Laurence Harvey.

‘The Background Story of a Front Page Girl’

Director Compton Bennett’s 1957 British musical biographical film After the Ball portrays the life of the English music-hall stage performer Vesta Tilley, and stars Pat Kirkwood and Laurence Harvey.

Pat Kirkwood gives a gallant turn and sings prettily as famed British music-hall singer and celebrated male impersonator Vesta Tilley, a huge star in Victorian and Edwardian times, whose fame leads her to marriage into the nobility, and who performs propaganda songs in World War One.

Laurence Harvey plays the key one of the men in her life, Sir Walter de Frece, an architect whom she marries and becomes her manager till she calls it a day and retires in 1920.

Maybe After the Ball is an unrevealing biopic without much of a story, but nevertheless this is a very pretty looking, colourful, entertaining and enjoyable life and love story film.

It was the wrong subject and the wrong time for this material in British cinemas. Both the nice old-time songs and the film were found too old-fashioned in 1957 and it disappeared from cinemas after a single week, only eventually to reappear much later on TV. Kirkwood’s husband Hubert Gregg based the script (written by Peter Blackmore) on his 1956 TV play The Great Little Tilley, based in turn on Vesta Tilley’s book of recollections, Lady de Frece. It is shot in Eastmancolor by Jack Asher and designed by Norman G Arnold. Both the photography and the sets are painstaking and notable.

Note the early film appearance of Ronnie Corbet as stage entertainer after about half an hour. Also note the BBC Television Toppers paying tribute to Vesta Tilley. (By the way, The Television Toppers also performed in the Black and White Minstrel Show at the Victoria Palace Theatre in London)

There is a fairly grand cast of unstarry good actors in support: Clive Morton, Jerry Verno, June Clyde, Jerry Stovin, Charles Victor, Marjorie Rhodes, Tom Gill, Peter Carlisle, George Mago, Leonard Sachs, Mark Baker, Ballard Berkeley, David Hurst, Cyril Chamberlain, Geoffrey Tyrrell, Erik Chitty, Howard Greene, Olwen Brookes, Terry Cooke, Barbara Roscoe, Margaret Sawyer, and Ronnie Corbett as Stage Entertainer.

It was shot at Beaconsfield Studios, Buckinghamshire, England, in October 1956 and released on 13 August 1957.

Kirkwood recalled: ‘The trouble with the Vesta Tilley story was that there was none! She became a star when she was five and stayed in that position all her life; married Sir Walter de Freece; was never ill and, so far as anyone knew, had no troubles whatsoever.’

English music hall performer Matilda Alice Powles, Lady de Frece (13 May 1864 – 16 September 1952) took the stage name Vesta Tilley and became one of the best-known male impersonators of her era. Her extraordinary career lasted from 1869 until 1920. 

Sir Abraham Walter de Frece (7 October 1870 – 7 January 1935) was a British theatre impresario and a Conservative Member of Parliament from 1920 to 1931.

Pat Kirkwood (24 February 1921 – 25 December 2007) was the first woman on British TV to have her own series, The Pat Kirkwood Show (1954). She was married to Hubert Gregg from 1956 till their divorce in 1979.

After the Ball is directed by Compton Bennett, runs 89 minutes, is made by Romulus Films and Beaconsfield Productions, is released by Independent Film Distributors (UK), is written by Hubert Gregg and Peter Blackmore, is shot in Eastmancolor by Jack Asher, is produced by Peter Rogers, is scored by Ken Jones (uncredited), Eric Rogers (uncredited) and Muir Mathieson (music director), and is designed by Norman G Arnold.

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,724

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