Winding the clock right back to Blackpool stars of the early years including Sir Harry Lauder, Little Tich and Marie Lloyd

Nostalgia gives way to history as this week's artists are from way back. The most recent date is 1940!

The great Scottish entertainer Sir Harry Lauder (1870-1950) retired in 1935 but was a guest at the opening of the 1940 season show at the Blackpool Opera House. The stars that year were Arthur Askey and Blackpool-based Norman Evans.

WW2 was raging and the Gazette reported Sir Harry went up to the stage and sang, unaccompanied, Put Your Faith In The Motherland.

His many Blackpool visits were to the old Palace Theatre from 1905 to 1935, with songs that were his alone: I Love a Lassie, Keep Right On to the End of the Road, Roamin' In the Gloamin' and Stop Your Ticklin' Jock.

In 1912 he was booked for £500 at the Palace for a week in July. But he was then chosen for the first Royal Variety Performance on the Monday night.

He arrived in Blackpool on the Tuesday to learn that the Palace management would dock his pay by one sixth!

Equally famous in his day was comedian Little Tich (Harry Relph, 1868-1928) who had a 37-year span of Blackpool starring visits, beginning in 1891.

Tich had six fingers on each hand, and was only four feet tall.

His lack of height was exaggerated on stage by wearing boots with very long toes, in which he could lean forward horizontally and on which he could balance on the points.

In a week at the old Palace Theatre in 1921, a Gazette writer summed up Tich's appeal: "There is no comedian who can get laughs so spontaneously. He is a master of the grimace and an expert in eccentric humour, while his dancing is a glorious gift."

Another artist whose name is still mentioned by music hall aficionados is Marie Lloyd (1870-1922).

Noted for her saucy interpretation of songs, Marie first came to Blackpool "at enormous expense" in May and September, 1896, at the Empire, a theatre that soon went bust and was revived as the Hippodrome.

With the billing line Queen of Comediennes she was reviewed by the Gazette at the old Palace in July, 1918: "She gave evidence of that subtle humour and piquancy which have won the highest esteem.

"A nod and a wink such as Miss Lloyd can hand out are charged with a thousand things. In her song about the lady who has lost her way home there is genius in every gesture.

"There are cases in which songs make the singer but in Miss Lloyd's case it is the singer who makes the song."

Comedian Dan Leno (1860-1904) was another music hall great who came to the resort in 1901 and 1902 in musical plays at the Grand Theatre.

The legendary Victorian panto star was to end his years in an asylum and his declining mental condition is the theme of David Slattery's play A Royal Jester, which Blackpool's own panto star, Steve Royle, premiered at the 2018 Lytham Festival.

Next week: Local appearances of the only performer to have a Blackpool theatre named after him.