Gae Anderson

Harry Rickards is recognised as one of the most colourful and dynamic showmen to appear on the Australian variety theatre stage. Rickards' debut as a comic singer on the London music halls during the late nineteenth century, and his subsequent career, was tarnished by: spats with fellow artistes; court appearances for bad behaviour; failure to pay debts; accusations of slander, and violence in marriage. Circumnavigating the globe with troupes of players, he settled in Sydney in 1892, and established the Tivoli chain of vaudeville theatres throughout the country. Rickards' life and times are documented in this fast-moving biography, from his humble beginning in Stratford to fame and fortune in the Australian colonies as the true King of Vaudeville.