Behind the scenes

This time of year always reminds me of trips to the theatre, pantos and variety shows.  In the cold dark winters of the 1930s the public needed all the jollity possible and Sven Berlin and his adagio dancing partner and wife-to-be Helga were making a great success of their career on stage.

Sven Berlin and Helga in the 1930s

This splendidly theatrical photograph (which came to us from the family’s archive) dates to the 1930s and shows Helga wearing a truly furry warm coat and Sven in a flamboyant knickerbocker suit.

Sven's diversion to treading the boards, and indeed meeting Phyllis Groom (Helga) had been encouraged by Sven’s sister Alma who worked for Helga’s aunt, dance teacher Gladys Groom. Helga was trained as a dancer from a very young age at her aunt's studio and was a professional teacher and performer by her teens. On their first meeting Sven was immediately struck by Helga “a beautiful woman with blue eyes and arched nose with hands and feet like Pavlova”.

Sven and Helga on stage with El Cubanos in 1936

Sven initially partnered Gladys, as you can see below and here (right) she is in later life....

Nevertheless it was a hard life and they would travel by train, often doing two shows a night and two matinees a week. While they were in London they performed in a non-stop variety show where there were 12 shows a day from 11am to 11pm, bringing in a total income of £10 a week.

Writing in his autobiographical book Pride of the Peacock (1972) Sven remarks:

“And however important or grand or beautiful you thought you were, a prop cabbage dipped in a fire bucket and thrown at your head when you were dancing before 2,000 people taught you once and forever to laugh at yourself.”

A postcard from 1932 promoting Sven & Helga's adagio dancing act

In any spare time Sven was painting in their dressing room or writing “huge unreadable romantic novels”. While Helga choreographed, chose the music and designed their costumes, they were also making their own advertisements from Sven’s artwork and there were several post card publicity flyers showing them in dramatic poses, such as this one shown above.

Sometimes, however there were ‘resting’ weeks and a break from the cold backstage rooms. During one quiet period in 1934, Sven’s mentor, the biologist Frank Turk, invited them to retreat to Cornwall and camp in his field where they would walk in Tehidy Woods, and spend time in St Ives and Penzance. When the money ran out they would return to their stage career, which also included tours of Scotland, and Ireland, where their act was attacked in the Catholic Times as 'obscene and disgusting gyrations'.

Sven and Helga were married on 4 December 1937 in Bromley Registry Office, just before an important turning point when they retired from the stage and moved from their basement flat in Anerley, near Crystal Palace, to a cottage facing the North Cliffs in Cornwall.

Sven and Helga's daughter, the sculptor and artist Greta Berlin, tells us Helga had to count constantly to keep him in time!