Cornalla & Eddie at Sunderland Empire

For the week of 5 June 1911 Cornalla and Eddie, “Toss ’em and Miss ’em”, perform “their funny and clever juggling and acrobatic act”:

Cornalla & Eddie at Sunderland Empire 5 June 1911 Poster - From the Tyne & Wear Archives
From the Tyne & Wear Archives

Before they appeared in Sunderland the only online references come from the USA – in 1906 they performed in Newark as described in the Cranford Chronicle of 9 August 1906 (third column, where the description says they are “a pair of comedy acrobats whose feats are unparalleled…and doubtless will be one of the hits of the bill”) and in 1909 in Washington DC as the Washington Times of  16 May 1909 (in the third column) shows.

If they’re American performers then they seem to have settled in Britain. The Bristol Hippodrome’s website shows them appearing there every year from 1912 to 1922 (although in 1921 it’s Knapp and Cornalla) and again in 1924, 1925 and 1928 and 1930, so we can assume that they’re regulars on the variety circuit.

We know from the poster above that they added juggling to their acrobatics by 1911 but unfortunately it’s rare to find a description of a juggling routine, and we’re in that situation again. We know that they were still concentrating on the comedy from the listings in Barcelona’s Mirador from 30 October 1930 (see the advert in column four at the bottom of page 5) La Vangardia for the next day, 31 October (half way down column 5) for their appearance at the Principal Palace Theatre. They’re described as “champions of laughter” in Catalan in the Mirador (“campions de riallo”) and promise “continuous laughter” in Spanish (“risa continua”) in La Vanguardia. Perhaps we can also assume that it was a non-verbal routine as they’d performed in the English speaking world for so long and then went to Spain towards the end of their careers?