Jackie Toaduff made his first appearance at the EFDSS festival at the Royal Albert Hall in January 1950. He had won the Northumberland and Durham Junior Championship in 1949 which is perhaps what prompted the invitation.
Whatever the reason he became a regular fixture making further appearances in 1952, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957 and finally in 1964 when he was filmed performing.
In 1955 Jackie had been part of an EFDSS Headquarters team which toured South Africa. The team performed excerpts from their show at the 1956 Albert Hall Festival, including, of course, Jackie’s clog dance.
Jackie’s popularity with audiences and its effect on future shows cannot be overemphasised. After 1950 there were English clog or step dancers in almost every Albert Hall Festival. When one bears in mind that these shows often ran to three performances, most of which were full houses (the seated capacity of the Hall is around 4,500), many thousands of people were exposed to this form of dance for the first time as a result of these shows and Jackie’s performances in particular.
We have set out below a selection of documents relating to his performances.
