‘Hutch’: Britain’s forgotten cabaret king and the echoes of inequality
A century ago the multi-talented Grenadian-born singer, pianist and all-round star Leslie ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson was the highest-paid entertainer in the UK. Yet despite his fame, he died penniless and in near obscurity. Hutch’s shimmering rise and quiet decline is a striking example of how the country lavishes praise on Black performers but often denies them lasting recognition or equality beyond the stage, writes journalist Anil Dawar.
It is 1928, London’s high society gathers for another night of entertainment in the Café de Paris. Men in tuxedos and women in cocktail dresses pirouette around the dance floor in a haze of cigarette smoke. At the piano, a man in immaculate evening dress glides his fingers across the keys, his voice velvet-smooth and unhurried.
Leslie ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson does not simply perform, he commands the room. The city’s elite hang on his every note, their applause warm and boundless.
On stage, Hutch was celebrated as the very symbol of sophistication, courted by business leaders, aristocrats and royalty alike. But when the music stopped, so too did the applause. The star who once defined an era was swiftly cast aside and left to slide into obscurity.
‘The most famous entertainer of his day’
Amid the glamorous swirl of the cabaret scene in 1920s and 1930s London, Hutch was the star everyone wanted to see and be seen with. Originally from Grenada, he rose to become the most famous entertainer of his day, a beloved fixture in elite venues like the Café de Paris, the Savoy and Lambert’s, and known throughout the world. With a rich voice and piano playing skills to match, he charmed audiences nationwide and was a favourite of the Prince of Wales.
Yet today, Hutch’s name barely whispers in public memory, and few could name him among the stars who defined interwar entertainment. The simple headstone that marks his resting place in Highgate Cemetery makes no reference to his great career and does not even include his date of birth. The only nod to a life that once glittered fiercely under stage lights is the blue plaque at his former home unveiled by Stephen Fry, some 43 years after Hutch’s death in 1969.
The Grenadian’s shimmering rise and quiet decline is a striking example of how Britain lavishes applause on Black performers, but often denies them lasting recognition or equality beyond the stage.
‘He played piano in Harlem clubs and sang in jazz bands’
Born on 7 March 1900, Hutch sailed to New York at 16, ostensibly to study medicine. But music pulled him elsewhere. He played piano in Harlem clubs and sang in jazz bands performing for America’s high society in venues that would have barred him from entering.
By the mid-1920s, he had decamped to Paris to escape the rampant racism in the USA. There he struck up a relationship with leading composer and songwriter Cole Porter. More fatefully, Hutch caught the eye Edwina Mountbatten, Britain’s richest heiress and wife of Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India.
She encouraged him to try London where he became a sensation. At his peak, the dapper, witty and musically gifted Hutch was Britain’s highest-paid entertainer, dazzling on the stages of London’s most elite venues.
At the same time, he and Edwina embarked on a clandestine affair. But the couple became increasingly brazen and their antics fuelled tabloid gossip columns.
A scandal that erased a star
In 1932, Hutch’s stellar trajectory plummeted. The People newspaper hinted at an affair between an aristocrat and a Black singer. While it clearly implicated Edwina, the singer was wrongly identified as Paul Robeson.
Under pressure from the Royal family, the Mountbattens successfully sued for libel. The couple may have won the lawsuit but it came at the expense of Hutch’s career. The scandal sent ripples through society. The cabaret star was quietly frozen out of the elite circles that once feted him. Invitations dried up, lucrative contracts disappeared and Hutch found himself ostracised. The record labels, publishers and agents that had profited so handsomely from his talents offered no lifeline.
By the time of his death in hospital from pneumonia in 1969, Hutch was penniless and his wartime service entertaining troops, which should have been a point of national pride, was all but erased.
Selective memory and structural exclusion
Hutch’s descent into obscurity was not just personal tragedy, it was a template. Britain lavished applause on a Black performer but denied him lasting recognition or power once he stepped off the stage. That imbalance still shapes the music industry today. Black artists dominate charts and festivals yet remain largely absent from the rooms where decisions are made.
Contemporary performers describe the same imbalance. Leigh-Anne Pinnock of Little Mix has spoken of feeling tokenised and ‘unseen and undervalued’ because of her skin colour. Keisha Buchanan of the Sugababes has noted executives’ cynical creative decisions based on the perceived ‘cool’ of Black culture. Singer, songwriter and poet Labi Siffre has long criticised industry expectations that marginalise Black artists, forcing them into narrow, stereotyped roles rather than allowing them full agency. As he once stated: ‘The insistence that one should be “ethnic” is endemic, irritating, and insulting.’
Invisible architects of culture
The music industry is more than a stage. It is a structure, with gatekeepers, financiers and decision-makers who determine not only who gets to perform, but who shapes the narrative. Black artists often dominate live performance rosters yet remain under-represented in executive roles, production teams and boardrooms.
The numbers reinforce the pattern. According to the 2022 UK Music Diversity Report, Black, Asian and ethnically diverse individuals made up only 18 per cent of senior positions. The 2024 report showed that had nudged up only slightly to 22.1 per cent.
The imbalance is even starker when compared with wider arts sector demographics. According to the most recent Labour Force Survey, 90 per cent of the arts workforce identifies as white and 60 per cent grew up in middle or upper-class households. These figures point to a systemic narrowing of the pipeline. The industry is disproportionately run by white, affluent people, who ultimately decide whose stories get told, whose careers are nurtured and whose legacies are preserved.
Hutch’s erasure from musical history reflects this reality – a man feted on stage but shut out from the levers of power in an overwhelmingly white industry that might have preserved his legacy.
‘Breaking this cycle requires structural reform’
Breaking this cycle requires structural reform. Pathways into executive leadership and management are shaped early, through education, internships and entry-level roles. If these routes remain inaccessible to Black students, the imbalance only deepens.
Reform means targeted scholarships, active recruitment into music business courses and industry organisations making internships real gateways to power, not token gestures. Schools should provide better careers advice that highlights the breadth of roles in the music industry, from A&R to legal counsel, and show young Black students a clear path into positions of influence.
Until lived experience of exclusion is present at the decision-making table, histories like Hutch’s will continue to repeat.
‘More than a forgotten scandal’
Leslie ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson’s story is more than a forgotten scandal. It’s a reminder of Britain’s broader failure to sustain Black excellence beyond a performative spotlight.
To remember Hutch properly is not only to restore his place in history, but to build an industry where Black artists are not just applauded on stage, but empowered to shape its future off it.
Anil Dawar is a journalist born in London to Asian and British parents. He specialises in home affairs and education issues.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the Runnymede Trust.
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Photo © Pierre-Yves Beaudouin / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0
