Moss Empires worked with military precision with a comparatively small staff.

The headquarters were in Cranbourne Mansions in Leicester Square in London that is part of the London Hippodrome complex. The Company owned this theatre from the day it was opened until it closed and became the Talk of The town.

The company controlled over thirty theatres at one time and running this immense circuit on a weekly variety basis was no mean feat. At this time around 350 acts a week were employed and this meant a lot of contracts.

Louis Benjiman who became the last managing director of the company started as an office boy in this department and delivered most of these contracts by hand to agents who were based around the West. These contracts had to be issued, collected after signing by the artistes and confirmation issued, that meant 750 separate tasks each week. He did not have a lot of spare time.

Running orders for each variety bill were sent out by Charles Henry the production chief. These laid down the time allotted to each act and the setting.

This was extremely important and every artiste had to adhere to their time or woe betide them. The settings were also extremely important especially if artistes could finish or start in front of the number one running tabs if the presentation was going to be slick.

The advertising bills had to be printed each week for each theatre and the artistes position on the bill, size of type and bill matter were of extreme importance and were dealt with by the publicity department who sent out the copy. Most of the printing was done by the firm of Tribe in St Albans but one or two independent theatres that were booked by Moss had their own local printers.

There was also a financial department at Cranbourne Mansions a detailed summary of box office, bar, ice cream and programmes had to be sent there nightly from the theatres and the managers sent an overnight telegram that contained the box office summery every night. It was not an easy job controlling the cash flow of such a large organisation in these non high tech days.

The staff numbers were small for such a large organisation this worked because the theatre managers were given a great deal of autonomy. In fact there were more staff at Cranbourne Mansions in the eighties when the circuit controlled only a handful of provincial theatres plus their West End venues than when they were at their most powerful in the thirties.

Each manager was fully in control of his theatre and could make decisions that would be unheard of in present day circuits. Most of them were at least middle aged and some of them in their late fifties and early sixties and had spent a lifetime with Moss. Age went with experience in those days and they were extremely valuable assets to the company. Each one was a character and most of them tended to treat the theatres as though they were their personal possessions. They would stand immaculate in evening dress in the foyers of their theatres smoking a cigar greeting the public as they came in and departed at the beginning and end of each performance. They had one or two assistant managers under them depending on the size of the theatre and the number of bars it had. The assistant had to do all the cashing up. The manager at Nottingham was in charge of two theatres the Empire and the Theatre Royal that were adjoining.

Each theatre had a resident stage manager various stock cloths and an immense amount of drapes. The stage manager was expected to use these to the full and grids were packed most weeks, The Stage manager was responsible for the setting and running of the she but the theatre manager had overall control. It was not until the advent of the American star bill toppers that touring managers were employed with variety bills,

Each theatre had its own orchestra numbering from eleven to fifteen again depending on the size of the theatre and the resident musical director was solely responsible for this and for hiring and firing until the early sixties when a circuit musical supervisor was employed. The orchestras were top notch and sounded terrific.

Many present day organisations would profit by making some research on

how Moss Empires worked and profit from the results.