Django in Manchester
1938 - HCQ Tour of the UK
2nd - 4th July: Ardwick Hipperdrome, Manchester with Scandinavian entertainer Carola Merrild comparing and singing for all or just part of the tour. Django missed the first couple of concerts because he did not bother to take his passport as he thought he was so famous he could enter the UK without one. He was turned back at Folkestone and had to return to Paris to get it.
 

A Django Reinhardt Concert

In the December 1976 edition of Guitar Magazine Charlie Scott shared this story with the readers:

There he sits, against the contrasting background of the elegant, slim, white-jacketed standing figure of the violinist Stephane Grappelli. dress trousers hoisted carelessly up to reveal a bare calf above the top of a sock; feet clad in what looks like his street boots. The legend has come to life.

The first number finishes in a roar of adulation. You think: Applaud, clap until your hands are sore. He MUST play again, before we wake up and the dream dissolves. Nonchalantly Django acknowledges the plaudit with a wry, half-smile, and sweeps into another number - Limehouse Blues this time, lifted along by the solid four-in-a-bar of the two other guitars and the deep rubbery thump of the plucked bass. The violin plays the first chorus 'straight', with a cool and dispassionate, almost Oriental, tone, followed by an incredible Grappelli virtuoso improvisation - and then it's Django again! Chromatic runs bubble up from the base and stream up, unbroken, through three octaves. Still we can't believe it. Rumour has it that two fingers of his left hand were paralysed and distorted by fire yet with the two remaining fingers he produces music which would defy the efforts of a many-handed maestro.

A slow number now - Moonglow - with an introduction of falling cadences of augmented chords. Remember! Up to this time the guitar enthusiasts of the 1930's - a rather misunderstood and oppressed minority - had received the records of Django with near disbelief, accompanied as they were by fragmentary and conflicting rumours about the elusive genius: 'Only TWO fingers? -The records are speeded up in recording' . . .

Chorus follows chorus in a rising tide of excitement and at the end of their act, curtain after curtain, and repeated encores until finally the elated crowd pour out into the dusk of a summer evening.

A few of us went backstage one morning after rehearsals to meet Django Reinhardt in person (I recall the faces of Terry Usher, John (then Jack) Duarte, Peter Sloan and other Manchester early guitar stalwarts). Django spoke no English and we but a little, bad schoolboy French. Stephane Grappelli did the honours and conveyed our congratulations, enthusiasms and questions.

'How did he do that long chromatic run in his record of Some of these days? His left hand did something between the nut and the 15th fret - and the faultless, smooth, scale rippled from his guitar. We looked puzzled. Again he obliged - but sadly we realised we were none the wiser - we never would be!

Could we have an autograph? Laboriously (and proudly) he scrawled 'D. Reinhardt' (sic) THREE times on my programme.

In a corner of the room the plump, swarthy and jovial figure of Madame Reinhardt sat, measuring us up with a slight sardonic smile, as if secretly amused that these mad English boys should so obviously worship her Django. Out on stage, in the theatre, an act had just finished a band call rehearsal and the orchestra played a few desultory bars of the National Anthem. An impish smile flitted across the round swarthy face as Django's fingers danced over the strings in a deliberately corny little syncopated caricature of the staid tune.

I don't remember how, or when, we left, but I shall always have with me the memory of when I saw Django, and his innate sense of fun shining out in that little intimate musical joke.

Charlie Scott

Django also played the Hackney Empire, Shepherds Bush Empire and the Kilburn High Road, Gaumont State Cinema and a club called the Nut House - run by Al Burnett - Can you add to this information?

1934 - A three week gig in April at the "Monseigneur Club" in Piccadilly accompanying Jean Sablon. Although the "Melody Maker" reviewer thought Sablon was good, he felt the accompanying group, which also included Andre Ekyan, was a waste of time!!! Django possibly made his first radio broadcast during this visit.

1938 - The HCQ has its first performance in the UK at the Cambridge Theatre, Earlham Street, London on 30th January (my parents where there). This concert was organised by the "Melody Maker" and also had an unknown George Shearing in Clive Bampton's Blind Band. The HCQ was a major success which prompted Lew Grade to organise a UK tour later the same year. 

10th July: The Gig Club Bourne Hall, Wood Green where Django gave a cup to the winner of a Quintet competition.

11th July: Empire Theatre, Wood Green for a week.

18th July: Trocadero, Elephant & Castle for a week.

25th July: Empire Theatre, Shepherd's Bush for a week.

8th August: Metropolitan Theatre, London for a week. No idea which one. There were several at the time.

15th August: Empire Theatre, Glasgow for a week

22nd August: New Empress Theatre, Brixton for a week.

30th August: Decca Studios, Broadhurst Gardens, London. -
Also 1st & 10th September.

5th September: Palladium Theatre, London topping the bill with Tom Mix and his horse.

12th September: Chiswick Empire Theatre, London for a week.

It is then unclear exactly where the Quintet performed until its return to France at the end of October. They certainly returned to the Ardwick Hippodrome for a few days.

1939 - HCQ Tour of the UK

1st August: Empire Theatre, Hackney for a week.

8th August: Metropolitan Theatre, London. Location unknown.

14th August: State Theatre, Kilburn with Beryl Davis.

15th August: Empire Theatre, Glasgow for a week.

August (exact date unknown): BBC TV Studio, White City with Beryl Davis. Program broadcast on 16th August. The HCQ played at least 8 tunes.

22nd August: State Theatre, Kilburn with Beryl Davis.

25th August: Decca Studios, Broadhurst Gardens. Last recordings of the pre-war Quintet.

Django flees back to France at the declaration of war necessitating the cancellation of at least 5 concerts. The rhythm section of the Quintet follows him but Grappelli remains in the UK
The reasons Django returned to France whilst Steph remained in the UK? Well Django was an incredibly capricious individual and his decisions were almost invariably based on emotion rather than logic. He once said, when asked why he returned to France at the declaration of war, "It is better to be frightened in your own country than in another one". Steph was an altogether different personality and I think he would have thought about the situation very carefully before deciding it made much more sense to remain in the UK. Despite what Steph said late in life when looking back through rose tinted glasses, there were no real emotional ties between them. In fact, most of the time I don't think they liked each other.
Django was actually at his most popular in France during the war. He was almost on the level of Maurice Chevalier and Edith Piaf in terms of popularity. He survived primarily because he was Django Reinhardt and many Germans loved jazz and were quite prepared to compromise their "principles" when away from their homeland. Django neither collaborated with nor attempted to alienate the Germans and he had the gypsy's innate ability to survive. Fortunately for him, the Germans in France had a more relaxed attitude to gypsies than in other occupied European countries. I have a couple of photographs of Sarane Ferret, one of Django's fellow gypsy guitarists, playing in a night club to a group of German soldiers and French collaborators.
I think for much of the time, the war simply passed over Django because he only cared about music, women and gambling. He would only become concerned with the occupation if it interfered with any of these activities. For much of the time, he was not of the real world. - Roger Baxter

1946
26th January: Django arrives in the UK with Naguine & Babik and is greeted by Stephane Grappelli.
31st January: Abbey Road Studios, London. First recordings of the post-war string quintet.
1st February: Decca Studios, Broadhurst Gardens.
Django is rushed to the French Hospital in London for treatment on a recurring throat problem. Numerous concerts and BBC radio appearances are cancelled.

1948
March, 1948: Django & Stephane arrive in the UK to tour with the English String Quintet as always organised by Lew Grade.

22th March: BBC TV Studios. The Quintet appeared in the BBC TV program "Stars In Your Eyes".

27th March: BBC TV Studios. The Quintet appeared in the BBC TV program "Stars In Your Eyes". Other guests included Vera Lynn. (No Catty! I do not know whether Django got his leg over with her.)

29th March: Empire Theatre, Wood Green for a week.

5th April: Empire Theatre, Chiswick for a week. The Quintet then leaves to tour Scandanavia
24th May: Ardwick Hipperdrome, Manchester for a week.

31st May: Empire Theatre: Shepherd's Bush for a week.
and that was the last time for Django in the UK

http://www.djangomontreal.com/doc/Biography.htm