Good question. I always find it pretty hard to define vaudeville it seems to be as much about the era as the performance style.
Over in the U.K. we had Music Hall which I think was pretty much the same thing. (Although Chaplin, in his autobiography, calls English performers Vaudevillians so I don't know if the term made it across the Atlantic, at the time, or Charlie was just using US lingo in the book).
The cliche for Music Hall comedians is that they say "I say, I say, I say" before each line. UK sketch show "The fast show" did a great parody of a music hall comedian.
For me the best example of vaudeville style entertainment is probably the early Marx brothers films (The paramount ones). Although many vaudeville performers were in the early silent films they found that using the stage style on silent screen didn't really work so pioneers such as Chaplin and Keaton quickly adapted and refined vaudeville comedy to suit silent movies making it a whole new beast altogether.
The Marx brothers however took a lot of their stage performance onto the screen. (although their stage performances were in the tail end of the vaudeville era I think that in some ways it could have been advantage to them as they had to be fresh and talented to impress tired, over-exposed audiences). Also because sound had now kicked in we could see the diversity of these performers talents: singing, dancing, physical & verbal gags, stunt and instrument playing.
The most vaudeville thing I do is probably corkscrews.
George
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