The famous Cochran revues were annual events at the London
Pavilion in the 1920s and 1930s. To work for Cochran was a
great
honour. The shows included numbers by the exciting young American
songwriters like Cole Porter and Rodgers and Hart as well
as
English composers like Noël
Coward and Vivian Ellis.
Cochran didn’t care whether a person was famous or
not so long as they had talent. Leonide Massine had been star
dancer-choreographer
with Diaghilev,
but Frederick Ashton and Antony Tudor were unknown when they
made ballets for Cochran in the 1920s. So were many of his
designers,
like
Rex Whistler and
Cecil Beaton.
A great feature of the revues were the ‘Cochran Young
Ladies’. They were pretty, could sing and dance in an
elegant manner and epitomised the ‘ideal’ British
girl of the time. One, Marjorie Robertson, later changed her
name and became famous as the actress Anna Neagle.
Cochran’s association with Noël
Coward started with the revue
On With the Dance in 1925 and lasted ten years. He
produced Coward’s greatest musical successes, Bitter
Sweet and Cavalcade. An association with Vivian Ellis
started in 1930 and Ellis gave Cochran his greatest musical
success
with Bless the Bride in 1947. It was so successful
that Cochran became bored with it and shut it down while it
was still playing to full houses!
Early Revue
