By the 1940s and 1950s the style of revue had become light,
charming and witty. The famous wartime revues were Sweet
and Low, Sweeter and Lower and Sweetest and Lowest
starring Hermione Gingold and Hermione Baddeley. Stars of 1950s
revues included Ian Carmichael and Joyce Grenfell. Bamber Gascoigne’s
one famous revue Share My Lettuce included Maggie Smith
and Kenneth Williams in the cast. Michael Flanders and Donald
Swann contributed songs to many revues and eventually became
performers themselves, singing their own songs around the world
in At the Drop of a Hat. Even Harold Pinter was a revue
sketch writer.
The Punch Revue in 1955 included poems by Louis
MacNeice, W H Auden and John Betjeman set to music by composers
such
as
Benjamin Britten, Larry Adler and
Donald Swann. Nearly 30 years before Cats, two T
S Eliot poems from Old Possum’s Book of Practical
Cats
were dramatised in a revue and performed by two dancers.
Most famous of the 1950s’ revues was Cranks,
devised by choreographer John Cranko with designs by John Piper.
The Windmill Theatre
The Windmill Theatre evolved its own particular brand of
revue, mixing sketches, dances and comics with their famous
nudes.
Before the abolition of stage censorship in 1968, the Lord Chamberlain
ruled that nudes were acceptable on stage so long as they
stood
still. This gave rise to the famous saying ‘If it moves,
it’s rude’. Once censorship was abolished, revues
like Oh Calcutta! and The Dirtiest Show in Town
showed more explicit nudity and sexual licence.
In 1960 four young Oxbridge graduates changed the face of revue
for ever. Beyond the Fringe with Peter Cook, Dudley
Moore, Alan Bennett and Jonathan Miller returned revue to a
more biting critical role and kick-started the 1960s topical
satire boom in theatre and television.
Spectacular revue survived in the big showgirl extravaganzas
at venues like the London Casino, sometimes as showcases for
singers or comedians. These shows were imitations of the great
Paris revues at the Folies Bergère or the Lido. Although
they rarely appeared in England, the most famous troupe of show
dancers were the Bluebell girls, who starred in Paris and in
Las Vegas - most of the girls were British.
Early Revue
