The
History of the Theatre Poster
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Cinema and television brought images of performers into the
home in the 1950s and encouraged photographs of stars on theatre
posters, as on film posters. It wasn’t until the 1960s that
imaginative poster art really began to flourish again, fostered
by the Pop Art movement, which used screen printing extensively
to produce colourful posters. The most innovative poster advertising
of the1960s was for concerts, clubs, and albums, with students
avidly collecting posters to decorate their bedrooms.
In the 1970s poster artists began to experiment with photography
and photomontage, but as the century progressed other forms of
advertising began to be just as important as posters, for instance
flyers, leaflets, and press, radio, and television advertisements.
Increasingly too, West End theatre posters were produced by one
agency, who looked for an ‘icon’ image for theatre
posters, such as cats’ eyes for the musical Cats,
or the mask for The Phantom of the Opera -
images which would work on merchandising as well as on posters.
Shepherds Bush Empire
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This is typical of the style of Variety posters of the 1950s, with its red and black lettering, and the names of the performers separated in boxes. The size of the box for performers’ names depended on their fame. This twice-nightly show which was to be broadcast live on the radio on the Tuesday night. Lee Lawrence, billed as 'Britain's outstanding singing star', gets the biggest box, with a 26-year old comic: 'Radio's Peter Sellers', a close second. By October 1951 Peter Sellers had made his name in several BBC radio shows including Show Time, It's Fine to be Young, and Ray's a Laugh. In May 1951 he first appeared in another radio show called Crazy People with Michael Bentine, Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe. By the second series in 1952 the title was changed to The Goon Show. The performers who get one of the two smallest boxes 'on the bottom of the bill' are Morecambe & Wise, later to become hugely successful on British television with The Morecambe and Wise Show. Created: 1951
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