Revue
Encyclopedia
A revue is a type of multi-act popular theatrical
entertainment
that combines music
, dance and sketches
. The revue has its roots in 19th century American
popular entertainment and melodrama
but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own during its golden years from 1916 to 1932. Though most famous for their visual spectacle
, revues frequently satirized contemporary figures, news
or literature. Due to high ticket prices, ribald publicity campaigns and the occasional use of prurient material, the revue was typically patronized by audience members who earned more and felt less restricted by middle-class social mores than their contemporaries in vaudeville
. Like much of that era's popular entertainments, revues often featured material based on sophisticated, irreverent dissections of topical matter, public personae and fads, though the primary attraction was found in the frank display of the female body.
's The Passing Show (1894) is usually held to be the first successful American "review." The English spelling was used until 1907 when Florenz Ziegfeld
popularized the French spelling. "Follies" is now sometimes (incorrectly) employed as an analog for "revue," though the term was proprietarial with Ziegfeld until his death in 1932. Other popular proprietarial revue names included George White's "Scandals"
and Earl Carroll's "Vanities."
's olio section provided a structural map of popular variety presentation, while literary travesties highlighted an audience hunger for satire. Theatrical extravaganza
s, in particular, moving panoramas, demonstrated a vocabulary of the spectacular. Burlesque
, itself a bawdy hybrid of various theatrical forms, lent to classic revue an open interest in female sexuality and the masculine gaze.
years until the Great Depression
, when the stock market crash forced many revues from cavernous Broadway houses into smaller venues. (The shows did, however, continue to infrequently appear in large theatres well into the 1950s.) The high ticket prices of many revues helped ensure audiences distinct from other live popular entertainments during their height of popularity (late 1910s–40s). In 1914, the Follies charged $5.00 for an opening night ticket ($106.22 in 2008 dollars); at that time, many cinema houses charged from $0.10 to 0.25, while low-priced vaudeville seats could be had for $0.15. Among the many popular producers of revues, Florenz Ziegfeld played the greatest role in developing the classical revue through his glorification of a new theatrical "type," "the American girl." Famed for his often bizarre publicity schemes and continual debt, Ziegfeld joined Earl Carroll
, , and the Shubert Brothers
as the leading producing figure of the American revue's golden age.
Revues took advantage of their high revenue stream to lure away performers from other media, often offering exorbitant weekly salaries without the unremitting travel demanded by other entertainments. Performers such as Eddie Cantor
, Anna Held
, W. C. Fields
, Bert Williams
, and the Fairbanks Twins found great success on the revue stage. One of Cole Porter
's early shows was Raymond Hitchcock
's revue Hitchy-Koo
(1919). Composers or lyricists such as Richard Rodgers
, Lorenz Hart
, Irving Berlin
, and George M. Cohan
also enjoyed a tremendous reception on the part of audiences. Sometimes, an appearance in a revue provided a key early entry into entertainment. Largely due to their centralization in New York City
and adroit use of publicity, revues proved particularly adept at introducing new talents to the American theatre. Rodgers and Hart
, one of the great composer/lyricist teams of the American musical theatre
, followed up their early Columbia University
student revues with the successful Garrick Gaieties (1925). Comedian Fanny Brice
, following a brief period in burlesque
and amateur variety, bowed to revue audiences in Ziegfeld's Follies of 1910. Specialist writers and composers of revues have included Sandy Wilson
, Noël Coward
, John Stromberg, George Gershwin
, Earl Carroll, and the British team, Flanders and Swann
.
(Warner Brothers
, 1929), The Hollywood Revue of 1929
(Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
, 1929), Fox Movietone Follies of 1929
(Fox Film Corporation
, 1929), Paramount on Parade
(Paramount
, 1930), New Movietone Follies of 1930
(Fox, 1930) and King of Jazz
(Universal
, 1930). Even Britain jumped on the bandwagon and produced an expensive revues such as Harmony Heaven (British International Pictures
, 1929), Elstree Calling
(BIP, 1930) and The Musical Revue Of 1959 (BIP,1960)
entertainment (such as The University of Canterbury Law Revue, University of Otago Capping Show
, Cambridge Footlights
, Durham Revue, The Leeds Tealights, The Oxford Revue
, St George's Medics Revue, Sheffield Medics Revue, The Edinburgh Revue, Bristol Revunions, The Wrekin Revue, Medleys
, University of Sydney Revues
, The Australian National University Law and Arts Revues, University of New South Wales Revues
, The Ashbourne College Revue, Rave Revue and the University of Queensland
Law and Med Revues). These use pastiche, in which contemporary songs are re-written in order to comment on the college or courses in a humorous nature. While most comic songs
will only be heard within the revue they were written for, sometimes they become more widely known, such as A Transport of Delight about the big red London bus by Flanders and Swann
, who first made their name in a revue titled At the Drop of a Hat.
The Rolling Thunder Revue was a famed U.S. concert tour in the mid-1970s consisting of a traveling caravan of musicians, headed by Bob Dylan, that took place in late 1975 and early 1976, and was named after the Native American Shaman, Rolling Thunder.
Towards the end of the 20th century, a sub-genre of revue largely dispensed with the sketches, founding narrative structure within a song cycle in which the material is culled from varied works. This type of revue may or may not have identifiable characters and a rudimentary story line but, even when it does, the songs remain the focus of the show (for example, Closer Than Ever
by Richard Maltby, Jr.
and David Shire
). This type of revue usually showcases songs written by a particular composer or songs made famous by a particular performer. Examples of the former are Side By Side By Sondheim
(music/lyrics Stephen Sondheim
), Eubie! (Eubie Blake
) Tom Foolery
(Tom Lehrer
), and Five Guys Named Moe
(songs made popular by Louis Jordan
). The eponymous nature of these later revues suggest a continued embrace of a unifying authorial presence in this seemingly scattershot genre, much as was earlier the case with Ziegfeld, Carrol, et al.
Each year, the revue casts of each of the 5 medical schools of the United Hospitals
compete in the competition known as the UH Revue in an attempt to win The Moira Stuart
Cup. It has been won by all medical schools except Barts, with St George's knocking up the most victories, winning the trophy 4 times. As well as performing at their respective universities, shows will often be performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The Cambridge Medics Revue, St George's Medics Revue, and Birmingham Medics Revues all performed at the 2008 Fringe Festival.
The Cambridge clinical school also now run a competing revue to the undergraduates, called variably Revue and Integration or Revue and Imitation.
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
entertainment
Entertainment
Entertainment consists of any activity which provides a diversion or permits people to amuse themselves in their leisure time. Entertainment is generally passive, such as watching opera or a movie. Active forms of amusement, such as sports, are more often considered to be recreation...
that combines music
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
, dance and sketches
Sketch comedy
A sketch comedy consists of a series of short comedy scenes or vignettes, called "sketches," commonly between one and ten minutes long. Such sketches are performed by a group of comic actors or comedians, either on stage or through an audio and/or visual medium such as broadcasting...
. The revue has its roots in 19th century American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
popular entertainment and melodrama
Melodrama
The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...
but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own during its golden years from 1916 to 1932. Though most famous for their visual spectacle
Spectacle
In general, spectacle refers to an event that is memorable for the appearance it creates. Derived in Middle English from c. 1340 as "specially prepared or arranged display" it was borrowed from Old French spectacle, itself a reflection of the Latin spectaculum "a show" from spectare "to view,...
, revues frequently satirized contemporary figures, news
News
News is the communication of selected information on current events which is presented by print, broadcast, Internet, or word of mouth to a third party or mass audience.- Etymology :...
or literature. Due to high ticket prices, ribald publicity campaigns and the occasional use of prurient material, the revue was typically patronized by audience members who earned more and felt less restricted by middle-class social mores than their contemporaries in vaudeville
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
. Like much of that era's popular entertainments, revues often featured material based on sophisticated, irreverent dissections of topical matter, public personae and fads, though the primary attraction was found in the frank display of the female body.
Etymology
George LedererGeorge Lederer
George Lederer was an American producer and director on Broadway from 1894 to 1931. He was the husband of Reine Davies and father of Charles Lederer and Pepi Lederer....
's The Passing Show (1894) is usually held to be the first successful American "review." The English spelling was used until 1907 when Florenz Ziegfeld
Florenz Ziegfeld
Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. , , was an American Broadway impresario, notable for his series of theatrical revues, the Ziegfeld Follies , inspired by the Folies Bergère of Paris. He also produced the musical Show Boat...
popularized the French spelling. "Follies" is now sometimes (incorrectly) employed as an analog for "revue," though the term was proprietarial with Ziegfeld until his death in 1932. Other popular proprietarial revue names included George White's "Scandals"
George White's Scandals
George White's Scandals were a long-running string of Broadway revues produced by George White that ran from 1919–1939, modelled after the Ziegfeld Follies. The "Scandals" launched the careers of many entertainers, including W.C. Fields, the Three Stooges, Ray Bolger, Helen Morgan, Ethel Merman, ...
and Earl Carroll's "Vanities."
Origin
Revues are most properly understood as having amalgamated several theatrical traditions within the corpus of a single entertainment. MinstrelsyMinstrelsy
Minstrelsy can refer to:* The music and poetry of the medieval minstrels.* The songs, dances, skits, and stagecraft of the 19th century American blackface minstrel show....
's olio section provided a structural map of popular variety presentation, while literary travesties highlighted an audience hunger for satire. Theatrical extravaganza
Extravaganza
An extravaganza is a literary or musical work characterized by freedom of style and structure and usually containing elements of burlesque, pantomime, music hall and parody. It sometimes also has elements of cabaret, circus, revue, variety, vaudeville and mime...
s, in particular, moving panoramas, demonstrated a vocabulary of the spectacular. Burlesque
American burlesque
American Burlesque is a genre of variety show. Derived from elements of Victorian burlesque, music hall and minstrel shows, burlesque shows in America became popular in the 1860s and evolved to feature ribald comedy and female striptease...
, itself a bawdy hybrid of various theatrical forms, lent to classic revue an open interest in female sexuality and the masculine gaze.
Golden age
Revues enjoyed great success on Broadway from the World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
years until the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, when the stock market crash forced many revues from cavernous Broadway houses into smaller venues. (The shows did, however, continue to infrequently appear in large theatres well into the 1950s.) The high ticket prices of many revues helped ensure audiences distinct from other live popular entertainments during their height of popularity (late 1910s–40s). In 1914, the Follies charged $5.00 for an opening night ticket ($106.22 in 2008 dollars); at that time, many cinema houses charged from $0.10 to 0.25, while low-priced vaudeville seats could be had for $0.15. Among the many popular producers of revues, Florenz Ziegfeld played the greatest role in developing the classical revue through his glorification of a new theatrical "type," "the American girl." Famed for his often bizarre publicity schemes and continual debt, Ziegfeld joined Earl Carroll
Earl Carroll
Earl Carroll was an American theatrical producer, director, songwriter and composer born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.-Career:...
, , and the Shubert Brothers
Shubert family
The Shubert family of New York City, New York was responsible for the establishment of the Broadway district, in New York City, as the hub of the theatre industry in the United States...
as the leading producing figure of the American revue's golden age.
Revues took advantage of their high revenue stream to lure away performers from other media, often offering exorbitant weekly salaries without the unremitting travel demanded by other entertainments. Performers such as Eddie Cantor
Eddie Cantor
Eddie Cantor was an American "illustrated song" performer, comedian, dancer, singer, actor and songwriter...
, Anna Held
Anna Held
Helene Anna Held was a Polish-born stage performer, most often associated with impresario Florenz Ziegfeld, her common-law husband. -Early life:...
, W. C. Fields
W. C. Fields
William Claude Dukenfield , better known as W. C. Fields, was an American comedian, actor, juggler and writer...
, Bert Williams
Bert Williams
Egbert Austin "Bert" Williams was one of the preeminent entertainers of the Vaudeville era and one of the most popular comedians for all audiences of his time. He was by far the best-selling black recording artist before 1920...
, and the Fairbanks Twins found great success on the revue stage. One of Cole Porter
Cole Porter
Cole Albert Porter was an American composer and songwriter. Born to a wealthy family in Indiana, he defied the wishes of his domineering grandfather and took up music as a profession. Classically trained, he was drawn towards musical theatre...
's early shows was Raymond Hitchcock
Raymond Hitchcock (actor)
Raymond Hitchcock was a silent film actor, stage actor, and stage producer, who appeared in or produced 30 plays on Broadway from 1898 to 1928, and who became famous in silent films of the 1920s.-Biography:...
's revue Hitchy-Koo
Hitchy-Koo
Hitchy-Koo of 1919 is a musical revue with music and lyrics by Cole Porter and the book by George V. Hobart. This revue was third in a series of four Hitchy-Koo revues produced by, and starring, Raymond Hitchcock. The original Broadway production was in 1919...
(1919). Composers or lyricists such as Richard Rodgers
Richard Rodgers
Richard Charles Rodgers was an American composer of music for more than 900 songs and for 43 Broadway musicals. He also composed music for films and television. He is best known for his songwriting partnerships with the lyricists Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II...
, Lorenz Hart
Lorenz Hart
Lorenz "Larry" Milton Hart was the lyricist half of the famed Broadway songwriting team Rodgers and Hart...
, Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin was an American composer and lyricist of Jewish heritage, widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in American history.His first hit song, "Alexander's Ragtime Band", became world famous...
, and George M. Cohan
George M. Cohan
George Michael Cohan , known professionally as George M. Cohan, was a major American entertainer, playwright, composer, lyricist, actor, singer, dancer, and producer....
also enjoyed a tremendous reception on the part of audiences. Sometimes, an appearance in a revue provided a key early entry into entertainment. Largely due to their centralization in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and adroit use of publicity, revues proved particularly adept at introducing new talents to the American theatre. Rodgers and Hart
Rodgers and Hart
Rodgers and Hart were an American songwriting partnership of composer Richard Rodgers and the lyricist Lorenz Hart...
, one of the great composer/lyricist teams of the American musical theatre
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
, followed up their early Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
student revues with the successful Garrick Gaieties (1925). Comedian Fanny Brice
Fanny Brice
Fanny Brice was a popular and influential American illustrated song "model," comedienne, singer, theatre and film actress, who made many stage, radio and film appearances and is known as the creator and star of the top-rated radio comedy series, The Baby Snooks Show...
, following a brief period in burlesque
American burlesque
American Burlesque is a genre of variety show. Derived from elements of Victorian burlesque, music hall and minstrel shows, burlesque shows in America became popular in the 1860s and evolved to feature ribald comedy and female striptease...
and amateur variety, bowed to revue audiences in Ziegfeld's Follies of 1910. Specialist writers and composers of revues have included Sandy Wilson
Sandy Wilson
Sandy Wilson is an English composer and lyricist, best known for his musical The Boy Friend .-Biography:Wilson was born Alexander Galbraith Wilson in Sale, Greater Manchester, and was educated at Harrow School and Oriel College, Oxford. During the war he served in the Royal Ordnance Corps in Great...
, Noël Coward
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
, John Stromberg, George Gershwin
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
, Earl Carroll, and the British team, Flanders and Swann
Flanders and Swann
The British duo Flanders and Swann were the actor and singer Michael Flanders and the composer, pianist and linguist Donald Swann , who collaborated in writing and performing comic songs....
.
Film revues
With the introduction of talking pictures, in 1927, studios immediately began filming acts from the stage. Such film shorts gradually replaced the live entertainment that had often accompanied cinema exhibition. By 1928, studios began planning to film feature length versions of popular musicals and revues from the stage. The lavish films, noted by many for a sustained opulence unrivaled in Hollywood until the 1950s epics, reached a breadth of audience never found by the stage revue, all while significantly underpricing the now-faltering theatrical shows. A number of revues were released by the studios, many of which were filmed entirely (or partly) in color. The most notable examples of these are: The Show of ShowsThe Show of Shows (film)
The Show of Shows is a lavish all talking Vitaphone musical revue film which cost $850,000 to make. The Show of Shows was Warner Bros. fifth color movie, the first four were The Desert Song , On With the Show , Gold Diggers of Broadway and Paris . This movie featured most of the contemporary...
(Warner Brothers
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
, 1929), The Hollywood Revue of 1929
The Hollywood Revue of 1929
The Hollywood Revue of 1929 is a 1929 part Technicolor Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer American musical-comedy film. It was the studio's second feature-length musical, and one of the earliest ventures into the talkie format. Produced by Harry Rapf and directed by Chuck Riesner, the film brought together some...
(Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
, 1929), Fox Movietone Follies of 1929
Fox Movietone Follies of 1929
Fox Movietone Follies of 1929 was a black-and-white and color American musical film released by Fox Film Corporation.-Preservation status:...
(Fox Film Corporation
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
, 1929), Paramount on Parade
Paramount on Parade
Paramount on Parade is a all-star revue released by Paramount Pictures, directed by several directors including Edmund Goulding, Dorothy Arzner, Ernst Lubitsch, Rowland V. Lee, A. Edward Sutherland, Victor Heerman, Lothar Mendes, Otto Brower, Edwin H...
(Paramount
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
, 1930), New Movietone Follies of 1930
New Movietone Follies of 1930
New Movietone Follies of 1930 is a 1930 American musical film released by Fox Film Corporation, directed by Benjamin Stoloff. The film stars El Brendel and Marjorie White who also costarred in Fox's Just Imagine in 1930....
(Fox, 1930) and King of Jazz
King of Jazz
King of Jazz is a 1930 motion picture starring Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra. The film's title was taken from Whiteman's controversial, self-conferred appellation...
(Universal
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
, 1930). Even Britain jumped on the bandwagon and produced an expensive revues such as Harmony Heaven (British International Pictures
Associated British Picture Corporation
Associated British Picture Corporation , originally British International Pictures , was a British film production, distribution and exhibition company active from 1927 until 1970...
, 1929), Elstree Calling
Elstree Calling
Elstree Calling is a film directed by Andre Charlot, Jack Hulbert, Paul Murray, and Alfred Hitchcock at Elstree Studios. The film, referred to as "A Cine-Radio Revue" in its original publicity, is a lavish musical film revue and was Britain's answer to the Hollywood revues which had been produced...
(BIP, 1930) and The Musical Revue Of 1959 (BIP,1960)
Contemporary revues
Revues are often common today as studentStudent
A student is a learner, or someone who attends an educational institution. In some nations, the English term is reserved for those who attend university, while a schoolchild under the age of eighteen is called a pupil in English...
entertainment (such as The University of Canterbury Law Revue, University of Otago Capping Show
Capping Show
The Capping Show is the name given to the University of Otago student revue. This is a comedy revue full of offensive and entertaining skits. In previous years, there has been a main story line which has weaved through it little skits, bad puns and musical numbers...
, Cambridge Footlights
Footlights
Cambridge University Footlights Dramatic Club, commonly referred to simply as the Footlights, is an amateur theatrical club in Cambridge, England, founded in 1883 and run by the students of Cambridge University....
, Durham Revue, The Leeds Tealights, The Oxford Revue
The Oxford Revue
The Oxford Revue is a comedy group featuring students from Oxford University, England. Founded in the early 1950s, The Oxford Revue has produced many prominent comedians and satirists. The Revue writes, produces and performs several shows each term...
, St George's Medics Revue, Sheffield Medics Revue, The Edinburgh Revue, Bristol Revunions, The Wrekin Revue, Medleys
Medleys, University of Melbourne Medical Revue
Medleys is an annual comedy revue, performed at the Union House Theatre and written by a group of medical students from the University of Melbourne. The Union House Theatre is the premiere theatre of the Union House building of the university's Parkville campus. The Med Revue has been running since...
, University of Sydney Revues
University of Sydney Revues
The University of Sydney plays host to numerous comedy revues each year. Each revue features comedy sketches, songs and videos written and performed by students, usually commenting satirically on current affairs, the supporting faculty and general student life.The revues are produced and sponsored...
, The Australian National University Law and Arts Revues, University of New South Wales Revues
University of New South Wales Revues
Students produce a number of comedy revues at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia each year. Written and performed by students, the shows comment satirically on current affairs, pop culture, dating and university life. They feature song parodies, short sketches, video segments...
, The Ashbourne College Revue, Rave Revue and the University of Queensland
University of Queensland
The University of Queensland, also known as UQ, is a public university located in state of Queensland, Australia. Founded in 1909, it is the oldest and largest university in Queensland and the fifth oldest in the nation...
Law and Med Revues). These use pastiche, in which contemporary songs are re-written in order to comment on the college or courses in a humorous nature. While most comic songs
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
will only be heard within the revue they were written for, sometimes they become more widely known, such as A Transport of Delight about the big red London bus by Flanders and Swann
Flanders and Swann
The British duo Flanders and Swann were the actor and singer Michael Flanders and the composer, pianist and linguist Donald Swann , who collaborated in writing and performing comic songs....
, who first made their name in a revue titled At the Drop of a Hat.
The Rolling Thunder Revue was a famed U.S. concert tour in the mid-1970s consisting of a traveling caravan of musicians, headed by Bob Dylan, that took place in late 1975 and early 1976, and was named after the Native American Shaman, Rolling Thunder.
Towards the end of the 20th century, a sub-genre of revue largely dispensed with the sketches, founding narrative structure within a song cycle in which the material is culled from varied works. This type of revue may or may not have identifiable characters and a rudimentary story line but, even when it does, the songs remain the focus of the show (for example, Closer Than Ever
Closer Than Ever
Closer Than Ever is a musical revue in two acts, with words by Richard Maltby, Jr. and music by David Shire. The revue contains no dialogue, and Maltby and Shire have described this show as a "bookless book musical"...
by Richard Maltby, Jr.
Richard Maltby, Jr.
Richard Eldridge Maltby, Jr. is an American theatre director and producer, lyricist, and screenwriter. He is also well known as a constructor of cryptic crossword puzzles. He has done this for Harper's Magazine, sometimes in collaboration with E. R...
and David Shire
David Shire
David Lee Shire is an American songwriter and the composer of stage musicals, film and television scores. The soundtrack to the movie The Taking of Pelham 123 and parts of the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack such as Night on Disco Mountain, an adaptation of Modest Mussorgsky's Night on Bald...
). This type of revue usually showcases songs written by a particular composer or songs made famous by a particular performer. Examples of the former are Side By Side By Sondheim
Side By Side By Sondheim
Side by Side by Sondheim is a musical revue featuring the songs of Broadway and film composer Stephen Sondheim. Its title is derived from the song "Side by Side by Side" from Company.-History:...
(music/lyrics Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award...
), Eubie! (Eubie Blake
Eubie Blake
James Hubert Blake was an American composer, lyricist, and pianist of ragtime, jazz, and popular music. In 1921, Blake and long-time collaborator Noble Sissle wrote the Broadway musical Shuffle Along, one of the first Broadway musicals to be written and directed by African Americans...
) Tom Foolery
Tom Foolery
Tom Foolery is a musical revue based on lyrics and music that Tom Lehrer first performed in the 1950s and 1960s.Devised and produced by Cameron Mackintosh, it premiered in London at the Criterion Theatre, directed by Gillian Lynne, on 5 June 1980, where it had a successful run...
(Tom Lehrer
Tom Lehrer
Thomas Andrew "Tom" Lehrer is an American singer-songwriter, satirist, pianist, mathematician and polymath. He has lectured on mathematics and musical theater...
), and Five Guys Named Moe
Five Guys Named Moe
Five Guys Named Moe is a musical with a book by Clarke Peters and lyrics and music by Louis Jordan and others. The musical originated in the UK in 1990 at Theatre Royal Stratford East, running for over four years in the West End, and then premiering on Broadway in 1992...
(songs made popular by Louis Jordan
Louis Jordan
Louis Thomas Jordan was a pioneering American jazz, blues and rhythm & blues musician, songwriter and bandleader who enjoyed his greatest popularity from the late 1930s to the early 1950s. Known as "The King of the Jukebox", Jordan was highly popular with both black and white audiences in the...
). The eponymous nature of these later revues suggest a continued embrace of a unifying authorial presence in this seemingly scattershot genre, much as was earlier the case with Ziegfeld, Carrol, et al.
Medics' revues
It is a current and fairly longstanding tradition of medical and veterinary schools within the UK and Australia to put on revues each year, combining comedy sketches, songs, parodies, films and sound-bites.Each year, the revue casts of each of the 5 medical schools of the United Hospitals
United Hospitals
United Hospitals is the historical collective name of the medical schools of London. They are all part of the University of London with the exception of Imperial College School of Medicine which left in 2007. The original United Hospitals referred to Guy's Hospital and St Thomas's Hospital and...
compete in the competition known as the UH Revue in an attempt to win The Moira Stuart
Moira Stuart
Moira Clare Ruby Stuart OBE is a British journalist who was the first African-Caribbean female newsreader on British television...
Cup. It has been won by all medical schools except Barts, with St George's knocking up the most victories, winning the trophy 4 times. As well as performing at their respective universities, shows will often be performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The Cambridge Medics Revue, St George's Medics Revue, and Birmingham Medics Revues all performed at the 2008 Fringe Festival.
The Cambridge clinical school also now run a competing revue to the undergraduates, called variably Revue and Integration or Revue and Imitation.