Programme cover for the Capping Carnival Revue from 1931, which was entitled Bitzer.
Revue
20 November 2023
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Another aspect of College life in which the community shared was the plays and revues produced by students. The first theatrical production staged to celebrate Diploma Day was put on by the College’s Dialectic Society in 1884. The production was ‘She Stoops to Conquer’, and was performed at Wainoni, the house owned by Professor Bickerton. The players attacked their task with enthusiasm, but were somewhat limited by their costumes, which had been borrowed from the Sunnyside Lunatic Asylum.
In 1908, with the talents of Maurice Martin, the public performances took the form of male-only burlesques written and performed by students. Such was the success of shows like ‘The Aftermath’ and ‘His Infinite Variety’ that the students were frequently able to play to a full house in the Kings Theatre.
Perhaps emboldened by this success, female students were invited to take part in the burlesques after 1913. In the 1920s the productions turned from burlesques to revues with succinct names such as ‘Crash’ (1920) ‘Gosh’ (1922) and ‘Jubilations’ (1923). Production was taken over by A.W. Brown, who favoured the Ziegfield tradition, and a cast of 40 girls for some songs was not uncommon.
Programme cover for the Capping Carnival Revue from 1931, which was entitled Bitzer.
O.T.J Alpers described the revues in 1923: “The acting is bright, vivid and – the word seems appropriate – full of ‘pep’. Success too justifies this form of entertainment, and the public flock to it in their hundreds. One wonders if these clever young men could not do something more worth while, something with more literary quality – more permanence. But youth will be served and – perhaps – one becomes groovy”.
The ladies of Helles Belles on stage in the Little Theatre, 1943. This is a scene from Act II, a meeting of the Anti-Vice league, taken from the Margaret Wigley photograph album.
