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43-456: A showgirl is a female performer in a theatrical revue who wears an exotic and revealing costume and in some shows may appear topless . Showgirls are usually dancers, sometimes performing as chorus girls , burlesque dancers or fan dancers , and many are classically trained with skills in ballet . The term showgirl usage is also sometimes extended by strippers and some strip clubs to use it as part of their business name. The French view

86-557: A competing revue to the undergraduates, called variably Revue and Integration or Revue and Imitation. The Moira Stuart Cup is competed for annually at the United Hospitals Comedy Revue, by all five of the University of London Medical Schools . It has been won by all medical schools at least once, with RUMS (UCL Medical School) and St George's Hospital Medical School achieving the most victories, winning

129-652: A continued embrace of a unifying authorial presence in this seemingly scattershot genre, much as was earlier the case with Ziegfeld, Carrol, et al . With different artistic emphases, the revue genre is today above all upheld at traditional variety theatres such as the Le Lido , Moulin Rouge and Friedrichstadt-Palast Berlin, as well as in shows in Las Vegas. It is a current and fairly longstanding tradition of medical, dental, engineering, legal and veterinary schools within

172-405: A joke about impregnating his wife "right through the old midnight trampoline" (her diaphragm ) and other sexual references. Some comedians build their careers on blue comedy. Among the best known of these are Redd Foxx , Lawanda Page , and the team of Leroy and Skillet, all of whom later performed on the family-friendly television show Sanford and Son . Page, Leroy, and Skillet specialised in

215-410: A master of ribaldry (technically called grotesque body ) in his Gargantua and other works. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne and The Lady's Dressing Room by Jonathan Swift are also in this genre; as is Mark Twain 's long-suppressed 1601 . Another example of ribaldry is " De Brevitate Vitae ", a song which in many European -influenced universities

258-477: A particular African American form of blue spoken word recitation called signifying or toasting . Dave Attell has also been described by his peers as one of the greatest modern-day blue comics. On talk radio in the United States and elsewhere, blue comedy is a staple of the shock jock 's repertoire. The use of blue comedy over American radio airwaves is severely restricted due to decency regulations;

301-445: A show with Danny Thomas . Initially opening and closing for headline acts , sometimes dancing around the headliner, showgirls later moved on to being the main attraction and stars of the show. During the 1950s and 1960s showgirls performed in every hotel and casino on the Las Vegas strip. Competition between casinos led to increasingly lavish shows and costumes. Major shows of the late 1950s included Donn Arden 's Lido de Paris show at

344-412: A traveling caravan of musicians, headed by Bob Dylan , that took place in late 1975 and early 1976. Towards the end of the 20th century, a subgenre 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 storyline but, even when it does,

387-587: 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. Revues enjoyed great success on Broadway from the World War I 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

430-420: Is a humorous song that emphasises sexual themes and is often rich with innuendo . Historically these songs tend to be confined to groups of young males, either as students or in an environment where alcohol is flowing freely. An early collection was Wit and Mirth, or Pills to Purge Melancholy , edited by Thomas D'Urfey and published between 1698 and 1720. Selected songs from Wit and Mirth have been recorded by

473-416: Is a usual counterpart of ribaldry underlies its controversial nature and explains why ribaldry is sometimes a subject of censorship . Ribaldry, whose usual aim is not "merely" to be sexually stimulating, often does address larger concerns than mere sexual appetite. However, being presented in the form of comedy, these larger concerns may be overlooked by censors. Sex is presented in ribald material more for

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516-463: Is both a student beer-drinking song and an anthem sung by official university choirs at public graduation ceremonies. The private and public versions of the song contain vastly different words. More recent works like Candy , Barbarella , L'Infermiera , the comedic works of Russ Meyer , Little Annie Fanny and John Barth 's The Sot-Weed Factor are probably better classified as ribaldry than as either pornography or erotica. A bawdy song

559-411: Is humorous entertainment that ranges from bordering on indelicacy to indecency . Blue comedy is also referred to as "bawdiness" or being "bawdy". Like any humour, ribaldry may be read as conventional or subversive . Ribaldry typically depends on a shared background of sexual conventions and values, and its comedy generally depends on seeing those conventions broken. The ritual taboo -breaking that

602-528: Is not so, as the Oxford English Dictionary contains earlier references to the use of blue to mean ribald: 1890 Sporting Times 25 Jan. 1/1 "Shifter wondered whether the damsel knew any novel blue stories." and 1900 Bulletin (Sydney) 20 Oct. 12/4 "Let someone propose to celebrate Chaucer by publicly reading some of his bluest productions unexpurgated. The reader would probably be locked up." Private events at show business clubs such as

645-515: Is present to some degree in every culture and has likely been around for all of human history. Works like Lysistrata by Aristophanes , Menaechmi by Plautus , Cena Trimalchionis by Petronius , and The Golden Ass of Apuleius are ribald classics from ancient Greece and Rome . Geoffrey Chaucer 's " The Miller's Tale " from his Canterbury Tales and The Crabfish , one of the oldest English traditional ballads, are classic examples. The Frenchman François Rabelais showed himself to be

688-619: Is the vedette , such as Mistinguett , with a greater range of performing skills and stage time. A popular showgirl dance was the can-can . Venue locations include: Boulevard de Clichy . The Bluebell Girls, a dance troupe created by the Irish dancer Margaret Kelly in 1932, performed at the Folies Bergère and Le Lido. By the 1950s there were permanent troupes of Bluebell Girls in Paris and Las Vegas and touring troupes that travelled around

731-571: The Cabaret des Quat'z'Arts , Lapin Agile , Le Carrousel de Paris , Chez Moune , Concert Mayol , Crazy Horse , Don Camilo , Cabaret du Ciel , Cabaret du Néant , Le Chat Noir , Cabaret de L'Enfer , Le Bœuf sur le toit , Paradis Latin , Bal Tabarin , Moulin Rouge , Le Lido , and the Folies Bergère which first featured a nude showgirl in 1918. The starring showgirl, often a headliner,

774-478: The City Waites and other singers. Sailor's songs tend to be quite frank about the exploitative nature of the relationship between men and women. There are many examples of folk songs in which a man encounters a woman in the countryside. This is followed by a short conversation, and then sexual intercourse, e.g. "The Game of All Fours". Neither side demonstrates any shame or regret. If the woman becomes pregnant,

817-497: The Federal Communications Commission can levy fines against radio stations that air obscene content. As a part of English literature, blue literature dates back to at least Middle English , while bawdy humor is a central element in works of such writers as Shakespeare and Chaucer . Examples of blue literature are also present in various cultures, among different social classes, and genders. Until

860-634: The Masquers often showed this blue side of otherwise clean-cut comedians; a recording survives of one Masquers roast from the 1950s with Jack Benny , George Jessel , George Burns , and Art Linkletter all using highly risqué material and obscenities. Many comedians who are normally family-friendly might choose to work blue when off-camera or in an adult-oriented environment; Bob Saget exemplified this dichotomy . Bill Cosby 's 1969 record album 8:15 12:15 records both his family-friendly evening standup comedy show, and his blue midnight show, which included

903-681: The Stardust , Jack Entratter ’s Copa Girls at the Sands Hotel , and Harold Minsky ’s Follies at the Desert Inn . Minsky introduced topless showgirls and these were then incorporated into The Lido de Paris , a show that ran for 31 years. The popularity of showgirl shows in Las Vegas slowly declined after the 1960s, with all of the major shows closing by the early 21st century. Films Stage TV Cartoons Revue Owing to high ticket prices, ribald publicity campaigns and

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946-561: The 1930s and 1940s, with films such as "Frau meiner Träume" being made. 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 , Ed Wynn , the Marx Brothers and the Fairbanks Twins found great success on

989-494: 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–1940s). In 1914, the Follies charged $ 5.00 for an opening night ticket ($ 130 in 2020 dollars); at that time, many cinema houses charged from $ 0.10 to 0.25, while low-priced vaudeville seats were $ 0.15. Among the many popular producers of revues, Florenz Ziegfeld played

1032-623: 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

1075-615: The British team Flanders and Swann . In Britain predominantly, Tom Arnold also specialized in promoting series of revues and his acts extended to the European continent and South Africa. 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

1118-647: The Festival, with St. George's Medics Revue having been performing annually at the Fringe for 18 years and have sold-out their show for the last nine years. The BSMS Medic Revue has performed sellout shows in the Brighton Fringe Festival since 2008. The MDs Comedy Revue performed at the Fringe for the first time in 2015, to a sell-out audience, repeating this feat their second show in 2016 and their third in 2018. The Cambridge clinical school also now run

1161-670: The UK, Canada, New Zealand and Australia to put on revues each year, combining comedy sketches, songs, parodies, films and sound-bites. One of the most notable and funniest is the Australian National University's "Arts Revue". 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 have all performed at

1204-464: The act of using swear words and discussing things that people would not discuss in "polite society". A "blue comedian" or "blue comic" is a comedian who usually performs risqué routines layered with curse words. There is a common belief that comedian Max Miller (1894–1963) coined the phrase, after his stage act which involved telling jokes from either a white book or a blue book, chosen by audience preference (the blue book contained ribald jokes). This

1247-443: The bandwagon and produced expensive revues such as Harmony Heaven ( British International Pictures , 1929), Elstree Calling (BIP, 1930), and The Musical Revue Of 1959 (BI P, 1960). Revues are often common today as student entertainment (with strong traditions in many universities in UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Norway and Denmark). These use pastiche , in which contemporary songs are re-written in order to comment on

1290-469: 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

1333-525: 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 , George White , John Murray Anderson , and the Shubert Brothers as the leading producing figure of the American revue's golden age. Revues also had a presence in Germany during

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1376-401: The man will not be there anyway. Rugby songs are often bawdy. Examples of bawdy folk songs are: " Seventeen Come Sunday " and " The Ballad of Eskimo Nell ". Robert Burns compiled The Merry Muses of Caledonia (the title is not Burns's), a collection of bawdy lyrics that were popular in the music halls of Scotland as late as the 20th century. In modern times Hash House Harriers have taken on

1419-416: The occasional use of prurient material, the revue was typically patronized by audience members who earned more and felt even less restricted by middle-class social norms 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

1462-524: The purpose of poking fun at the foibles and weaknesses that manifest themselves in human sexuality , rather than to present sexual stimulation either overtly or artistically. Also, ribaldry may use sex as a metaphor to illustrate some non-sexual concern, in which case ribaldry borders satire . Ribaldry differs from black comedy in that the latter deals with topics that would normally be considered painful or frightening , whereas ribaldry deals with topics that would only be considered offensive. Ribaldry

1505-570: The revue stage. One of Cole Porter 's early shows was Raymond Hitchcock 's revue Hitchy-Koo of 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 their adroit use of publicity, revues proved particularly adept at introducing new talents to

1548-421: The role of tradition-bearers for this kind of song. The Unexpurgated Folk Songs of Men (Arhoolie 4006) is a gramophone record containing a collection of American bawdy songs recorded in 1959. Blue comedy is comedy that is off-colour , risqué , indecent , or profane , largely about sex. It often contains profanity or sexual imagery that may shock and offend some audience members. "Working blue" refers to

1591-508: 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

1634-785: 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 Shows ( 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

1677-535: The term as an American idiomatic expression . In eighteenth century England the term showgirl meant a young woman who acted in a showy way to attract male attention, but by the mid-nineteenth century the term had come to mean a singer and dancer in music hall acts. Showgirls, as now presented, date from the late nineteenth century ( Belle Époque ) in Parisian music halls , café-concerts such as Alcazar , Alcazar d'Été , Divan Japonais and cabarets such as

1720-590: The term was proprietary to Ziegfeld until his death in 1932. Other popular proprietary revue names included George White's "Scandals," Earl Carroll 's "Vanities" and John Murray Anderson 's Greenwich Village Follies . Revues are most properly understood as having amalgamated several theatrical traditions within the corpus of a single entertainment. Minstrelsy 's olio section provided a structural map of popular variety presentation, while literary travesties highlighted an audience hunger for satire. Theatrical extravaganzas , in particular, moving panoramas, demonstrated

1763-464: The trophy six times each. The cup is not officially endorsed by Moira Stuart herself. a. In 2019, the judges ironically declared Imperial College School of Medicine the winners, because they could not decide which of The MDs Comedy Revue or The Zebraphiles were the funnier. b. The 2002 UH Revue was a showcase of each Medical School's Revue societies, with the competition element brought in from 2003. ribald Ribaldry or blue comedy

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1806-598: The world. The Ziegfeld Follies revue on Broadway introduced showgirls to the United States in 1907, and Busby Berkeley included them in his Hollywood films in the 1930s. The first casino on the Las Vegas Strip to employ dancing girls as a diversion between acts was the El Rancho Vegas in 1941. Showgirls with expensive costumes were presented in Las Vegas in 1952 at the Sands Casino for

1849-503: Was found in the frank display of the female body. Revue comes from the French word for "review," as in a "show presenting a review of current events." George 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 Jr. popularized the French spelling. "Follies" is now sometimes (incorrectly) employed as an analog for "revue," though

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