Typographic poster advertising the Variety programme at the Lewisham Hippodrome, for the week beginning Monday 29th April 1940. Featuring the floor show Why Go To Paris with Josette from the Bal Tabarin, Paris, and starring the radio stars Elsie & Doris Waters. the Hintoni Brothers, Toni Raglan, Velda & Vann, Chris Gill, Eva May Wong, the Two Sophisticates, the Kit-Kat Lovelies, Hal Moss and the Kit-Kat Swingers, Harold Collins and his orchestra, and Len Childs.

Typographic poster, printed in black and red on cream paper with the name of the venue LEWISHAM HIPPODROME in largest upper case letters at the top of the poster, with the names of the acts in red and black in variously sized rectangles in the main body of the poster.

Given by the Royal Academy of Music

The performers on the bill noted on the poster are Elsie & Doris Waters (Radio's 'Gert and Daisy'); the Hintoni Brothers (Novelty Acrobats); Toni Raglan (Maestro of the Jam Jars); Velda & Vann (Comically Connecting Comedy); The Glamorous Josette (Direct from the Bal Tabarin, Paris); Chris Gill (Formerly Duke Ellington's Vocalist-Dancer), Eva May Wong (China's Personality Girl); the Two Sophisticates; the Kit-Kat Lovelies; Patricia Castle; Hal Moss and the Kit-Kat Swingers; Harold Collins and his orchestra, and Len Childs (The Ace of Funsters).

This poster is part of a collection amassed by Norman McCann (1920-1999). McCann studied at the Royal Academy of Music in the late 1940s and went on to become an impresario and the President of the British Association of Concert Agents. He collected dance material with the intention of establishing the International Dance Museum and compiling a comprehensive Who's Who of Ballet, but his collection included items relating to theatre and variety as well. On his death the collection was bequeathed to the Royal Academy of Music, but it contained material outside the remit of the Royal Academy and was given by the Academy to the V&A Theatre and Performance collection.

This Variety programme features a typical range of performers of the time, including the hugely popular Elsie & Doris Waters, well known on radio for their comedy double act as the nattering housewives Gert and Daisy who talked about anything and everything, especially their husbands Bert and Wally. The sisters Florence Elsie Waters (1893-1990) and Doris Waters (1904-1978) received OBEs in 1946. They appeared in three Gert and Daisy films, two made in 1942 and one in 1944, and a Gert and Daisy television programme in 1959. The entertainer Toni Raglan was a Musical Chef, described in The Radio Times Supplement, 29 January 1937 as: 'recently one of the hits at the Palladium in a Crazy Gang Show. Dressed as a chef he plays tunes on jam jars filled with varying depths of water.'

As well as the individual Variety turns, the evening's entertainment included the floor show Why Go To Paris, a song and dance routine advertised as coming 'direct from the Kit-Kat', the Regent Street restaurant famous for its entertainment. Since this was a 'twice-nightly' programme there were two separate performances each evening, at 6.15pm and 8.30pm, and on Sundays there were feature films.

S.880-2012