Midnight Follies First Edition 1921
The Whitehall Room within the Hotel Metropole became the site of one of the first true cabarets in London that transformed London’s nightlife in the 1920s. On the 2nd November 1921, the ‘Midnight Follies’ was inaugurated at the Metropole with a show that was called a ‘super dansant.’ With glorious costumes designed by Dolly Tree it became an overnight hit with all of smart London flocking to see the show designed to ‘brighten London.’
The Cabaret Follies
When Jack Hylton’s Cabaret Follies show made its debut in London in the autumn of 1922 it was one of four big cabaret shows that made a Brighter London, the others being located at the Grafton Galleries (Midnight Revels), Murray’s Club (Murray’s Frolics) and the Hotel Metropole (the Midnight Follies). At first its status and popularity amongst London’s high society was unassailable, but when Jack Hylton relinquished control at the end of 1923, it floundered and ceased to be by the summer of 1924.
New Princes Frivolities First and Second Edtions
The first cabaret show at the New Princes Restaurant in Piccadilly was staged in February 1924 and became a regular feature of London’s Jazz Age nightlife for many years to come as the New Princes Frivolities.
Continue reading New Princes Frivolities First and Second Editions
Dolly’s Revels
The first cabaret show to be presented by Harry Foster and Major E.O. Leadlay at the Piccadilly Hotel in Piccadilly, London was called Dolly’s Revels. It was staged by Edward Dolly, the brother of the famous Dolly Sisters in February 1924 and had costumes designed by Dolly Tree.
After four successful years (1920-1924) of being one of London’s premier rendezvous for dining and dancing, the décor for the Criterion’s famous Italian Roof Garden was swept away and the room was re-decorated and became a cabaret with a show that was called Carnival Time.
Continue reading Carnival Time, the Cabaret at the Criterion Restaurant, London
The Criterion in Piccadilly Circus, was a large collection of restaurants all housed in one building. It became an iconic rendezvous in London’s nightlife and a favoured haunt of London’s high society in the Jazz Age especially the splendid Italian roof garden that dazzled audiences from 1920-1924.
From the 1910s, into the 1920s and 30s, Black culture in all forms proliferated in Harlem and became known as the Harlem Renaissance. In particular there was a flowering of jazz music, performance and night-clubs in the early part of the 1920s. This trend extended into Manhattan, first with Lew Leslie’s cabaret venue called the Plantation in 1922 and then with the Club Alabam in 1924. At the same time Black artists invaded Montmartre in Paris and established a comparable ‘Harlem in Montmartre.’
