Tag Archives: Jazz Age cabaret

Personalities

Jenny Steiner

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Jenny Steiner
 
Jenny Steiner was one of the most exotic and glamorous stars of Jazz Age Berlin. Largely a dancer, she was also a model, a singer and an accomplished impersonator. Well known as one of Rudolf Nelson’s leading stars, her legacy has survived in numerous images and yet her importance has been somewhat marginalised. She was partner to several dancers but the most prominent association was with the somewhat mysterious Ipsen Andre who was most likely a pseudonym for the famous dress  designer Joe Strassner whom she married in 1932. 
 

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Cabaret, Dolly Tree

Midnight Follies First Edition 1921

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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.’

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Cabaret

The Cabaret Follies

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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.

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Venues

The Queen’s Hall Roof

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The Queen’s Hall Roof

One of the more short-lived but nevertheless important dancing and cabaret venues in London in the Jazz Age was that of the Queen’s Hall Roof. As its name implied, it was in the roof of the magnificent Queen’s Hall in Langham Place, Regent Street, one of London’s landmarks. Designed by Thomas Knightley, the Queen’s Hall was London’s premier concert hall that opened in 1893 catering for an audience of 2,500.

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Venues

Hotel Metropole, London

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Hotel Metropole

The Hotel Metropole that opened in 1885 became one of London’s major hotels but after World War 1 it flowered with new vigour. The Restaurant des Ambassadeurs, the Café Anglais and the Whitehall rooms blossomed through the 1920s and the famous Midnight Follies cabaret created a brighter London.

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Cabaret

New Princes Frivolities First and Second Editions

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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.

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Dancing Duos

The dancers Ernest and Yvonne

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The Dancers Ernest and Yvonne

One of the most popular and prestigious ballroom dancing acts in Germany in the Jazz Age of the 1920s and 1930s was that of Ernest and Yvonne who seemingly emerged out of nowhere in about 1925 and danced not just in Germany but also France, Holland, England and other parts of Europe.

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