january 4, 1918
Fun for fighting men
The Christmas-New Year week has seen a regular epidemic of “shows” up and down the line — not the raids, attacks or fights which the line frivolously terms “a show”, but all kinds of theatrical, concert, and such like performances. For most of the year such shows are a standing feature in local halls, barns, school, huts, or other buildings converted to a theatre. Some of the divisions have Pierrot and concert troupes which have worthily acquired fame, and the men of surrounding divisions crowd to these favourites when the “Follies”, or “Frivolities” or “Duds” or “Dandies” or “Blighty Boys” are due to appear. But during Christmas week every division and brigade and unit blossomed forth in some sort of concert or performance. Local inhabitants behind the lines were canvassed for properties and “civvy” clothes, and where there were no locals the regimental tailor was pressed into service.
The show I went to was in a large building in a town which has been subjected to periodical shellings and air-bombing. The possibility that at any moment the performance might be interrupted by a high-explosive shell did not appear to disturb the khaki audience. The rumble of guns continued during the performance, and every now and then the “thud” and “woof” of a “heavy” interjected into the clowning of the corner man and his partner.
The “turns” were on just the same lines as in a music-hall at home. There was the usual couple — a man in a fantastic, trampish costume and with a brilliantly red nose, and another in fashionable “knuttish” attire, indicated by a stand-up white collar and a relic of a silk hat. The Pierrots consisted of half a dozen men and one boy-girl. He-she was dressed in girl’s clothes, and wore long gloves and incredibly small high-heeled shoes. The hair looked a trifle wiggish, but I confess that if I had not been warned he-she was a soldier, I should have accepted him-her at face value as a rather strapping girl. The songs were calculated to suit all tastes — comic, popular-tune favourites, horribly sentimental, rag-time, and patriotic. The latter were rather coldly received unless they had a very swinging tune. Apparently the men who are ready to fight and die for their country do not like to have it so remarked in music.
The “turns” were on just the same lines as in a music-hall at home. There was the usual couple — a man in a fantastic, trampish costume and with a brilliantly red nose, and another in fashionable “knuttish” attire, indicated by a stand-up white collar and a relic of a silk hat. The Pierrots consisted of half a dozen men and one boy-girl. He-she was dressed in girl’s clothes, and wore long gloves and incredibly small high-heeled shoes. The hair looked a trifle wiggish, but I confess that if I had not been warned he-she was a soldier, I should have accepted him-her at face value as a rather strapping girl. The songs were calculated to suit all tastes — comic, popular-tune favourites, horribly sentimental, rag-time, and patriotic. The latter were rather coldly received unless they had a very swinging tune. Apparently the men who are ready to fight and die for their country do not like to have it so remarked in music.
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