Variety past - and present brilliance

The tensest five minutes of my life came at the end of a Cultural eXchanges workshop’s on Variety Performance. The workshop was interspersed with the serious consideration of the decline of Variety performances and clips and acts designed to show us how and why Variety is such a brilliant form of entertainment. Generations of performers shared their memories of Variety both onstage and offstage – making this a thoroughly entertaining evening.

The tense entertainment came in the form of plate-spinning – a skill I had before thought of as neither entertaining nor productive. However, after a brief ten minute performance it was impossible not to notice how such a simple act had united generations within the room until unanimous screams alerted our Variety performer, Andrew Van Buren, to the seemingly imminent demise of his spinning plates.


Jessica Hodges

Magic, memories - not to mention free wine

The night started with free wine and canapés, a sure way to win the heart of any student. After half an hour or so of casual dining and conversation we were ushered into the auditorium for the event proper to commence.

It began with a gentleman reading from his father’s journal, which chronicled his time working in the theatre. So began a remarkable series of personal and deeply-involving tales of a bygone era, interspersed with live performances.

Things took a turn for the surreal though when several clips of variety performances were played. As the film showed a man and his assistant playing xylophone and drums with great enthusiasm, the gentleman two rows in front was tapping his fingers perfectly in time to the music, catching every jaunt and flourish. Then when the compere announced that some of those very performers would talk to us, the finger-tapper was among the small group who made their way to front.

There was an immediate sense of family and connection bewteen all these people had. The man drumming along was the father of the man who had escaped a strait jacket not half an hour before. And when a gentleman stood in the audience and mentioned his father by name, all those on stage recognized that name. The people on stage talked not only to the audience, but amongst themselves, reminiscing of days gone past, and acts and people they knew. Somehow, through all this, they made me feel a part of something that happened fifty years before I was born.

Pictured above Andrew Van Buren during the closing act of the night (picture taken and published with permission from the subject).

Charles Wilkinson

The children of variety

When we think of ‘variety theatre,’ the terms ‘old-fashioned’ or even ‘dead’ may spring to mind. This is really quite sad. In a world where revolting chat shows and exploitative singing contests pass for entertainment, ‘One Night Only’ was a fun and insightful breath of fresh air.

Sue Barber was the charismatic host of the hour-and-a-half show, talking with humour and fondness about her theatrical upbringing. She is what she terms a ‘child of variety,’ being the fifth generation in a family of performers – she has performed herself in an act with her father – and is now studying for a PhD on the subject of variety theatre at DMU.

Guests included Andrew Van Buren, an illusionist who can do amazing things with plates. Another guest read from the diary of his travelling performer father, providing an amusing insight into the offstage life. One entry mentioned a rat eating through his clothes. Glamorous.

The fuzzy pictures and warped soundtracks of the archive footage did not distract from their entertainment value. They were five ‘home-movie’ style videos depicting acts from comedians to stilt walking (Sue Barber herself and her father were featured in one video).

Arguably, variety theatre doesn’t have its place in Britain anymore. However, with performers like Andrew Van Buren trying to keep it alive, it may one day make a comeback. He is apparently very popular in Dubai…

I also never knew Harry Houdini’s real name was Eric Weiss.


Stephanie-Louise Farrell