Main Cast
Tommy Handley
The Host
Teddy Brown
Himself
Donald Calthrop
Himself / Petruchio in Taming of the Shrew
Jack Hulbert
Himself
Helen Burnell
Herself
The Three Eddies
Themselves
Lily Morris
Herself
Will Fyffe
Himself
Cicely Courtneidge
Herself
John Longden
Himself
User Reviews
CinemaSerf
A distinctly off-form Tommy Handley introduces this rather curious piece of cinematic entertainment that features a variety of stars from the British stage at the end of the 1920s. The mixture of musical, comedy and magical turns illustrates well just quite how a real pot-pourri of acts took to the stage in theatres up and down the UK - but there is no audience. Without the engagement, even applause, from those watching the whole thing comes across as a rather sterile collection of concert performances, as if filmed in an empty television studio. It has a couple of rather tenuous continuing threads that try to hold it together - one features a fellow with an elementary television trying, unsuccessfully usually, to catch some of the performance on his set. The other, has a more contrived Shakesperian theme to it that coupled with a lot of Handley's equally over-cooked links make this all rather a disjointed, and frankly rather staccato film to watch. As a curiosity, it is certainly worth a watch - but mainly just as a bit of nostalgia.
