Denmark - Culture

Denmark - Culture - Revue

Denmark
4. Culture
4.9 Revue

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On New Year's Eve 1849, Erik Bøgh presented the first Danish revue in the Casino Theatre in Copenhagen. It consisted of a series of independent numbers loosely connected by a character going through them all. This kind of relaxed entertainment appealed in particular to the middle classes. Gradually, the frame story disappeared, leaving only the individual numbers, which needed no connection with each other.

1873 saw the start of the summer revues. The travelling companies saw the potential of this genre, and there was soon a summer revue in any self-respecting city. At the same time the first revue stars made their appearance; in the 1890s Frederik Jensen was the great draw at the Nørrebro Theatre. The revues became ever more sumptuous, culminating in the Scala revues from 1912-30 under the direction of Frede Skaarup; it was here that Liva Weel made her great breakthrough. However, the contents were drowned by the décor. The tendency was for the revue texts uncritically to base themselves on the established order by ridiculing anything that varied from the norm.

The reaction came in the middle of the 1920s with Ludvig Brandstrup's Co-Optimists, an intimate kind of revue which with little in the way of props once more put the word at the centre of things. However, these revues did not have any great satirical impact; that, on the other hand, was the prerogative of the PH revues which from 1929 to the end of the 1930s, under the leadership of the architect and author Poul Henningsen, used the revue as a weapon in the cultural debate of the day. The revue was to be about real people, so attitudes as well as actions were reintroduced. However, it continued to be the broad, politically neutral revues that dominated. Stars like Osvald Helmuth sang the great song of the performance, and many revue songs have become evergreens over the years.

During the German occupation (1940-45) the revue showed itself able to play on the unsaid as a subtle contribution to the resistance struggle. In the 1950s Stig Lommer introduced a more crazy approach in his ABC revues, with the two comedians Kellerdirk, i.e. Kjeld Petersen and Dirch Passer, in the lead. From 1961 the critical, satirical revue experienced a revival, first on the student stage with Erik Knudsen and Finn Savery's Frihed - det bedste guld (Freedom - the best gold), and later also in the Fiolteater and in Dronningmølle with contributions by, among others, Jesper Jensen, Klaus Rifbjerg and Johannes Møllehave.

In the 1960s, radio and television began putting on revue programmes, which meant that many of the obvious themes had been used up before the summer performances could be staged. Consequently, a large number of revues moved in the direction of a greater musical content and a particularly humorous way of looking at life, e.g. with Jesper Klein and his group, Klyderne in the second half of the 1970s, or as in the Hjørring revues which - during the time Per Pallesen was their director (1979-97) - went from strength to strength with a great sense of style and a break-neck tempo.

Erik Hvidt

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