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A revue is a type of multi-act popular theatre entertainment that combines music, dance, and sketch comedy. The revue has its roots in 19th century popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own during its golden years from 1916 to 1932. Though most famous for their visual spectacle, revues frequently satirized contemporary figures, news or literature. Similar to the related subforms of operetta and musical theatre, the revue art form brings together music, dance and sketches to create a compelling show. In contrast to these, however, revue does not have an overarching storyline. Rather, a general theme serves as the motto for a loosely related series of acts that alternate between solo performances and dance ensembles.
Owing to high ticket prices, publicity campaigns and the occasional use of material, the revue was typically patronized by audience members who earned more and felt even less restricted by middle-class social norms than their contemporaries in vaudeville. Like much of that era's popular entertainments, revues often featured material based on sophisticated, irreverent dissections of topical matter, public personae and fads, though the primary attraction was found in the frank display of the female body.
George Lederer's The Passing Show (1894) is usually held to be the first successful American "review." The English spelling was used until 1907 when Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. popularized the French spelling. "Follies" is now sometimes (incorrectly) employed as an analog for "revue," though the term was proprietary to Ziegfeld until his death in 1932. Other popular proprietary revue names included George White's "Scandals," Earl Carroll's "Vanities" and John Murray Anderson's Greenwich Village Follies.
Revues took advantage of their high revenue stream to lure away performers from other media, often offering exorbitant weekly salaries without the unremitting travel demanded by other entertainments. Performers such as Eddie Cantor, Anna Held, W. C. Fields, Bert Williams, Ed Wynn, the Marx Brothers and the Fairbanks Twins found great success on the revue stage. One of Cole Porter's early shows was Raymond Hitchcock's revue Hitchy-Koo of 1919. Composers or lyricists such as Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart, Irving Berlin, and George M. Cohan also enjoyed a tremendous reception on the part of audiences. Sometimes, an appearance in a revue provided a key early entry into entertainment. Largely due to their centralization in New York City and their adroit use of publicity, revues proved particularly adept at introducing new talents to the American theatre. Rodgers and Hart, one of the great composer/lyricist teams of the American musical theatre, followed up their early Columbia University student revues with the successful Garrick Gaieties (1925). Comedian Fanny Brice, following a brief period in burlesque and amateur variety, bowed to revue audiences in Ziegfeld's Follies of 1910. Specialist writers and composers of revues have included Sandy Wilson, Noël Coward, John Stromberg, George Gershwin, Earl Carroll, and the British team Flanders and Swann. In Britain predominantly, Tom Arnold also specialized in promoting series of revues and his acts extended to the European continent and South Africa.
The Rolling Thunder Revue was a famed U.S. concert tour in the mid-1970s consisting of a traveling caravan of musicians, headed by Bob Dylan, that took place in late 1975 and early 1976.
Towards the end of the 20th century, a subgenre of revue largely dispensed with the sketches, founding narrative structure within a song cycle in which the material is culled from varied works. This type of revue may or may not have identifiable characters and a rudimentary storyline but, even when it does, the songs remain the focus of the show (for example, Closer Than Ever by Richard Maltby Jr. and David Shire). This type of revue usually showcases songs written by a particular composer or songs made famous by a particular performer. Examples of the former are Side By Side By Sondheim (music/lyrics Stephen Sondheim), Eubie! (Eubie Blake) Tom Foolery (Tom Lehrer), and Five Guys Named Moe (songs made popular by Louis Jordan). The eponymous nature of these later revues suggest a continued embrace of a unifying authorial presence in this seemingly scattershot genre, much as was earlier the case with Ziegfeld, Carrol, et al.
With different artistic emphases, the revue genre is today above all upheld at traditional variety theatres such as the Le Lido, Moulin Rouge and Friedrichstadt-Palast Berlin, as well as in shows in Las Vegas.
| 2025 | The Zebraphiles (Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry) | Metric Bar, Imperial College London (hosted by ICSM) |
| 2024 | The MDs Comedy Revue (RUMS) | St. George's Hospital Medical School Bar, St George's Hospital Medical School |
| 2023 | The Zebraphiles (Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry) Feat. Emma Walker of BSMS | St. George's Hospital Medical School Bar, St George's Hospital Medical School |
| 2022 | Malignant Humours (St George's Hospital Medical School) | Laird Hall, Whitechapel (hosted by Barts and The London) |
| 2021 | N/A | No event held due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom |
| 2020 | The Zebraphiles (Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry) | Brian Drewe Lecture Theatre, Imperial College London (hosted by ICSM) |
| 2019 | See Notea | Bush House, King's College London (hosted by GKT) |
| 2018 | The Zebraphiles (Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry) | Peter Samuel Hall, Royal Free Hospital (hosted by RUMS) |
| 2017 | The MDs Comedy Revue (RUMS) | Monckton Theatre, St George's Hospital Medical School |
| 2016 | The MDs Comedy Revue (RUMS) | Genesis Cinema, Whitechapel (hosted by Barts and The London) |
| 2015 | The MDs Comedy Revue (RUMS) | Monckton Theatre, St George's Hospital Medical School |
| 2014 | The MDs Comedy Revue (RUMS) | Monckton Theatre, St George's Hospital Medical School |
| 2013 | GKT School of Medicine | Greenwood Theatre, King's College London (hosted by GKT) |
| 2012 | Malignant Humours (St George's Hospital Medical School) | Monckton Theatre, St George's Hospital Medical School |
| 2011 | Malignant Humours (St George's Hospital Medical School) | Great Hall, Sherfield Building, Imperial College London (hosted by ICSM) |
| 2010 | GKT School of Medicine feat. Tim Jackson and Sam Haddad of BSMS | Greenwood Theatre, King's College London (hosted by GKT) |
| 2009 | The MDs Comedy Revue (RUMS) | Peter Samuel Hall, Royal Free Hospital (hosted by RUMS) |
| 2008 | GKT School of Medicine | Monckton Theatre, St George's Hospital Medical School |
| 2007 | Imperial College School of Medicine | Peter Samuel Hall, Royal Free Hospital (hosted by RUMS) |
| 2006 | GKT School of Medicine | Greenwood Theatre, King's College London (hosted by GKT) |
| 2005 | Malignant Humours (St George's Hospital Medical School) | Bloomsbury Theatre, University College London (hosted by RUMS) |
| 2004 | Malignant Humours (St George's Hospital Medical School) | Bloomsbury Theatre, University College London (hosted by RUMS) |
| 2003 | Malignant Humours (St George's Hospital Medical School) | Bloomsbury Theatre, University College London (hosted by RUMS) |
| 2002 | N/Ab | Tommy's Bar, King's College London (hosted by GKT) |
b. The 2002 UH Revue was a showcase of each Medical School's Revue societies, with the competition element brought in from 2003.
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