revue
(rɪˈvjuː)
[a. F. revue review n.]
1. A theatrical entertainment presenting a review (usu. satirical) of current events, plays, etc.; hence also an elaborate musical show consisting of numerous unrelated scenes. Also without art., the genre of such entertainments.
| 1872 J. R. Planché Recoll. I. iv. 73 My theatrical labours in the year 1825 terminated with the production at the Adelphi..of a one-act piece on the 12th December, entitled ‘Success; or a Hit if you like it’, which I only mention because it was the first attempt in this country to introduce that class of entertainment so popular in Paris called ‘Revue’. 1879 ― Extravaganzas III. 311 It is, in fact, ‘a dramatic political allegory’. A Revue, not of theatrical and other popular novelties..but of the State of Europe at a critical period. Ibid. IV. 89 Jokes upon passing events..in a Revue..are, of course, indispensable. 1893 Times 27 Nov. 7/4 Under the Clock has been described as a revue of the sort which is popular in the French theatres towards the close of the year. 1899 Times 4 Apr. 5/2 It looks as if musical farces were declining in popularity when a specimen of this class of piece has to be called a revue and announced as an ‘entirely new form of entertainment’. The revue..has never had the same favour here that it enjoys in Paris. 1908 Beerbohm in Sat. Rev. 18 Jan. 74/1 The attempts to popularise in London something like the Parisian ‘revue’ have been such dismal failures. 1913 Punch 9 July 41/3 The report that Mr. Lloyd George will shortly appear in a Revue at the National Liberal Club. 1920 A. G. Gardiner Leaves in Wind 71 One of those dismal things called revues, that are neither comedies nor farces, nor anything but shambling, hugger-mugger contraptions into which you fling anything that comes handy. 1923 R. Nevill World of Fashion 1837–1922 xii. 269 Anything like a real revue is impossible in modern London... Any allusion to current politics such as are made in Parisian revues is at once denounced as being in bad taste. 1967 Oxf. Compan. Theatre (ed. 3) 798/1 During the Second World War the vogue for revue continued... Revue became a feature of the little theatres..but it was not until the advent in London of Beyond the Fringe,..which was seen in Edinburgh on 10 May, 1961, that satire entered the field. 1972 Daily Tel. 22 Nov. 15 The new revue at the Cambridge, ‘Behind the Fridge’, stars Peter Cooke, Dudley Moore, and no one else. 1981 Country Life 12 Feb. 409/4 Noël Coward's..This Year of Grace..was a revue and not a book or a play. |
2. fig.
| 1899 A. E. W. Mason Miranda of Balcony iii. 35 After he had fallen asleep, a curtain was raised upon a fantastic revue of the past week. 1934 T. S. Eliot Elizabethan Ess. 167 The romantic comedy is a skilful concoction of inconsistent emotion, a revue of emotion... It consists in an internal incoherence of feelings, a concatenation of emotions. |
3. attrib. and Comb.
| 1919 B. Tarkington Let. 30 Mar. in On Plays (1959) 10 What is really most valuable in it is the revelation, by an intimate, of the modern ‘Revue’ girl. 1933 M. Allingham Sweet Danger xvi. 197 She washed and changed with the speed of a revue star. 1933 P. Godfrey Back-Stage xiv. 174 The attempt to attract the smart, sophisticated section of the post-War public into patronizing the revue theatres. 1963 New Yorker 15 June 7 Ronny Graham's revue-eyed view of life..sometimes gets bug-eyed. 1975 Listener 9 Jan. 57/1 With all the resources of splendid new theatres..we..[are] dragging up old revue skits. |
Hence revuˈette nonce-wd., a short revue; reˈvue-ish a., characteristic of a revue; reˈvuist, a writer of revues.
| 1927 Observer 25 Sept. 11/1 Alfred Savoir, in collaboration with Rip, the revuist, has written ‘Comme le temps passe’. 1930 Daily Express 6 Oct. 5/3 Jane Renouardt in Rip's revuette gives a marvellous imitation of Yvonne Printemps. 1969 Listener 20 Feb. 251/1 The authors of Your Own Thing can't handle this bold stuff... This is a revue-ish comment on rock music. |