Fun has been in short supply lately due to the pandemic, so it was with some anticipation that I attended a summer theatre production last month – a musical set in the Roaring Twenties. It was my first time in an indoor venue with 500 other people in several years, but we were lucky as we had great seats, mid-way left orchestra, and the three seats in front of us were empty. We put my mother on the aisle, and wore our masks, although many people did not.
The entire season from 2020 was held over until this year. I ordered the tickets way back in February and was lucky to get a cancellation, as people are so desperate for fun after two years of lock-down, that most people held onto their seats. It was really nice to be in a theatre again.
I’ve always been a big fan of the Roaring Twenties decade – Downtown Abbey, Fitzgerald & Company, the hairstyles and fashions of the flappers, but have to admit that other than the Charleston and a few other tunes, I didn’t know much about the music of the era.
The setting was a speakeasy on New Years Eve 1928 and it was two hours of non-stop music, dancing and fun. Here’s the songlist.
I was surprised how many of the songs I recognized (and my mother, being born in 1926, knew them all) but some of them were surprising as I associate them with other decades and singers – like Ray Orbison’s Are you Lonesome Tonight, Guy Lombardo’s Auld Lang Syne and It Had to Be You, which I always thought of as a 50’s crooners song.
The lyrics of some of these songs seem almost quaint by today’s standards – Tea for Two and Ain’t She Sweet for example, with Let’s Do It and Making Whoppee being the most risque. Although after googling Ain’t We Got Fun – see below – perhaps the lyrics (Mr. Stork?) are not so innocent after all, but better suggestive than downright crude.
“Are you tired of smutty lyrics that make the air turn blue” says the opening song on Zoomer Media’s – Your All Time Classic Hit Parade TV show. (My mother watches this on Vision TV Channel 24 on Friday nights at 8:30 – it’s a half hour of pure nostalgia.) Alicia Ault from the show’s trio, The Ault Sisters, played a lead role in the Roaring Twenties musical, although I didn’t realize it until after I read the playbill. The sisters look so much alike it’s hard to tell them apart.
Many of these songs are memorable even if you don’t know what time period they came from. Will the songs from today’s 2020 decade be remembered a hundred years from now? Somehow I doubt it. When you think of all the changes music has gone through over the years, I wonder what they’ll be listening to then? (Hopefully we’ll be listening to a choir of angels.)
The costumes were lovely.
Yes, I know, no photos allowed in the theatre, but I did ask one of the ushers if I could take a picture of this dress. If I ever go to a Roaring Twenties party I want a dress like that, complete with the fringe on the bottom. Her headband was nice too.
The choreography was wonderful, ending with the Charleston,
and a toast to the New Year. I don’t know how they can sing and dance like that and not be out of breath….or in need of a beverage or two.
All in all, it was a swell performance, or in the lingo of the decade, the bees knees, the cat’s pyjamas….well you get the picture! (Here’s a link to more slang from the 1920’s.)
PS. The second Downton Abbey movie – A New Era, also set in 1929, is out for home viewing soon. Has anyone seen it?
thehomeplaceweb 
Hi this sounds wonderful! Where is the Downtown Abby movie streaming?
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I just googled and it said NBC’s Peacock. Never heard of it, but then I’m in Canada. I ordered the DVD from the library for free. It will probably be available on Amazon for a price too.
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I am SO pleased to know you have been able to venture out at last. As for masks … all Covid-related restrictions were lifted last week but I notice several people (including me) still wearing a mask in the supermarket. Perhaps we are still ‘testing the waters’. Thank you for including the programme of music – it is fun to scroll through all those song titles. Your mother must have thoroughly enjoyed the show!
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Thanks Anne. It was fun. Our restrictions lifted the end of April, and things have really loosened up, but I still wear my mask and sometimes I think I’m the only one in the grocery store doing so!
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PS. Next week I will be posting about a garden party I went to for the Queen’s Jubilee that you might be interested in – there will be tea!
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I loved the new Downton, but I’m a huge fan…
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What a fun night. I’m looking forward to local theater getting going in the fall once again. The Downton movie was everything you would expect from Downton Abbey if you followed the series. It was like catching up with old friends.
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I’m really looking forward to it, but ordered it the DVD from the library for free, so it might be awhile yet. It’s gone from the theatre here already.
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It was a fun era mostly. My mother used to talk about rolling her stockings below her knees which was very risqué at the time. I had a flapper dress that I made for a costume party. It had several rows of fringe. I got a lot of wear out of it. It was so fun.
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The fringe is key!
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Joni, this sounds like so much fun. I can’t imagine anyone had too many of those peach fizz’s at $7.00 each.
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I’m not a drinker, but I agree. I’ve never understood people who get a drink at intermission anyway, as intermission is only 20 minutes? I noticed after it was over though that a few people were sitting at the small tables set up near the bar having a drink. It was a matinee so mostly an older crowd, who like me probably went home and had a nap before supper!
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Wow! Many of those songs listed in the playbill are so familiar to my 1950s childhood! Are they really from the ’20s? I would have enjoyed that show with you and your mother, I’m sure, but you two would have had to shush me every now and then during the performances. I’ve not seen the new Downton Abbey film yet but I’m hoping to order a DVD from Amazon. Yes, I know it’s being shown on Peacock, but I don’t know how to access that channel.
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I was surprised by many of the songs too. I don’t even know what Peacock is but if it’s one of those streaming monthly services like Netflix I don’t need another one! I ordered my DVD from the library and am number two on the list so it shouldn’t be too long.
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What a fun show it must have been! We actually went out to a movie theater last night for our first post-Covid film (Top Gun: Maverick).
I don’t think we watched the first Downtown Abbey film, though we did watch the series (DVDs from the library). Will have to check that one out, then the new one.
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It was a fun show. I was never a Tom Cruise fan so will pass on Maverick, although I’ve heard it had good reviews. The first Downtown Abbey movie was not the best, with a very slow intro – (my mother fell asleep in the theatre) but it was just nice to see the old gang again. It had to do with the Queen’s visit to Downton so not terribly exciting. She did not fall asleep during the Roaring 20’s musical though, as it was so fast-paced!
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I was surprised by how many songs I recognized from the program too, Joni. Seems like a long concert but the songs were shorter back then. The second “Downton” movie was very well done and like you, I thought it was great to see the cast together again. The plot involving the French chateau was a little suspicious but it worked well, and like your concert, the Roaring ’20s costumes were great. We didn’t have Peacock (NBC streaming) but we realized we could subscribe for a month and then cancel, for $4.99 USD. That’s a lot cheaper than if we’d seen the movie in the theater.
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They didn’t actually sing the whole song, just a few verses of each, and then onto the next – it was very fast-paced. I’d never even heard of Peacock, but I guess every organization has to have a streaming platform these days. I’m looking forward to the Downton gang, no mater where they are. I think I saw some classic white tennis costumes in the trailer.
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This looked like a fun event Joni. I remember seeing and reading “The Great Gatsby” and enjoyed it.
This brought back some fond memories for me. Back when I was at the community college, I was on the staff of the college newspaper and we staff members all hung around together for the two years we worked on the newspaper. We were all single and so we spent our Friday and often our Saturday evenings together. We attended a lot of events, but by far, one of our fun places to go was Friday night to “Bimbo’s” a bar-type restaurant that featured The Red Garter Band. The band members were so friendly and had great personalities as well as voices. They had straw boater hats, red-striped vests and bow ties, black trousers and played banjo and sang old-time songs like this. It was actually a family establishment, more than a bar as I recall and they had wonderful pizza, their specialty. One of the fun things Bimbo’s had was a blank white wall and they used that wall like a screen for a movie. They had the words on the wall, along with a red bouncing ball that went under each word to follow along. Everyone sang along, even if you couldn’t carry a tune. It wasn’t like karaoke – people sang along with them. Anyway, we usually went Fridays after our last class. We went so often we memorized the songs. I knew some already as my parents had a lot of Mitch Miller albums and he had some of those same songs on his albums.
On another note, in high school we had a Senior’s Millionaire’s Party in senior year. The idea was the girls dressed up like flappers and the guys dressed up like gangsters. They brought in casino-type games and we had to pay to get in – the money was used toward our post-graduation All Night Party.
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That sounds like a fun place. When mom watches the Hit Parade show on Friday nights they have the bouncing ball over the lyrics sing along at the end – it always looks like fun, as the audience gets up and joins in the dancing. There’s something about that decade the Roaring 20’s that inspires fun!
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Yes – I immediately thought of Bimbo’s … that place was always packed, adults and kids too, with a family-type atmosphere. They also had songsheets they passed out as placemats and you could take them home with you if you wanted. I just Googled and found one to show you (will put it in a separate comment – just click and the menu opens up so you can see the lyrics). So you had the option to see the song lyrics if you wanted to sing along that way. The Red Garter Band used to play at gigs all over after Bimbo’s closed down. At one time in Downtown Detroit, they had a trolley car that you paid a quarter and could ride along Washington Boulevard, a quaint little street and there were fountains and benches all along the trolley tracks. Someone got the bright idea to have small jazz-type ensembles every Wednesday at noon, weather permitting, so they were one of the featured bands. When you read “The Great Gatsby” or saw the movie, you did get a feel for all the fun of that era … the dancing, music, clothing – they had it all!
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That’s true – it does look like a fun decade, until the stock market crashed in 1929!
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Oh ya – I forgot about that little fact. My grandmother was very frugal, having lived through that era, war-time era as well – she saved and/or recycled as much as she could. “Old habits won’t die” she said.
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My Mom well remembers the Depression, as she was a child and they didn’t have much, although they always had food on the table and a house, which they rented until the war came and they got better employment in the war factories. My grandparents were relatively new immigrants 1922, and soon found out Canada was not a country with streets paved with gold as they had been told.
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My grandparents also rented a house and had an option to buy it after many years. I can remember my mom saying that during that big heat wave in 1936 they had one small table fan for the family and the men in the neighborhood slept down at Sunnyside Park every night. They could only afford the one fan. Yes, a lot of immigrants found that out unfortunately.
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Here is the songsheet … they had all these songs in their repertoire. I think the band only played Friday and Saturday nights if I remember correctly as this was a side gig for them. I should have saved some of those songsheets – look what they are going for now. You can click or arrow thru to see th songs. Brings back nice memories.
https://vintagemenumania.com/products/bimbos-restaurant-music-cocktails-michigan-sing-along-sheet-nan-joe-bird
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Holy! What a price! It sounds like fun though.
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I should have kept some – yes it was always a good time. I liked those songs too. I probably could sing all of them now as I heard them so much, except maybe the beginning part of the “Whiffenpoof Song”.
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Just remembered I forgot to comment on the list of words you could click for old-time jargon – that was fun Joni as I can remember my grandmother and mother using most of them. I remembered as I just finished reading JP’s post, so I was in “old-time mode”. [They are shooting off so many firecrackers, big ones, the house feels like is is being rocked off the foundation. I had hoped the torrential rain would come earlier, but they’d only keep them for next week anyway. Trying to read posts and boom after boom is very distracting. Sigh.]
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I was surprised by how many words I knew too. I hope you stayed in the house and didn’t get bitten by the mosquitoes like I did! The itchyness is better today after 72hrs of Claritin, but it’s what I remember from last year too – 3 days of misery.
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When I’ve been going out to bigger parks, I am covered up, long pants, long-sleeved top, no matter how hot it is. I got the mosquito bites at Council Point Park and I don’t get that as it has some trees but is not dense at all … but it was humid that morning. I heard today that the last eight months of June have been the hottest on record, with June 2022 being the 3rd hottest. It felt like the Dog Days of August.
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Considering it’s July 7th, it feels like we’ve already had summer for awhile…..I’m not liking it too much, although today was okay. I’m going to buy some DEET repellant when I go to the pharmacy tomorrow – I hate using that stuff, but a week of misery is not worth it either.
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Yes, it feels like it should be August for goodness sake – I’m dreading August. It was really hot and humid this morning – 72 degrees when I left at 7:30
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But this afternoon it was a cool wind and you almost needed a jacket! So it swings from one extreme to the other.
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It has been crazy – I liked the idea of a cooler today as I was out mid-day at a painting event (free watercolor outside art event) … they said “a much cooler day” and when I came home it was 82 … that is not cooler to me, even with no humidity! The weather is crazy these days.
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It sounds like it was a fun show! That was a really productive decade for song writers and musical theater. They could have probably doubled or tripled the show’s length and not run out of material that is familiar to younger people (younger like us, I mean 🙂 ).
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True – they only sang a stanza or two of each song, and it was a 2 hr show with a 20min intermission, so I’m sure they could have crammed more in.
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