The Gang Show

Ralph Reader thought up the idea of Gang Shows in 1932.It became so popular that by 1937 it was part of that years Royal Variety Performance.I remember that it was performed at the Golders Green Hippadrome and the Odeon Temple Fortune,both very near me,however i cannot recall ever having been to see it.Whilst this is a pleasant enough musical revue with tuneful songs i don't think it is the sort of thing i would have completely enjoyed.The film has a surrounding story about Reader struggling to put on a show which is about par for the course.The musical numbers are a curious mix.There is a minstrel number which is very un pc.Then there is a Mexican number where young boys dress up as young women in what would for a woman be a very revealing dress.There are also a number of men,presumably Scoutmasters who dress up in womens clothes despite having moustaches.I wonder if this is quite what the Scout Association would have in mind to promote membership in this day and age,i somewhat doubt it.It is a pleasant if nostalgic film probably of most interest to those involved with scouting. By the way the Goon Show had no connection with The Gang Show as suggested by the other reviewer.I believe that the word was first coined by the creator of "Popeye" and then used a lot in WW2 to describe German guards in POW camps.

Ralph Reader tries to sell his song to any number of music publishers and show producers, but none of them will have it. So he helps a group of singing boy scouts put on a show, with the connivance of Gina Malo.

Reader had been putting on shows with young singers since 1932, like a modern-0day Gus Edwards, and they were very popular in Britain, so with ex-Roach director Alfred Goulding as the director, here he is. It's a standard musical story, the songs are all standards (including "Danny Boy" sung by a child tenor), and the dancing is first rate, if shot for the proscenium arch instead of the movie screen. This looks like a cheap movie that must have made producer Herbet Wilcox some money, which he probably spent on Anna Neagle.

For former Scouts and indeed the current generation, The Gang Show 1937 remains an inspiration and a good example of a lost movie genre.

Like the BBC's Goon Show, whose name I suspect was an emotional adaptation of the title The Gang Show by former Scouts and WWII entertainers, The Gang Show phenomena will live on and on as classic revue theatre which used to touch hundreds of thousands around the world each year.

Pity that we have not been able to capture the essence of such theatre for the current world's viewing on television.

I would like to see this and other Scouting musicals appear on DVD or similar technology to help ensure that original Gang Show spirit remains readily accessible.