ABSTRACT
Concert parties were distinguished from pierrot shows by the facts that they operated all year round, much of their work came from private bookings, they usually performed inside buildings and they did not wear floppy costumes with pompoms. On the other hand their presentations were very like pierrot shows. A concert party usually consisted of seven or eight performers, including a comedian and a ‘light comedian’ who acted as the first comedian’s fall guy and was probably a dancer, a comedienne, a soubrette, a singer and a pianist. In the First World War, some troops made their own concert parties to entertain their fellows away from the front lines, and one troop founded during the war were Percy Merriman’s Roosters, who were to gain fame through Joan Littlewood’s recreation of them in Oh What a Lovely War. Local councils sponsored ‘Holidays at Home’ and hired concert parties to entertain, and Freemasonry also grew at this time.
