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Remembered—and Forgotten Was Laura Henderson really like Dame Judi Dench plays her in the film “Mrs Henderson presents”? Capricious, generous, irresistible, as well as rich, rude and blunt-spoken? It’s pretty plausible, and I’d like to think it’s true, since Mrs H made a real contribution to the early days of British ballet. You know, I hope, that the film tells how, as a wealthy widow, she bought the little Windmill Theatre off Shaftesbury Avenue (London’s Broadway) and with a clever manager, Vivian Van Damm, made it immensely popular through a doubly unique policy. First, by presenting non-stop revue (vaudeville you’d probably say) from noon till late evening, and then by having some of the girls pose nude during the big song and dance numbers. Getting round the rules of the Lord Chamberlain, who used to be our governmental censor of theatres, certainly can’t have been as easy or amusing as is shown. There are some other implausibilities, such as the manager and stagehands having to strip before the girls would disrobe, and quite a few details of the Windmill shows, as I remember them, weren’t just as seen here, but on the whole the film gives a fair idea. What it doesn’t mention, however, is that one of the show’s soubrettes, Doris Barry, one day took Mr Van Damm to Sadler’s Wells to see her sister dance Giselle. Enchanted by this first sight of ballet (well, said sister happened to be no less than Alicia Markova), Van D soon persuaded Mrs H that she should get involved. So, in spite of warnings that she would lose a lot of money – which she duly did – Mrs Henderson in summer 1935 presented, in addition to her own Revuedeville, a two-week season of ballet every night at the Wells (twice a week was the usual quota) including the premiere of “The Rake’s Progress” and new designs for “Giselle”. That was followed by a further week for the Vic-Wells Ballet in a West End theatre and a tour of one week each in seven English and Scottish towns. Thereafter, having both Markova and Anton Dolin under contract, the Henderson-Van Damm management formed a new company for them, and this Markova-Dolin Ballet toured Britain and Europe until 1938. Besides the classics, they gave new ballets by several hands, including Dolin and Keith Lester, and in 1937 Bronislava Nijinska joined to mount “Les Biches” (disguised as “The House Party”) and “The Beloved One”. The company broke up after both Markova and the young featured soloist Frederic Franklin accepted invitations to join Leonide Massine’s new Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. An interesting sequel: Keith Lester when young had partnered Karsavina and Spessivtseva and danced with Massine and Ida Rubinstein. Beginning choreography with Markova-Dolin, his ballets included the first modern restaging of the famous 1845 “Pas de Quatre”. He went on to work with Tudor’s London Ballet and to form the Arts Theatre Ballet before working in West End shows and for the Royal Academy of Dancing. Then in 1945 he became resident choreographer at the Windmill Theatre and staged dozens of ballets there every year until retirement. He used smilingly to boast that he knew more than anyone else about fan dances, since every Windmill show had to include one. They were, incidentally, more daring than appears from “Mrs Henderson presents”, since the performer wore nothing but a pair of shoes, and carried in each hand a large fan with which she more or less (sometimes much less) concealed herself. So much for the Lord Chancellor’s official rule that “no nudes must move”! Volume 4, No. 6
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