Variety Theatre at the King’s

Variety Theatre was a mainstay of the programming of The King’s Theatre from the late 1930s into the sixties. Starting as an experiment by visionary theatre manager A.S. Cruikshank to fill the empty stage during the empty summers, the variety show was initially an unsuccessful undertaking, with the first season selling poorly. Cruikshank persevered and the Half-Past Eight Show became one of the best value, eclectic forms of popular entertainment. Not without its fair share of struggle, the iconic series had to shift to being the Five-Past Eight Show to comply with darkness regulations during the blitz. Latterly the show had to contend with the boom in at-home entertainment brought about by the television in the 1950s, but it still managed to bring Scotland’s biggest stars of stage and small screen to large King’s Theatre audiences for another decade.