VOGUE OF CABARET

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 22, 26 January 1924, Page 16

VOGUE OF CABARET

FASHIONS IN DANCE PLACES.

,i'-l?onr yearsi ago dance clubs were little gold mines—one made £60,000 in the year 1918-19. To-day, so fickle are the fancies qf the dancing public, they'are risky speculations.. To-morrow, declares C. Patrick Thompson in the "Daily Mail," they may be memories. on 9of the oldest and most famous, despite:a membership of 2000,, excellent catering, two' "star""bands, and experienced management, is even now being wound up.

:,When.; did., club dancing, lose its allure, the fox-trot its freshness. and ceased to be an entertainment in itself; when dancers grew expert and blase, big and highly expensive bands came to take the life and colour out of the modest club band, and the cabaret made its how. A, jolly, sccial atmosphere would have given the clubs a strong"., counter-attraction^ to cabaret, dance-restaurant, and dance palace. BuOhe :T)usiness men. who run the clubs On business lines for profit have never been able "to create it. So, tired of dancing in one place, where the same faces are seen and the same band is heard, night after night, the tens of thousands of people who dance are,deserting the clubs and distributing themselves among gayer, livelier,places. The dance restaurants, more than any other type of dance place, have emptied the clubs. Superb music, bright lights, spacious surroundings, a moderate-priced dinner-and-dance, ,a merry throng which continually changes: and' always includes a sprinkling .:;dff":; celebrities—these are their attractions.^. Tbr people who dance every night the-clubs offer cheaper dancing. But few people, aow do this. They prefer-to concentrate their dancing into one night a week and to have a

"really good time" when they do go N out.' The big dance palaces have taken their quota, top, of club habitues.. They are far more popular than they were, and areVmarkedly on the increase. . They can afford large .outlays on innovations to please their, patrons, for their revenues, are very; big. 'And then there is the cabaret, sprightliest of the family of dancing haunts. Every season it changes., The cabaret of two seasons ago has gone. A "snappier" edition is here, and another is on.the way, briefer still, ■with novel effects . and . a brighter, aiv rarigement. ■■ ,-;'^"

But the dominance of these places, which have, for the^ time, by enterprise and_ lavish expenditure, captured the; majority of dancers, is not assured. A new dange which really caught on might revive the vogue of the clubs. Or a new form of entertainment altogether, with -dancing' as the chief but not the sole attraction, might capture the volatile fancy of the immense dancing public. For in the magic world 'of Dauceland nothing is static, and the dancing resort which fails, to give the dancer something new, amusing, and colourful to distract him from the life of.everyday, droops, fades, and passes.