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Produced by Harry Wren

Photo courtesy of - broadwayinaustralia

Harry Wren was one of a handful of entrepreneurs producing variety entertainment in mid-twentieth century Australia. Born in 1916, he first worked in cinemas and built up a chain of movie theatres in South Australia before venturing into live entertainment. His first live shows were variety revues at the Cremorne Theatre in Brisbane from 1940.

By 1947 he claimed to be operating variety theatres in Adelaide, Hobart, Launceston, Geelong, Ballarat, Broken Hill and Brisbane. By the 1950s he was also presenting shows at the Empire and Palladium Theatres in Sydney and the Princess and King’s Theatres in Melbourne.

Japan by Night (1968)

Wren travelled within Australia and New Zealand, and abroad to the United States and Japan. He operated his various enterprises – Harry Wren Theatres Pty Ltd, Celebrity Theatres Pty Ltd, and Celebrity Circuit Pty Ltd – outside the auspices of J.C. Williamsons and the Tivoli Circuit, though often in tenuous alliance with them. He had an early success with an Australian production of Olsen and Johnson’s Hellzapoppin (1949-50). He imported other American acts to Australia, including stripper Gypsy Rose Lee (1954) and the Harlem Blackbirds (1955), and toured three shows from the Toho company of Japan, the Cherry Blossom Show (1958), Tokyo Nights (1965) and Japan by Night (1968). He was dogged in his later years by bankruptcy proceedings which he successfully appealed. He died in 1973 in Sydney at age 57.

Wren is most often remembered for his nostalgic variety shows. Thanks for the Memory, the first of three, opened at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne on 3 October 1953. It featured old-time vaudeville stars well-known to Australian audiences since the 1930s – George Wallace, Jim Gerald, Morrie Barling, Queenie Paul – along with Keith Peterson, Beryl Meekin, Nanette Allen and Jandy the Clown. The bill was made up of comedy sketches, sentimental songs, nostalgic ballets, and sight acts of juggling, acrobatics and clowning. The emphasis was on home-grown talent and home-spun humour. The only exotic element to speak of was ‘A Breath of Paris’ featuring the Sunkist Beauty Ballet performing a can-can. The show’s innovation was a fashion parade presented in association with Messrs Maples of Bourke Street.

Contributed by Greg Lynch -