The Bing Boys Are Here: History and Key Facts

The Bing Boys Are Here, styled "A Picture of London Life, in a Prologue and Six Panels," is the first of a series of revues which played at the Alhambra Theatre, London during the last two years of World War I. The series included The Bing Boys on Broadway and The Bing Girls Are There. The music for them was written by Nat D. Ayer with lyrics by Clifford Grey, and the text was by George Grossmith, Jr. and Fred Thompson based on Rip and Bousquet's Le Fils Touffe. Other material was contributed by Eustace Ponsonby, Philip Braham and Ivor Novello.

The Bing Boys Are Here opened in 1916 in the West End and ran for 378 performances. It was one of the three most important musical hits of the London stage during World War I (the other two being The Maid of the Mountains and Chu Chin Chow); music or scenes from all of these have been included as background in many films set in this period, and they remain intensely evocative of the "Great War" years. Other hit shows of the period were Theodore & Co (1916), The Happy Day (1916), The Boy (1917), and Yes, Uncle! (1917, also with music and lyrics by Ayer and Grey). Audiences, which included soldiers on leave, wanted light and uplifting entertainment during the war, and these shows delivered it.

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