Before you sit down
What a revue is: a night of variety
A revue strings separate acts into one evening instead of telling a single story. Here is how the form works and what it means for a night at the Palace.
Reserve your Palace night ↗A show made of separate numbers
A revue is a multi-act popular entertainment that combines music, dance and sketches. Unlike operetta or a book musical, it has no overarching storyline. A general theme serves as the motto for a loosely related series of acts, so each number can stand on its own. That is the main thing to know before you book: you are not expected to follow a plot, remember names or keep track of who is who. You watch what is in front of you, enjoy it, and wait for the next act to begin.
Solos and ensembles, taking turns
The form alternates solo performances with dance ensembles, and it is known for visual spectacle, which means costume, light and movement do much of the talking. Guests who have reviewed Benidorm Palace describe exactly that mix: dancers, acrobats and a magician, with polished choreography and colourful costumes. The venue's own question and answer page describes its programme as cabarets with acrobatics, dances and musical numbers, plus variety shows with magic, humour and music, alongside tribute acts and concerts.
Where the form comes from
Revues grew out of nineteenth-century popular entertainment and melodrama, and they became a distinct form in their golden years, roughly 1916 to 1932. Wikipedia names George Lederer's The Passing Show of 1894 as the first successful American revue, and Florenz Ziegfeld's Follies became a leading example. The word itself comes from the French for review. The idea of a theme that loosely ties together very different acts has lasted well beyond those first productions, and revues are still staged today.
Why variety suits a mixed table
A revue works well for groups with different tastes. If one act is not for you, another is only a few minutes away, and nobody needs the previous scene to follow the next. The current production at Benidorm Palace, Trivium, goes a step further. The booking page and the venue both describe it as built from music, dance and visual storytelling, so it does not depend on Spanish or on any one language. That matters in a town where tables in the room come from many countries.
How to watch one
Let go of the idea that something has to happen next. Watch the ensemble numbers for the way a large cast moves together, then notice how the individual acts change the pace. A magician asks you to watch closely, an acrobat asks you to hold your breath, and a dance number asks you to look at the whole stage at once. When a number ends, applaud it for what it was, because there is rarely a story waiting to pick up where it left off.
What a big house adds
A large theatre can do things a small room cannot. The venue's technical sheet lists a mobile, extensible stage with a hydraulic lift, laser projection, surround sound and escalators on the sides and in a central pit, all built for large productions. In practice that means the stage can rise, extend and reshape itself between numbers. It is part of why the evening reads as spectacle: the building itself is a piece of stage machinery.
Revue, cabaret or variety?
The words overlap, and the venue uses several of them. It calls itself a cabaret theatre, lists cabarets and variety shows among its programme, and describes this season's production as a new show with its own creative vision. For a visitor, the label matters less than the shape of the night: a run of separate numbers, with dance at the centre and specialist acts around it. If that sounds like your idea of an evening out, a revue is the right place to look.
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