Alive and Kicking (musical)

Alive and Kicking is a

The revue contains a few comic sketches involving the way a newspaper is run, the military higher-ups, psychiatrists, and the popularity of the Edith Piaf-style of singing.[3] The dances of Cole and Verdon were a smorgasbord of ethnic styles, his trademark.^[1] One dance from the revue was called "The Reason for Divorce is Marriage."

Ziegfeld Follies-style musical reviews were still popular in 1950, but soon afterwards, the introduction of variety shows on television made the theatrical revue almost obsolete.^[1]

Songs

• "Abou Ben Adhem"
• "Alive and Kicking"
• "Building Going Up"
• "Cole Scuttle Blues"
• "Cry, Baby"
• "French With Tears"
• "I Didn't Want Him"
• "One Two Three"
• "My Day of Rest"
• "Propinquity"
• "A World of Strangers"

Sketches

• Hippocrates Hits the Jackpot
• I'm All Yours
• Meet the Authors
• Once Upon a Time
• Pals of the Pentagon
• What a Delightful Day

Critical response

Brooks Atkinson, in his review in The New York Times, wrote that it was a "mediocre revue in a mongrel style." He praised the sketch work of David Burns ("funny as a grandiloquent literary speaker at an author's luncheon") and Jack Guilford (in a "burlesque of the noble virtue of giving up cigarette smoking"). He especially praised the work of Cole who "has happily designed the choreography with no relation to anything else in the show. Every step and movement in it is bizarre and graphic...Mr. Cole is a superb dancer. He is like a macabre manikin out of a decadent show window...When he dances he is all unearthly fire and flickering motion."^[4]

Notes