The answer is REVUE, five letters. A revue strings together songs, dances and sketches with no single plot holding them together, which is exactly what makes it a variety show. VAUDEVILLE fills ten squares for the older bill of unrelated acts, and a plural clue such as Variety shows takes REVUES.
Revue is French for review
English borrowed revue from French, in which it named a show presenting a review of current events. As a stage form, a revue is a multi-act entertainment of music, dance and sketches with no overarching storyline, tied together by a general theme instead of a plot, with solo turns alternating with ensemble numbers.
George Lederer’s The Passing Show of 1894 is usually considered the first successful American one, and Florenz Ziegfeld popularized the French spelling from 1907. His Follies became so identified with the form that follies turned into a loose synonym for revue. Revues were a Broadway fixture from the First World War through the Depression, and they drew a wealthier crowd: a seat on opening night in 1914 could cost five dollars, when vaudeville patrons were paying fifteen cents.
Vaudeville sold a bill, not a show
VAUDEVILLE, the ten-square answer, describes something different in structure. A typical vaudeville performance was a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped on a common bill: singers, dancers, comedians, magicians, ventriloquists, jugglers, acrobats and trained animals. A revue had a cast and a theme. A vaudeville bill had a running order.
The word is older than the American form, and its origin is debated. One theory points to the French voix de ville, voice of the city. The stronger case traces it to fifteenth-century satirical songs from the Vau de Vire, a valley in Normandy known for bawdy drinking songs, which Jean le Houx collected around 1610 in a book of new songs of Vaudevire.
The business ran in tiers. Small-time houses paid less and ran more shows, medium-time played twice a day in purpose-built theaters, and big-time acts earned thousands a week in large city theaters on circuits such as the B. F. Keith and Orpheum chains. The Palace in New York stood at the summit, and its switch to films only in November 1932 is often treated as the death knell for the whole form, after cheaper movies, talking pictures, radio and the Depression had worn it down.
Variety show answers from three letters to ten
The table runs from the pieces of a show up to the whole, so decide which of those the clue wants before you count.
| Letters | Answer | What points to it |
|---|---|---|
| 3 | ACT | One segment of the show |
| 4 | SKIT | A comic segment |
| 5 | REVUE | The default for the show itself |
| 5 | EMCEE | The host who introduces each act |
| 6 | REVUES | A plural clue |
| 6 | HEEHAW | A country variety show on television |
| 10 | VAUDEVILLE | The older bill of unrelated acts |
When the clue names a television show
The six-letter answer comes from television. Hee Haw was an American variety show built on country music and humor, set in Kornfield Kounty, a fictional rural farming community somewhere in the American South, and it aired from 1969 to 1993. A clue that adds country music or a rural setting to variety show wants HEEHAW, run together as one word in the grid.
Clues that name a specific program tend to give themselves away with a detail like that: a genre, a setting or a famous sketch. If the clue carries no such detail, it is asking for the category, and REVUE is the word for the category.
Is the clue asking for the show or a piece of it?
Variety clues come in families, and the family decides the answer before the length does. The show itself is REVUE, or VAUDEVILLE if you have ten squares. A plural clue wants REVUES. A clue about one segment wants ACT, or SKIT when the segment is comic. The person who links the acts is the EMCEE, a spelling first recorded in 1933 as emsee, from the way people pronounced M.C., the abbreviation of master of ceremonies. A clue about that job is never asking for the show.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a revue and vaudeville?
A revue is a single production with its own cast, mixing songs, dances and sketches around a loose theme. Vaudeville was a bill of separate, unrelated acts, such as singers, comedians, jugglers and trained animals, that played theater circuits. Both are variety shows, but only REVUE fits five squares.
What is a six-letter answer for variety show?
REVUES, if the clue is plural. If the clue mentions country music or a rural setting, the answer is HEEHAW, the American television variety show that aired from 1969 to 1993 and was set in the fictional Kornfield Kounty.
Why is revue spelled that way?
It is the French word for review, and the form began as a show presenting a review of current events. Florenz Ziegfeld popularized the French spelling on Broadway from 1907, and English has kept it for a plotless mix of music, dance and sketches.
