The Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA) was an organisation established in 1939 by Basil Dean and Leslie Henson to provide entertainment for British armed forces personnel during World War II. ENSA operated as part of the Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes. It was superseded by Combined Services Entertainment (CSE) which now operates as part of the Services Sound and Vision Corporation (SSVC). The first big wartime variety concert organised by ENSA was broadcast by the BBC to the Empire and local networks from RAF Hendon in north London on 17 October 1939. Among the entertainers appearing on the bill were

Adelaide Hall Adelaide Louise Hall (20 October 1901 – 7 November 1993) was an American-born UK-based jazz singer and entertainer. Her long career spanned more than 70 years from 1921 until her death and she was a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance. Hal ...

, The Western Brothers and Mantovani. A newsreel of this concert showing Hall singing " We're Going to Hang out the Washing on the Siegfried Line" accompanied by Mantovani and His Orchestra exists. Many members of ENSA later had careers in the entertainment industry after the war, including actors Terry-Thomas, Peter Sellers and Kenneth Connor. Tap and acrobatic dancer Vivienne Hole, stage name Vivienne Fayre, a civilian aged 19, was the only ENSA member killed in the war. On 23 January 1945 in Normandy, she was being driven between shows as a passenger aboard a truck carrying stage scenery which strayed into a minefield. She was buried with full military honours in

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War Cemetery.

In popular culture

Despite many extremely talented entertainers working for ENSA, the organisation was necessarily spread thin over the vast area it had to cover. Thus many entertainments were substandard, and the popular translation of the acronym ENSA was ''"Every Night Something Awful"''. ENSA plays a modest role in the motion picture ''

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'' (1944) in which Margaret Lockwood stars as a concert pianist who makes an ENSA tour to North Africa and the Mediterranean region. The film '' Desert Mice'' (1959) follows the fictional escapades of an ENSA troop with Sid James assigned to the Afrika Korps. The only known ENSA theatre to have survived in its original condition is the Garrison Theatre at Hurst Castle in the New Forest National Park. Created by servicemen in 1939, the proscenium arch still bears the badge and grenades of the Royal Artillery, and the curtains still hang from an original galvanised gas pipe. Shows are presented from time to time by the Friends of Hurst Castle.

Partial list of performers

* Avril Angers *

Helen Clare Helen Clare (born Nelly Harrison; 29 November 1916 – 15 September 2018) was a British singer who was well known in the 1930s and 1940s through her work in variety, radio, television and recording. Clare worked extensively in light entertainm ...

* Kenneth Connor *

Noël Coward Sir Noël Peirce Coward (16 December 189926 March 1973) was an English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what ''Time'' magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and ...

Gracie Fields Dame Gracie Fields (born Grace Stansfield; 9 January 189827 September 1979) was an English actress, singer, comedian and star of cinema and music hall who was one of the top ten film stars in Britain during the 1930s and was considered the h ...

* George Formby * Beryl Grey * Geraldo * Sonnie Hale *

* Stanley Holloway * Frankie Howerd * Mary Lee * Vera Lynn *

Jessie Matthews Jessie Margaret Matthews (11 March 1907 – 19 August 1981) was an English actress, dancer and singer of the 1920s and 1930s, whose career continued into the post-war period. After a string of hit stage musicals and films in the mid-1930s, Ma ...

Laurence Olivier Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier (; 22 May 1907 – 11 July 1989) was an English actor and director who, along with his contemporaries Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud, was one of a trio of male actors who dominated the Theatre of the U ...

* Mantovani * Lennard Pearce * Bob and Alf Pearson * Arthur Riscoe *

Thelma Ruby Thelma Ruby, also known as Thelma Ruby-Frye (born 23 March 1925), is a British actress. Born Thelma Wigoder, she grew up in an Orthodox Jewish family in Leeds. Her mother, Ruby, was an actress; her father, Louis, from Lithuania, was a dentist. ...

* Peter Sellers * Terry-Thomas * The Western Brothers

References

External links

SSVC website

'Chaos Supersedes ENSA' on IMDB
{{Authority control Military of the United Kingdom Organizations established in 1939 Entertainment organizations 1939 establishments in the United Kingdom Cultural history of World War II