"The show must go on" is a phrase in
show business
Show business, sometimes shortened to show biz or showbiz (since 1945), is a vernacular term for all aspects of the entertainment industry.''Oxford English Dictionary'' 2nd Ed. (1989) From the business side (including managers, agents, produc ...
, meaning that regardless of what happens, whatever show has been planned still has to be staged for the waiting patrons. There is no evidence to suggest that it is the abbreviation of a longer phrase.
The saying and principle are traditional in the theater, but they both originated in the 19th century with
circuses
A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and unicyclis ...
. If an animal got loose or a performer was injured, the
ringmaster and the band tried to keep things going so that the crowd would not panic because "it is a point of honour not to let the other players down by deserting them when no understudy is available".
Later on, the phrase was more broadly applied to the
hotel
A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a ref ...
business and show business in general. Eventually, the phrase was used to convey the idea that an event or activity must continue even if there are problems or difficulties, with or without regard to actual show business.
See also
*
Vesti la giubba
"" (, "Put on the costume", often referred to as "On With the Motley", from the original 1893 translation by Frederic Edward Weatherly) is a tenor aria from Ruggero Leoncavallo's 1892 opera '' Pagliacci''. "" is sung at the conclusion of the fi ...
(Recitar!), a sad clown's aria from
Pagliacci
''Pagliacci'' (; literal translation, "Clowns") is an Italian opera in a prologue and two acts, with music and libretto by Ruggero Leoncavallo. The opera tells the tale of Canio, actor and leader of a commedia dell'arte theatrical company, who m ...
References
English phrases
Quotations from literature
19th-century neologisms
{{English-lang-stub