Calling All Stars

Calling All Stars is a variety show in aid of the Polio Research Foundation Fund.

The original text

July 1949: Nine members of the South African National Ballet Club put off a National Tour to attend the fundraiser at the Feather Market Hall in aid of the Polio Research Foundation Fund.

The South African National Ballet Club was founded in 1939 and had danced in Johannesburg, Pretoria, and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and Cape Town. Nine dancers, including Dorothea Zaymes, now with the Sadler'a Wells Company at Covent Gardens, Johan Malherbe, Sheila Wartski, Belle Sachs, Katharine Zaymes, Cynthia Wienand and Felicia Zaymes, staged a ballet, Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, a pas de quatre from Swan Lake, Dance of the Little Swans followed by a Spanish divertissement, Farucca and Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies from Casse Noisette.

Another Spanish arrangement, Malague, was also performed.

Also starring Morry Blake, the compere, Val Marewski, (known as the BBC Fiddling Funster), radio personality Bill Brewer, singer Adan Aston, and 10-year-old Myra Jackelow, the winner of the "Starlets

Competition". Cartoonist Bob Connolly did lightning sketches.

Attendances figures were between 1 700 and 1 800 people, which was considered to be a record. The concert raised more than £1 000 for the Polio Fund.

Daily Advertiser June 24, 1949.

Daily Advertiser - July 4, 1949.

Daily Advertiser - July 11, 1949.