The Windmill girls are heading back to the West End — and some of the original performers from the famous theatre will be on hand to see them.
The new musical Mrs Henderson Presents, based on the 2005 film of the same name, tells the story of how the Windmill became a Soho institution. Tracie Bennett stars as Mrs Henderson, who owned the theatre during its heyday.
The Windmill got around strict censorship laws — summed up by one of the performers as “if it moves it’s rude, if it stands still it’s not” — by ensuring the girls stayed still while naked on stage. Its shows ran for decades, famously never closing throughout the Blitz.
Tonight’s show, at the Noel Coward Theatre, only a short walk from the Windmill’s Soho home, will be watched by a group of the original Windmill girls, many of whom are now in their eighties. Jill Millard Shapiro, 72, who performed there from 1959 to 1963 and later wrote a book about the venue’s history, said the latest show was the nearest modern audiences could get to the real thing. She said: “The Windmill was a variety theatre, it wasn’t a strip club and wasn’t even burlesque. It was unique.
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“The law was if it moves it’s rude, if it stands still it’s not so we would perform as tableaux vivants, or living pictures, so for example girls could be naked on pedestals like statues in a park and that was okay.
“There were also variety acts and comedians but that is what people went to see.
“It was naughty but nice, nothing crude and so pretty.”
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