Nude Revue

BARING IT ALL FOR THE THEATER

Newly widowed and living large in 1930s London, Laura Henderson, the dotty real-life dowager played with sparkly gumption by Judi Dench in Stephen Frears'* Mrs. Henderson Presents, eschews needlepoint for a more involving hobby: despite a notable lack of theatrical experience, she buys a shuttered West End music hall and hires a crusty pro, Vivian Van Damm (Bob Hoskins), as her general manager. Many of the film's most amusing moments involve the duo's acerbic squabbles over how the place should be run. Mrs. Henderson herself gets the credit, however, for the showbiz innovation that would earn the theater a nostalgic footnote in London's wartime history. "Why don't we get rid of the clothes?" she suggests, winning government approval by having the showgirls pose in classically inspired tableaux vivants. The latest entry in a peculiar British mini-genre concerning otherwise mild-mannered royal subjects with a sudden, irresistible urge to get their freak on, the film takes a sober turn with the arrival of Luftwaffe bombers in the skies of London, at which point Mrs. Henderson casts her topless revue as a matter of patriot-

AARON GELL