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Entertainments National Service Association
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Entertainments National Service Association, or ENSA was an organisation set up in 1939 by Basil Dean 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 It was superseded by Combined Services Entertainment (CSE) which now operates as part of the Services Sound and Vision Corporation (SSVC).
Many well-known stars have performed in ENSA, including Gracie Fields and George Formby. During 1945 actors Sir Laurence Olivier and Ralph Richardson were created honorary army Lieutenants in ENSA. They performed Shakespeare's plays for the troops in a six week tour of Europe.
Despite many extremely talented entertainers and movie stars, past and future, 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"
The television sitcom It Ain't Half Hot Mum concerned the misadventures of a group of soldiers providing entertainment for an army barracks in India. These were known as the Concert Party and were not ENSA members per se.