Flanders and Swann both attended Westminster School (where in July and August 1940 they staged a revue called Go To It)[2] and Christ Church, Oxford, two institutions linked by ancient tradition.

The pair went their separate ways during World War II, but a chance meeting in 1948 led to their forming a musical partnership writing songs and light opera.

In December 1956, Flanders and Swann hired the New Lindsey Theatre, Notting Hill, to perform their two-man revue At the Drop of a Hat, which opened on New Year's Eve.

[3] The show was successful and transferred the next month to the Fortune Theatre, where it ran for over two years, before touring in the UK, the United States, Canada and Switzerland.

[3] Over the next four years they toured a combination of the two shows in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, the United States and Canada, before finishing at the Booth Theatre on Broadway in New York City.

Flanders commented during the recorded performance of At the Drop of Another Hat, The purpose of satire, it has been rightly said, is to strip off the veneer of comforting illusion and cosy half-truth.