Tiller Girls

He originally formed the group for the pantomime 'Robinson Crusoe', subtitled 'The Good Friday That Came on a Saturday', in 1890 at the Prince of Wales Theatre, Liverpool.

The Tillers performed as resident dancers at the Folies Bergère in Paris, the London Palladium, the Palace Theatres in Manchester and in London (as the Palace Girls or Sunshine Girls), the Blackpool Winter Gardens, on New York's Broadway, where Tiller had a dance school, and at hundreds of other theatres throughout Europe and the United States.

During the 1940s the Tiller Girls were popular, appearing in summer seasons, pantomimes, variety tours, London West End shows, and cabaret.

On Sept 24th 1955 a Tiller Troupe appeared in the first Saturday night variety show transmitted on the new ITV channel, which had been launched 2 days earlier.

During the remainder of the 1950s and during the 1960s the Tiller Girls established themselves as the premier dance troupe on British commercial television, being associated particularly with the iconic Sunday Night at the London Palladium.

Towards the end of 1988 a former Tiller Girl, Sandy Jones, received a surprise call from a friend, George May, who was working on a production named Joy to the World, to be staged at the Albert Hall in London.

This original troupe of ladies, ranging in age from their early 40s to late 50s, carried on for more than twenty years, performing in over 180 shows under Bruce Vincent's stewardship.

They performed at many prestigious charitable events all over the UK, including 40 Glorious Years, in honour of The Queen, and were semi-adopted [clarification needed] by Lily Savage, aka Paul O'Grady, for his shows and videos in the 1990s.

The 1960s Tiller Girls formally announced their retirement, and their final show, in April 2011, was a cabaret in aid of Vera Lynn's Children's Charity.

If I ever got a chance to get a group of American girls who would be taller and have longer legs and could do really complicated tap routines and eye-high kicks, they'd knock your socks off!"

The Rockettes first came to life in 1925 as the "Missouri Rockets" and made their show business debut in St. Louis, the realisation of a long-time dream of their creator, Russell Markert.

Lily explained how Russell Markert added his own style to the Precision Dance routines; this found its way back to the Tiller girls in the United Kingdom.