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 2. 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 It was superseded by Combined Services Entertainment (CSE) which now operates as part of the Services Sound and Vision Corporation (SSVC).
[edit] Members
Many well-known stars have performed in ENSA, including Gracie Fields and George Formby.
[edit] In Popular Culture
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.
