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Follow That Girl - Part 2
 
Reviews of the original production
 
How Rude They Were And How I Agreed With Them
A few people in the gallery were ill-bred enough to boo Julian Slade's well-bred little musical at the Vaudeville Theatre last night. How boorish they were while people in stalls were muttering, half-heartedly: 'Quite tremendous fun.' And how my heart went out to the malcontents in the gallery!
 
…Mr Slade may not have noticed it, but with musicals fings ain't wot they used t'be.
New winds have been blowing from New York's Broadway and from London's East End since Salad Days started.
 
…Follow That Girl develops into little more than a series of mediocre revue sketches linked together by a prolonged game of follow-my-leader by all the cast.
 
There is pretty scenery by Hutchinson Scott, pretty inventive production by Denis Carey, and pleasant playing by a load of pretty actresses and personable actors - especially Susan Hampshire as a delight of a deb, Marion Grimaldi as her mother, and Peter Gilmore as the untalented author.
If you doted on Salad Days you may even enjoy it. But I warn you, you must have an almost terrifying capacity for enjoyment.
 

- Clive Barnes

Charming But Not Magical
 
I left the Vaudeville last night reflecting in a melancholy sort of way that Salad Days had been a miracle and that you can't expect to bring off the same miracle twice. That is not to say that in Follow That Girl Julian Slade and Dorothy Reynolds have altogether failed to match the quality of their earlier and astonishingly long-lived success at this theatre. The new piece bears the same trade-mark as the old and often achieves the same inconsequential charm. But the magic is missing.
 
… When all is over, one remembers happy moments rather than sustained delight. The song from which the play is named, for instance, is excellent, and excellently sung by Peter Gilmore as Tom. The humours of a duet in the Victorian style, solemnly burlesqued, are rather too familiar but they are well carried out by James Cairncross and Patricia Routledge.
 
Newton Blick's gifts are not given much scope while Susan Hampshire's are subjected to rather too much strain in the key-part of Victoria. The piece was given a warm welcome, and considering what an enormous popularity the author and composer have won for themselves it may do quite well.
 

- W. A. Darlington

Oh! Mr. Slade, The Same Old Mixture
 
Follow That Girl … contains exactly the same ingredients stirred in exactly the same way as those that made Salad Days a six-year hit. I loathed it. But having been a refugee from the Salad Days cult for so many years, I tried conscientiously last night to analyse my antipathy to this type of musical. Basically, I resent the relentless, self-conscious amateurism of it all.
 
In the name of wholesomeness and simplicity, the evening is deprived of wit, logic, consistency of mood, maturity of approach or subtlety of style. In short, anything that would give any semi-sophisticated adult any pleasure. Everyone from the authors to the most innocuous member of the cast seems to be shouting 'Look at me! I'm entertaining!' I expect this kind of thing from the Willesden Co-op Dramatic Society but not in the West End.
 
…I should add that during the proceedings the heroine flies over the Thames clinging to a red umbrella while three Victorian mermaids turn up doing a cha-cha-cha. Should you be misled by this description into thinking this might be an Ionesco musical, let me assure you that not an ironic, subtle or stimulating thought creeps into the entire evening.
 
…Julian Slade's music is so tinkly sweet that nothing but some heavy doses of insulin could possibly save it.
 
… I find it inconceivable - but I was wrong once before - that this heaping bowl of coy whimsy will have the success of Salad Days. I bank on my faith that the public's taste has matured a little in the last six years.
 

-Milton Shulman

Following A Marathon
 
Perhaps the new piece is not the equal of the first, but the hard things that have been said about it seem to stem largely from a feeling that Mr Slade should have been scattered to the winds by Joan Littlewood's chill Eastern blast. But how incompatible are the two genres? In the appeal they make to an audience I can detect only one crucial difference between the Soho idyll of Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be, and the Battersea idyll of Follow That Girl - the difference being that in its writing, and even more in its direction, Follow That Girl is built to withstand the wear and tear of a long run. Despite vociferous opposition from a Logue-rolling faction on the first night, I see no reason why it shouldn't.
 
The plot is nothing … But from the first wax-work group assembled at a soiree musicale, the show possesses an immaculately pointed style that breaks down the distinction between satire and whimsicality… There is not a single 'natural' movement in the production; instead there is a flowing choreography of exaggeration.
 
… The music, leaning alternately on Offenbach and Ivor Novello, has a spirit and turn of phrase that rescues even the scenes of insipid romance; and Susan Hampshire, bobbing a head of blonde curls before a pursuing crowd gave the title a conclusive justification.
 

- Irving Wardle

 
And, From Theatre World
 
Salad Days, the musical which almost became an institution, has taken to the road and the Vaudeville, sparklingly redecorated in blue, white and grey now houses Follow That Girl by the same authors. After sitting through what must surely be one of the flimsiest musicals ever written one felt like saying to Julian Slade and Dorothy Reynolds , 'no, no, no, it simply will not do!' But of course it probably will do and confound all its critics by running for years. Most of the audience seemed to have enjoyed themselves, though one did hear such comments as 'trivial', 'juvenile' and 'pretty poor dialogue' on the way out.
 
The show is divided into two, the first half containing what little plot there is and the latter half, in which the authors' invention seems to have failed them, is given over to tying up one or two loose ends and to a series of musical turns such as a parody of a Victorian ballad, a sketch on a help-yourself dress shop with, as the period is Victorian, the heroine's mother struggling in and out of stays and dresses that do up the back, unaided, and a contemporary skit on British Transport called 'Taken For A Ride' which incidentally is by far the best number of the evening.
 
The story is briefly that Tom, an author (Peter Gilmore), has written a show in which his girl friend Victoria (Susan Hampshire) is the heroine and he the hero, and from time to time they step out of their niche at the side of the stage to take part in the proceedings. Victoria, a sweet Victorian miss, runs away from home and from the two suitors her parents wish her to marry, and the show's one joke is the sight of the dear little thing pursued by parents, suitors and most of the cast … Though the tune for this is quite charming the thing is done to death.
 
The music is of the tinkling kind with nothing approaching the charm of the score of Salad Days and the love scenes for Tom and Victoria at the end are almost unbearably sentimental.
 
On the credit side it must be said that the costumes and settings by Hutchinson Scott are charming and that some of the singing is extremely good, particularly from Patricia Routledge as Victoria's mother, Marion Grimaldi as Cora, an artist's wife, and James Cairncross as the heroine's father and as an Aquarium Keeper.
 
Although possessing no singing voice to speak of, Susan Hampshire makes a delightfully pretty and charming heroine and Peter Gilmore a handsome hero, though his crooning style of singing tends to become monotonous. John Baddeley, John Davidson, John Morley and David Ryder as four Transport Officials put over their one number with fine aplomb and Newton Blick as Walter Miskin, R.A., wanders amiably through the show smiling his puckish smile. Philip Guard and Robert McBain are amusing as the two suitors, Tancred and Wilberforce, and extract every ounce out of their song 'Life Must Go On*'.
 

- L.M.


* 'Life Must Go On' was dropped from the show during its run
 

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