Sail Away

Book, Music and Lyrics: Noël Coward
Broadhurst Theatre, New York, 1961
Savoy Theatre, London, 1962
Her Majesty's Theatre, Melbourne, 1963

My next production was to be a revised version of Our Man Crichton - but unfortunately it never materialised. I was at a total loss at what to do - time was short a theatre was booked and auditions were about to take place. I was very conscious that I wanted to do another good restoration of a British Musical - but what? A few days later, a record practically jumped off my shelf - Noël Coward's Sail Away. I suddenly realised that this show was not published and as far as I was aware had never been performed since the last professional production in Australia in 1963.

I jumped on the phone to the Coward Estate Literary agent who sent me a copy of the script. When the script appeared in the post, I realised that it wasn't the original text - it was a 'revised' version. I read it and promptly phoned the agent again and asked for 'the script that Noël Coward wrote'. Perhaps a little cheeky, but when the script arrived, I was in no doubt that the original script was a true gem - witty, tuneful… but most importantly rather unusual for Coward. It was very special and quite a challenge too!

Before I agreed on the show - I made sure that I had a leading lady on board who would give the mammoth role of Mimi Paragon all the power and heart that the role requires. Fortunately my dear friend Cristianne Slade agreed to play the role - giving Elaine Stritch a run for her money!

At the eleventh hour we were granted permission by the Noël Coward estate to produce the first ever revival of Sail Away. This work of quality by "The Master" himself had, unbelievably, not been seen for 35 years. It was an honour to stage the first revival.

Our biggest stumbling block was that all the original Broadway and West End orchestrations were missing, perhaps destroyed. This is surprising as it is a late Coward show and the two missing sets of orchestrations were by two well known orchestrators, Irwin Kostal and Wally Stott. We searched in vain from New York to Australia and back to England but unfortunately to no avail. I spoke to many people along the way, including the original musical director Peter Matz (who informed me that he wrote the Italian Ballet in Act II), Angela Morley (nee Wally Stott) the West End orchestrator (who told me that he was commissioned to orchestrate the West End production because repeat fees were too expensive to pay when using the original Broadway orchestrations), John McCallum who produced the Australian production, original cast members and Elaine Stritch herself - who was thrilled that we were restoring the show.

We had to start from scratch with a team of orchestrators led by Damian Le Gassick and Rowland Lee who together reconstructed the whole score. Much of the music was in an early manuscript form that was used for original demonstration purposes. Other pieces were on printed sheet music that would have been sold in the theatre and in song books. Although we had these basic tunes, they were in the wrong keys and not arranged as required for the musical. (We did receive one piece of manuscript, 'I Am No Good At Love', which was cut from the show in Philadelphia.) We did have the original cast albums which gave us a fair idea of how Coward and the orchestrators originally intended the show to sound, but the dance breaks, incidental music, overture, reprises as well as a whole vocal and piano score had to be created afresh. In many cases we had to use our imagination as there was little indication from the script as to exactly what originally happened during the dances and the incidental music. Cast members and the production team from the original productions were a help - but it had been 35 years ago.

Joan Hirst, Coward's secretary, was an incredible help and most fortunately found the most important missing piece of the score - 'The Italian Wedding Ballet'. This, which she thought was lost, was found at the bottom of a cardboard box in her attic.

It is wonderful to know that, although it was not one of Coward's greatest hits (Coward was not in vogue in 1961 - shows then needed a 'message' whilst Sail Away was written as a light piece of musical comedy), we are now able to play the show looking back on it as a period piece, enjoy it for exactly what it is, and to play it as Coward intended it.

The show itself had a fairly rocky path to the stage. Initially it featured two leading ladies: Jean Fenn (romantic lead) and Elaine Stritch (comic lead). On the road to Broadway, Jean Fenn's part was not working and so all the romantic plot was re-worked for Stritch's character. The result was a Broadway musical comedy which cemented Stritch's star status. The show transferred to London with a few minor alterations: a very short Lifeboat Drill scene in which Noël Coward's voice was used as Captain Wilberforece was cut, some scenes swapped order (demonstrating the revue-like form of the show) and there was the most important addition of the song 'The Bronxville Darby and Joan' for Edith Day and Sidney Arnold. We staged the version as it would have played in the West End.

Sail Away stood up incredibly well as a piece of musical theatre 35 years on and proved that, although people have tried with this show (even after our production) - you don't need to re-write the works of The Master. The audiences at the Rhoda McGaw Theatre, Woking, 1998 loved the piece and our restored version will soon be available for amateur societies from Warner/Chappell Music.

In 1999, the original New York orchestrations were found in Denver! Then the London orchestrations were found in the National Library of Australia in Canberra. Why? Elaine Stritch did a week of concert performances at the Weill Recital room in Carnegie Hall for Noël Coward's Centenary. It's amazing what doors can be opened for Carnegie Hall!

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