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Turning the pages of musical
theatre history - (for
1964 click here!)
1962
 Do Re
Mi
Max Bygraves and the delectable Maggie Fitzgibbon were singing
Jule Styne's score in the imported musical at the Prince of Wales
Theatre. How many of the audience expected to hear the song of
the same name that belonged to The Sound of Music? Styne's show
didn't have so many hits, but it did have a corker in 'Make Someone
Happy'.
 Tonia
Lee
The third Eliza Doolittle to play in My Fair Lady at the Theatre
Royal, Drury Lane, Miss Lee was promoted to the coveted starring
role from being understudy to Julie Andrews and Anne Rogers.
When Miss Lee took over, she had already played the part 239
times. The leading lady's dressing room was redecorated to her
taste - a pale pink ceiling and wallpaper that suggested a boudoir
at Versailles a la Marie Antoinette. A long way from Covent Garden!
But Miss Lee came a cropper when she suffered a backstage accident
and tried to sue the management.
 Missing
the sunshine
Yes, the press has been asked in to help save the American musical
Little Mary Sunshine at the Comedy Theatre. Here we are in Patricia
Routledge's dressing-room, watching Miss Routledge (Little Mary
herself) handing back the cast's salaries to a management more
than eager to accept them. Nice one, Pat, but it didn't work.
 Diamonds
as friends
Dear old Dora Bryan should have been more than OK in this old
favourite, with another Jule Styne score, but the production
didn't seem very bothered. Dame Dora (well, she SHOULD be a dame)
made the best she could of the hit song 'Diamonds are a girl's
best friend' but it wasn't her finest moment.
 Get
singing, Libby!
It's Libby Morris facing up to David Kossoff in a play called
'Come Blow Your Horn'. Pity, really. Writers and composers should
have been falling over themselves to get her into musicals, where
she would have torn the place up. If you don't believe it, get
a copy of her LP, on which she sings a love song to a vulture.
But Miss Morris was never allowed to fulfil her potential, and
didn't have a decent musical to her name.
 Blocking
the Bung
When Rose Hill wasn't making a living singing out of tune (notably
in the musical Belle in which she played Cora Crippen) she was
earning pennies by playing a recorder out of tune in a sketch
called 'Blocking the Bung', written by Miss Hill and Geoffrey
Rand. She featured it in the friendly little after-dinner revue
4 To The Bar at the Criterion Theatre.
 At
the Sharp edge of musicals
Production difficulties, severe winter weather, a damning press
and an adaptation that didn't measure up to Thackeray's original
novel did for Vanity Fair, seen at the Queen's Theatre in November.
Plenty to worry about
There was a title song for the revue Not To Worry? at the Garrick
Theatre starring Alec McCowen and Prunella Scales. It was a jolly
little number, recorded by Arthur Haynes (he wasn't in the show),
with a lyric that began
Not to worry
Not to fret
Not to get yourself upset
Fine words butter no parsnips. Matt Munro recorded another
of the revue's songs, 'Is there anything I can do?' Not really,
Mr Munro, because the show came off after 12 performances.
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