ANNA DAWSON - the star of Wildest Dreams who went on to a long career with famous comedians

Too soon lost from the British musical, this attractive auburn-haired actress had qualities of gamin charm that were quite unlike any held by her contemporaries. With different handling, and better shows, she might have become a much more important player in British musicals, but she was claimed by stage farces and a string of television series that were in many cases unworthy of her talents.

Anna Dawson was born in Bolton but spent much of her childhood in Tanganyika, where her father worked. She attended the Elmhurst Ballet School and after training at the Central School of Speech and Drama played in repertory theatre companies, including a spell at Great Yarmouth's Royalty Theatre. She made her West End debut understudying the entire female chorus of Free as Air at the Savoy Theatre in 1957, playing all the parts in turn during an influenza epidemic. The show was the beginning of a long association with the musicals of Julian Slade and Dorothy Reynolds.

It was in a musical by Alan Melville and Charles Zwar that she first got to play a principal role in London. Standing at 5 feet 2 inches, Dawson was an ideal understudy for Sally Smith in the title role of Marigold, which opened at the Savoy Theatre in 1959 and, before it could settle in, was shuffled off to the Saville Theatre and a quick death. Towards the end of the run, Smith went off sick so that Dawson could take over for three performances. For the Christmas season of 1960 there was another Slade-Reynolds show, Hooray for Daisy!, at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, with Dawson playing the small role of Greer Perry, in which she may briefly be heard on the original cast LP in the ensemble number 'Nice Day'.

Her most substantial original lead came a year later when she played Carol Arden in the final Slade-Reynolds' musical Wildest Dreams at the Vaudeville. Opposite her was an unlikely leading man, John Baddeley, whose only previous musical appearance in London had been in a supporting capacity in Follow That Girl, with Dorothy Reynolds and Angus Mackay as the middle-aged stars. Wildest Dreams had very unwelcoming reviews and was quickly done with, but the original cast recording has happily left us with an abundance of numbers that demonstrate Dawson's unusual timbre. Her voice seemed to find a natural reaction in Slade, who provided her with an armoury of numbers, including several duets with Baddeley and three distinctive solos. Of these, 'A Man's Room' - one of the most artless songs ever written for a British musical - finds perfect expression. But Wildest Dreams didn't make a star of its young leading lady.

It seemed a backward step to follow a leading role (even in a flop) with what was no more than a chorus job in the British edition of Little Mary Sunshine, another short-lived engagement, at the Comedy Theatre in 1962. The show had already established itself as a long-running off-Broadway success, but in London critics and audiences didn't take to Rick Besoyan's harmless kick at Romberg-style operettas, despite a spanking list of principals that included Patricia Routledge, Bernard Cribbins, Joyce Blair and (perhaps a little less spanking) Terence Cooper. At least as Cora, one of the nice young ladies at Eastchester Finishing School - somewhat inappropriately placed for the occasion in the Canadian Rockies - she was in good company, for the other girls included Patricia Michael, Hilary Tindall and Judy Nash. None of them has individual lines to sing, but Dawson gets two spoken words on the original cast recording, and may be heard prominently in the breezy 'Say Uncle'. Alas, Little Mary Sunshine couldn't withstand a lack of business, even after the cast gave back their salaries to the management.

Famous comedians

In April 1963 she was a supporting player in Alan Melville's revue All Square at the Vaudeville: the critics made it welcome but the public didn't go. At the Palladium that December she was Charlie Drake's leading lady in a space-age musical The Man in the Moon (she was an ideal partner for Drake, being shorter than he was); the show - a pantomime in disguise - marked the start of a long working relationship with the diminutive comedian, lasting through many television appearances and stage shows. When Drake went into the recording studio to put down six of The Man in the Moon's songs, Dawson didn't get to accompany him. There were to be many more partnerships with famous comics, including a notable summer season at the ABC Theatre, Blackpool with Morecambe and Wise at the peak of their career. There were also many appearances at the Players Theatre, including a season in the title role of Dick Whittington, a role for which Dawson was born. She took over the role of Mary Crawford in the long-running BBC TV's series Dixon of Dock Green, and played the lead in a radio version of Meet Me By Moonlight.

She played Hilaret in a revival of the Mermaid's old success Lock Up Your Daughters in 1969, but musicals were now taking second place to a burgeoning career in comedy. She began a long run of various Brian Rix farces, in London, on tour and on television, but never graduated beyond supporting roles. A long association with Benny Hill followed. She narrowly escaped being cast as Lucy in Two Cities at the Palace in 1969, and had three auditions before being turned down for a lead in Joey, Joey at the Saville Theatre; neither shows would have done much for her career.

She made a musical comeback as Lady Arabella Harvey in the Wolf Mankowitz-Monty Norman piece about the highwayman Jack Sheppard, Stand and Deliver, at the Round House in 1972. Its demise went unlamented. She see-sawed into another supporting part for Wendy Toye (who had also done Stand and Deliver) in a Chichester musical, R Loves J, from a play by Peter Ustinov, in a cast list dominated by Topol, but it never looked a likely West End contender. The next year she was third-billed below Sheila Hancock and George Cole in a pot-pourri of old revue numbers, Deja Revue, a show that felt uncomfortable in the New London Theatre. When she left the company, her place was taken by Joan Savage.

In 1976 there was an unexpected foray into opera (well, operetta) when she played Queen Isabella in a piece made up of off-cuts from Offenbach, Christopher Columbus, with a brilliantly witty libretto by Don White. The opera was later recorded with notable success by Opera Rara. Dawson's performance, confined to only one of the Acts, is first-class, revealing her at last as a clever musical comedienne. The recording stands as one of the most enduring landmarks of her career.

After her marriage to the one-time star of the Black and White Minstrel Show, John Boulter, her appearances became less frequent.

Discography

Marigold Original London cast
Hooray For Daisy! Original Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith cast
Wildest Dreams Original London cast
Little Mary Sunshine Original London cast
Christopher Columbus Original London cast

 

RETURN TO UNSUNG HEROINES