Eleanor Drew

'summer and sunshine and falling in love' - from 'The Time of My Life' (Salad Days)

Eleanor Drew deserved to become a star. Plays and Players seemed about to begin a fan club for her when it wrote; 'Quite free from the common habit of standing like a wooden statue whenever there is a song to put across, she is one of the few young artists in musical comedy today who know how to move naturally about the stage and remain always in character.' With the right handling, Plays and Players insisted, she would become a star. There was no reason why not - she was clearly intelligent, strong-voiced and attractive. The possibilities seemed limitless.

A Londoner, Eleanor Drew learned her craft in amateur concert parties during the war, and took singing lessons. She auditioned for Emile Littler and in 1945 was cast in a touring edition of The Quaker Girl. In 1947 she made her West End debut in the chorus of the original cast of Oklahoma! at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, and was later promoted to an important supporting role, staying with the production for over two years. She toured with The Dancing Years, and in 1949 married the actor Basil Henson.

A repertory season at Swansea was followed by another at Bristol Old Vic where she played many roles and specialised in those that required a good soprano. She was in Two Gentlemen of Verona (for which the Bristol Old Vic's resident musical director Julian Slade wrote the incidental music) and was then cast in the company's summer show of 1954, scheduled to run for a handful of performances - Salad Days.

In the normal run of things, the leading lady of Salad Days would have been the singing actress Jane Wenham, but she was unavailable (playing in Slade's The Duenna at the Westminster Theatre) and the role (named Jane after Miss Wenham) went to Drew. The huge success of Salad Days at Bristol took it to the Vaudeville Theatre where it ran for over five years. Drew bore the brunt of the show's score - her leading man, John Warner, had little to sing of his own - with two exquisite songs, 'I Sit In The Sun' and 'The Time Of My Life'. There was also a magically touching duet 'We Said We Wouldn't Look Back' and a hand in most of the other 'straight' numbers. As the original cast recording verifies, Drew was one of the show's main glories. She subsequently featured on an LP 'The Music of Julian Slade'.

Fascinating flops

When she left Salad Days (her place taken by Virginia Vernon) she played Naomi Tighe in School, an adaptation of T. W. Robertson's play, at Birmingham repertory Theatre in 1957. When the production transferred to the Princes Theatre in March 1958, Jack Hylton billed her (below the title) as the show's star, but it seemed a nominal gesture. School's composer, Christopher Whelen, remembers that 'the London production was hideous', but Drew attracted good notices or singing 'The Letter Song'. There was another solo, 'Handsome Stranger' and a duet with Michael Blakemore 'I Hang On Your Lips'. Some of the numbers from School were seen on TV, but the score was not recorded. The show had feeble reviews and shut up shop after 22 performances.

Drew's two other London musicals didn't do too well. In 1959 she took the supporting role of Beline in the fascinating flop The Love Doctor 'suggested by the medical comedies of Moliere', written by the creators of such hits as Kismet and Song of Norway, Robert Wright and George Forrest. Despite its apparently brilliant cast (it included Ian Carmichael, Joan Heal, Douglas Byng, Peter Gilmore, Richard Wordsworth, Patricia Routledge and Anna Sharkey) The Love Doctor, seen at the Piccadilly Theatre in October 1959, closed after 16 showings.

For her final musical, it was back to Julian Slade and Dorothy Reynolds as the leading lady, Priscilla Vernon, in their Hooray For Daisy! at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith for Christmas 1960 (the distinctly non-singing Annette Crosbie had created the role at Bristol.) The opportunities offered by the score could not have been exploited better by any other musical actress of the time. She made Priscilla a flesh and blood character, from her fine introductory number 'I Feel As If I'd Never Been Away' through the social delicacies of 'Madam Will You Dine?' (a duet with Robin Hunter) and the regret of 'I'm Sorry'. But another panned show didn't do anything for Drew's career, which seemed to end there.

In only six years her reputation had blossomed and faded. It was a run as short as those of the musicals she got involved with after the stupendous success of Salad Days. Nevertheless, Drew has a well-deserved place in the history of British musical theatre. In its fine legacy of recordings, her singing of 'I Sit In The Sun' and 'The Time Of My Life' will forever remain classics of the gramophone.

Discography

Salad Days Original London cast
The Music of Julian Slade Studio Recording
Hooray For Daisy! Original London cast

 

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