- Gillian Lewis
-
- There was something enchanting about this home counties
heroine. She seemed most at home in twin set and pearls, and
her voice wasn't of the steadiest, and yet …
-
- Perhaps she came from Bristol, where she seems to have made
her earliest appearances. She was to star in two West End musicals,
in both of which she should have made more of an impression than
she did. She had an extraordinarily English beauty and a singing
voice that was tenuous but perched on the edge of beauty.
- Gillian Lewis's first musical was Julian Slade and Dorothy
Reynolds's The Merry Gentlemen, in which she played Cousin Rosie
at the Theatre Royal, Bristol in 1953. Four years later she was
cast as Geraldine Melford in their Free As Air at the Savoy Theatre,
a role she played for the show's year-long stay. Her sometimes
uncertain soprano didn't seem to matter, for she brought an unworldly
quality to her opening solo, the haunting 'Nothing But Sea And
Sky', and imbued a duet with John Trevor, 'I'd Like To Be Like
You' with a strangely touching manner. Fortunately, that unique
voice is perfectly caught on the original cast recording.
-
- It wasn't until 1962 that Lewis got another musical, and
this was a much more modest affair than Free As Air. At the Little
Theatre, Bristol, she played the leading role of Natalia Snevellici
in a musical by Edgar K. Bruce, Step Into The Limelight, based
on the Vincent Crummles' episodes in Charles Dickens's Nicholas
Nickleby. The show had music by Betty Lawrence, an erstwhile
Players' Theatre pianist, but was never taken beyond Bristol.
-
- The following year Lewis made an unexpected return to London
as one of the leads in the British premiere of Leonard Bernstein's
On The Town at the Prince of Wales's Theatre. As Claire, she
got to sing 'I Get Carried Away', attacking the part with a relish
and conviction that must have surprised some. She and the rest
of the company were excellent, but the show was off after only
63 performances, after which this delightful artist seems to
have vanished from the pages of British musical theatre. And
all theatre, apparently, although in 1965 she was hired as understudy
to Dorothy Tutin who was playing Victoria in Portrait of a Queen
at the Vaudeville Theatre. In my programme, I can find no mention
of Lewis, who certainly bore a striking physical and vocal resemblance
to Miss Tutin.
-
- Discography
Original London cast recordings of
Free As Air
On The Town
RETURN TO UNSUNG HEROINES
|
