Patricia Lambert

Britain's answer to Shirley Jones

Patricia Lambert's parents were Londoners, but the family moved to Harrogate and it was there that she was bitten by the amateur theatrical bug. In the hope of earning a living she trained as a fashion buyer, but her voice was being trained at the same time. When she auditioned for the famous concert party the Fol De Rols, she was taken on immediately for a season at Scarborough, and stayed with the company for four years. Her first London appearance came when she starred opposite Harry Secombe and Edmund Hockridge in The Sleeping Beauty at the London Palladium. She played in summer season and toured overseas, again with Secombe, before getting her first principal role in a musical.

Once Upon A Mattress, the work of composer Mary Rodgers, had been a substantial hit on Broadway, but it had a disheartening time at the Adelphi Theatre when it opened there in September 1960. In the second female lead of Lady Larken Lambert already possessed an assured sense of style and tastefulness, and a ringing soprano. She could also act. Once Upon A Mattress lasted a month. She then took over the title role in the Victoria Palace revival of Rose Marie from Stephanie Voss, but her big break was round the corner.

She attended the auditions for The Music Man along with hundreds of others, and landed the leading role of Marion Paroo, the resourceful Iowa librarian, in Meredith Willson's masterpiece The Music Man at the Adelphi Theatre in March 1961. Her leading man was Van Johnson. The part had been originated on Broadway by Barbara Cook, but Lambert made it her own - indeed, her recording of the role yields nothing to her American counterpart. Listening to Lambert's version of 'My White Knight' one realises what a thrilling sense of theatre she had. If she wasn't Britain's answer to Barbara Cook (she lacked Cook's edge), she was almost certainly Britain's answer to Shirley Jones.

There should have been other opportunities just as good, but her qualities were becoming difficult to place in a fast-changing theatrical landscape. Had she begun her career twenty years earlier, she might have played many other leading roles. She was billed as 'and Patricia Lambert' in Our Man Crichton at the Shaftesbury Theatre in December 1964. Although she was second fiddle to the show's star Millicent Martin, Lambert showed how adept and stylish she had remained, especially when singing one of the score's most poignant numbers, 'Yesterday's World'. Sadly, it was to yesterday's world that she seemed already to belong.

Discography

Once Upon A Mattress Original London cast
The Music Man Original London cast
Our Man Crichton Original London cast

 

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