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Patricia Routledge
 
Patricia Routledge, an unsung heroine? Surely not?
 
Well, yes, in Britain, where she is today mainly remembered for her work on television. No one seemed to take too much notice of her when she was doing marvellous work in British musicals of the 1960s, and the British remain mostly ignorant of her triumphant appearances in America. Although she is one of the most brilliant (very probably the finest) of our musical actresses, her work in the genre has never been properly celebrated. It is particularly unfortunate that almost every one of her musicals failed to run. For the finest musical actress in town, there was only a list of flops.
 
Patricia Routledge was born in Birkenhead, Cheshire, on 17 February 1929, and educated at Birkenhead High School and the University of Liverpool, where she gained an Honours degree in English Literature and Language. She studied at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, and made her stage debut in Shakespeare at Liverpool Playhouse in August 1952. She remained with the company for a year, after which she had extensive experience with other repertory companies.
 
Her first London appearance was in a musical. She played Carlotta in Julian Slade's adaptation of Sheridan's operetta The Duenna, which had a modest run at the Westminster Theatre in July 1954, and two years later played Adriana in Slade's musicalisation of The Comedy of Errors at the Arts Theatre. At the Saville Theatre in April 1957 she had the supporting role of Aunt Mabel in Zuleika, only getting to join eight other ladies of the cast in singing 'What Has She Got?'. Zuleika flopped, and the next musical, The Love Doctor, in which she played the supporting role of Henrietta Argan, collapsed even more speedily at the Piccadilly Theatre in October 1959.
 
Things looked up the following year when she was cast as Mrs Gilchrist in the Slade-Reynolds confection, Follow That Girl, although she didn't get billing (nobody did). The part hardly over-stretched her, but at least it provided an effective shop scene that exploited her already blossoming genius for physical comedy, and a duet with James Cairncross, 'Waiting For Our Daughter', that gave her a chance to show what she might do with a song. There was six months life in Follow That Girl. Next up were two revues, Come As You Are (seen at Guildford in August 1961) and Out Of My Mind (seen at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith in November 1961), which showcased the zanier side of her talents.
 
The first musical for which she was leading lady was Rick Besoyan's pastiche of American operetta, Little Mary Sunshine, at the Comedy Theatre in May 1962. She made a captivating heroine, long haired, ineffably gracious, and very funny, but the critics yawned and the show folded quickly. She had no more luck the next year with a skilful musical version of Vanbrugh's play The Relapse, Virtue In Danger, which transferred briefly from the Mermaid to the Strand Theatre. As the man-hungry Berinthia, she turned in another superb performance, but the public didn't go.
 
She had never deserted straight theatre, and a great personal success came in 1965 when she played the three leading ladies (Violet, Nell and Rover) in the comedy How's The World Treating You? A substantial hit in London, Routledge went with the play to New York in October 1966, beginning an association with Broadway that would result in some of her finest work in musical theatre. Indeed, there was nothing of interest for her to do in Britain, where she steadily built a reputation as an outstanding actress, not least in leading roles opposite Alastair Sim, who became almost a mentor to her. It seemed beyond the imagination, or skill, of British writers of musicals to write anything in which she might star.
 
The opportunity in musicals lay in America. She was starred opposite Vincent Price in an E. Y. Harburg-Jule Styne adaptation of Arnold Bennett's novel Buried Alive. Finally called Darling of the Day, the show arrived on Broadway in January 1968, mortally wounded after a disastrous tour during which many of the creative personnel (including the librettist) vanished. There were no reservations about Routledge's performance as the sparky Putney widow Alice Challice. Fortunately, she had a good number of the best songs, including two lovely ballads (two of the best Styne ever wrote, neither of which is much heard today) - 'Let's See What Happens' and 'That Something Extra Special'. There were also enough comedy numbers to show what a distinctly individual comedienne she was. In the New York Sunday Times Walter Kerr wrote that he had watched Routledge deliver'the most spectacular, most scrumptious, most embraceable musical comedy debut since Beatrice Lillie and Gertrude Lawrence came to this country … I understand there are some insane people going around this town saying that they didn't care all that much for Darling of the Day. I'd stay away from them if I were you. I warn you: if you don't catch her act now, you'll someday want to kill yourself.'
 
Nevertheless, Darling of the Day closed after only 32 showings. Routledge won a Tony for Best Musical Actress for her performance (thankfully recorded). There was another bid for Broadway stardom later the same year when she played Queen Victoria in a show called Love Match but - although once again she was much praised - the piece proved a dodo, closing on the road before touching New York. Back home, things were much less exciting. She was Mrs Bennett in the British premiere of the American musical First Impressions for the opening of a revamped Birmingham repertory Theatre. She had by far the best songs of the night, but the show hadn't been very good even in America, and wasn't going anywhere now. At last, in 1972, there was a solid commercial success when she played in a compilation of Noel Coward Material, Cowardy Custard, but it seemed a feeble use of her abilities.
 
There were two more musicals in America. In 1976 she was the First Lady in a musical about the White House by Alan Jay Lerner and Leonard Bernstein, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. She was lauded for what she did in it, and by any standards it was a challenging assignment. She played every First Lady over a century of American history, and had some demanding stuff to sing. 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue played out its first week on Broadway and was gone. She made one more bid for the Great White Way when she was cast as Veta Dowd, the eccentric sister of the man whose friend was a huge white rabbit, in the musical Say Hello To Harvey (adapted from the play and film, Harvey). The show closed on the road to New York, and it was the end of Routledge's American musical career.
 
By the time she featured in the National Theatre's production of Carousel, the British had forgotten (if they had ever remembered) what a leading lady she had been. Despite her best endeavours, they knew her as the star of two television series - as Hyacinth Bouquet, the grotesquely snobbish suburban housewife in the dismally unfunny sitcom Keeping Up Appearances, and as a neatly-bloused, no-nonsense amateur Northern sleuth called Hetty Wainthrop. She won plaudits for an Alan Bennett one-woman play 'A Woman of No Importance' in which she gave a performance that alone would have earned her a place in the history of acting.
 
Selected Discography

Original cast recordings of

Follow That Girl
Little Mary Sunshine
Virtue in Danger
Darling of the Day
Cowardy Custard

Studio recordings of

Hello Dolly! (1965)
The Sound of Music (1966)
Kiss Me Kate (1967)
I Remember Mama (1985)
 
 

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