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1951 Vivian Ellis showed up with a neat and polite chamber musical about Samuel Pepys, And So To Bed, written for his friend Leslie Henson. The run was decent enough, but the score didn't strain for popularity. A short-lived revival of the Ellis-A.P. Herbert favourite Bless the Bride showed how fickle public affection could be. Ivor Novello's rollicking vehicle for Cicely Courtneidge, Gay's the Word, was a wonderfully happy swan song for the composer, who died during the show's run. Alan Melville's lyrics seemed to breathe new life into Novello's invention, and the show proved a solid runner. It just outran Cole Porter's imported Kiss Me, Kate, graced by its original Broadway leading lady Patricia Morison. Eric Maschwitz and his composer George Posford came up with a cannily assembled vehicle for George Formby, Zip Goes a Million. It had an interesting score expertly tailored to what the public expected of the Northern comic, and was a crowd pleaser. Rainbow Square, by veteran hands - including the composer Robert Stolz - was a lumbering mish-mash of styles that failed to impress despite high production values. Mary Martin conquered the stage of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific. In 1946 on the same stage she had endured a failure in Noel Coward's extravagant but generally uninteresting operetta Pacific 1860. Laurier Lister had a noted success with devising the intimate revue, Penny Plain, whose cast glimmered with expertise. The Fol-de-Rols was a chance for the famed concert party to get a legitimate showing in London, but the fragile charm of it didn't endure beyond a few weeks. The Lyric Revue was a splendid occasion, starring Dora Bryan, Joan Heal, Graham Payn and Ian Carmichael and directed by William Chappell, bringing back memories of the best of earlier revues. It ran almost a year. A late night revue, After the Show, written by Peter Myers and Alec Grahame with music by John Addison and Norman Dannatt didn't run, although it starred Beryl Reid. The tired business man could turn to The Peep Show or Latin Quarter 1951 or the current edition of the Folies Bergeres. |