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1960 The giant among British musicals of the year was Lionel Bart's extraordinary Oliver!, a show that had almost folded on its pre-London tour and which opened at the New with hardly any advance at the box-office. It went on to world-wide success, and Lionel Bart would never write anything as good again. The only other reasonably successful British musical of the season was Follow That Girl, but its pleasures seemed dated by comparison with what else was on offer. A fine cast and attractive score were not enough to prolong the life of this new Julian Slade and Dorothy Reynolds' work. Mr Burke M.P. was an in-house (and rather family) affair at the Mermaid about an ape getting into politics, with a skiffle-sounding score. Not surprisingly, it didn't generate much enthusiasm. A zestful piece from James Gilbert and Julian More, The Golden Touch, flopped quickly. Even more speedily done with was a version of Terence Rattigan's old comedy French Without Tears, with Donald Sinden making his only (and highly uncomfortable) appearance in a musical. The score was by Robert Stolz and Paul Dehn. The shutters of Joie de Vivre were put up without delay. Call It Love? wasn't really a musical at all, just a revue-like play by Robert Tanitch with five songs from Sandy Wilson, but it didn't help his reputation when the show qualified as one of the clinkers of the season, and his songs had not been good. The Players Theatre took another production into the West End, with music by Anthony Hopkins and a youthful cast led by Jeremy Brett and Stephanie Voss, but Johnny the Priest was quickly taken off. From Julian Slade and Dorothy Reynolds came an amusing Christmas play, Hooray for Daisy! which played out a season at Hammersmith but did little to convince critics or audiences to take it seriously. A piece that largely depended on dance, The Princess, tried to keep itself going by letting in audiences for free, but even they didn't get too excited about it. There probably should have been a bigger public for The Lily White Boys, a small musical with a wonderful cast that included Albert Finney, Georgia Brown, Shirley Ann Fields and Ronnie Stevens. Two smaller shows emanating from America, but with British casts, joined the failures. Innocent as Hell, the sole work of Andrew Rosenthal, put Hy Hazell and a small host of British dependables out of work before they could blink, while The Dancing Heiress did nothing to further Millicent Martin's career. But America sent its successes too: Flower Drum Song and The Most Happy Fella had reasonable runs (neither were helped by casts that weren't up to their Broadway originals). A more whimsical piece based on a fairy story, Once Upon A Mattress, was interestingly cast with British players supporting an American star (Jane Connell) but nobody bothered with it. The intimate revues were thin on the ground but entertaining. And Another Thing was unpretentiously put over by a company that had Lionel and Joyce Blair, Anna Quayle and Bernard Cribbins. Based on the writings of Art Buchwald, The Art of Living had rather more cohesion, a strong company and music and lyrics from David Heneker and Monty Norman. Both shows had reasonable runs. There was much less sympathy for Don't Shoot - We're English, billed as 'an exhibition devised by Michael Bentine'. The ex-Goon couldn't make the show a hit, even with the help of the game Maggie Fitzgibbon, Dick Emery and Clive Dunn. An absurdly long run for the Crazy Gang's Young in Heart, and the fact that a remounting of the old chestnut Rose Marie could still get three or four months out of London, showed that the public's taste was still as unpredictable as ever. |