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1965 This was a disastrous year for the British musical, with its one rock-solid commercial success, Charlie Girl, almost universally critically dismissed. Harold Fielding assembled writers and a star attraction in Anna Neagle, with Joe Brown brought in to appeal to a middle-of-the-road clientele. The score was dull, but the artificial enjoyment was to the public taste, and the show ran and ran. Passion Flower Hotel, with music by John Barry, had a zappy score and a youthful cast with names that would one day mean much more, including Francesca Annis and Pauline Collins, but its story of sexual stirrings in pubescent schoolchildren didn't appeal. Two major British composers had major disappointments. Lionel Bart's jokey version of the Robin Hood legend, Twang!! went to two exclamation marks but was a clinker of the first order. The critics jeered, and - the opposite of what had happened to Charlie Girl - the public concurred. It was effectively the end of Lionel Bart's writing career. Sandy Wilson brought back the characters of his huge success The Boy Friend but, a decade later, there wasn't much interest in the doings of Polly Browne and her giggling companions. Divorce Me, Darling! had a strong score and some excellent turns by the cast, but was quickly gone. An adaptation of an old melodrama, The Wayward Way was a slaphappy all-join-in-the-cheering-and-booing entertainment briefly given room at the Vaudeville. Of considerable interest were musicals that didn't make it to the West End. A lively reincarnation of Stella Gibbons's Cold Comfort Farm, the brilliantly titled Something Nasty in the Woodshed, played out a season at Stratford East without exciting further interest. John Gower was the dentally challenged hero of Dearest Dracula. Presented in Dublin, it didn't cross the water. At the Mermaid, the home-grown Four Thousand Brass Halfpennies found few friends. A strange concoction starring Dickie Valentine and India Adams (a lady who had ghosted the voice of Joan Crawford in film musicals many years before), How Now Brown Cow didn't get much of a reception at Hammersmith. A small socially-aware piece at Leatherhead, The Match Girls, was much praised and prepared for a London transfer. Revues didn't get much chance. Anyone for England? and a delightful reminder of a bygone era of revues in The Farjeon Revue (using the material of Herbert Farjeon) didn't get near the West End. The interesting Nymphs and Satires got there, but didn't linger. At Drury Lane, Mary Martin stormed her way through Hello, Dolly! It had a guarded welcome from some, but its success was secured when Dora Bryan took over from Martin and helped the show to an extended run. |