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1969 The producers of the British musical needed friendly bank managers. Ann Veronica was knocked up out of the novel about suffragettes by H. G. Wells. It started life with the one-time star Dorothy Tutin in the title role, but she dropped out before its poorly received London opening. The score and performances seemed perfunctory, and it collapsed with alacrity. Harold Fielding made another attempt at pulling off the trick he had managed with Charlie Girl by putting Evelyn Laye and Mark Wynter into a musical by David Heneker about the Irish composer Percy French, here played by the comic Stanley Baxter, but it was a lop-sided affair. Some of the songs were good enough, but there was little market for it. The Rector of Stiffkey cropped up again in The Stiffkey Scandals of 1932, as much a play with songs as a musical proper. Its leading lady, Terri Stevens, might have become a star with better handling, but she, like the show, would soon be forgotten, although she excelled in a later piece, Jack the Ripper. Another Dickens adaptation, Two Cities, had been announced long before as starring Keith Michell and Margaret Burton as Marie Antoinette, but neither showed up when the show finally appeared. It was derided, although Edward Woodward as Sydney Carton was excused. The score was of the feeblest. The Moral Re-Armament organisation continued to make its mark on the musical play by staging High Diplomacy, in which Muriel Smith and Patricia Bredin reminded managements that they should have been in something more worthy of them. From Trevor Peacock came a piece called Erb which wasn't given much of a welcome. At Birmingham, a neat attempt at a musical version of Come Dancing surfaced as Quick, Quick, Slow. The book by David Turner, lyrics by Julian More and music by Monty Norman should have indicated success, but the days when such things could be got into London were passing. Mandrake was seen at Bristol with Margaret Burton. It would transfer unsuccessfully to London the following year. Of revues there was no trace. American musicals manifested in Mame, giving Londoners the chance to enjoy Ginger Rogers in the title role. Promises, Promises had a lovely score by Burt Bacharach and ran for eighteen months. A rock version of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, Your Own Thing was around for a few weeks. The revival of Anything Goes suffered a quick demise, and a 'Western ' extravaganza, Belle Starr, was a highly embarrassing failure starring Betty Grable. |