Noël Coward
In contrast to the slick, sophisticated American musicals
of the 1930s, Britain evolved the ‘nostalgia’ musical.
In Bitter Sweet in 1929, Noël
Coward abandoned the witty sophistication
of the 1920s for a tribute to the romantic Viennese operettas
of his youth. Bitter Sweet is the story of an 18
year old girl who elopes to Vienna with her music teacher.
The London
production starred American Peggy Wood and George Metaxa, while
on Broadway the English Evelyn Laye triumphed. The 1933 film
was to make a star of
Anna Neagle. Coward’s 1931
musical Cavalcade
was a huge pageant celebration of major events in British history
shown through the experience of an ordinary family.
Ivor Novello
In the 1930s, Ivor Novello composed, wrote
and starred in a series of unashamedly popular escapist musicals
with flamboyantly romantic music and
stories. ‘Nobody walks through his own tosh with quite
the confidence of Ivor Novello’ one critic noted. Glamorous
Night, Careless Rapture and The Dancing
Years,
were big budget extravaganzas devised by Novello. To show off
the technology of the Drury Lane stage he wrote in spectacular
scenes,
like earthquakes and sinking ships.
Vivian Ellis
Although most of his work was for revues, Vivian Ellis produced
several successful musicals. In the 1930s he wrote Mr Cinders,
a reversal of the Cinderella story with the hero ‘going
to the ball’, which included the hit song ‘Spread
a Little Happiness’. In 1947 came Bless the Bride,
the most successful British musical of the time. Its hit song
‘This is my Lovely Day’ was a favourite radio request
for every bride-to-be in the 1940s and 1950s. Ellis’s
success at playing the stock exchange meant he did not need
to write as a full time job- this may explain why he was less
prolific than his contemporaries.
Noel Gay
The archetypal Cockney musical Me and My Girl was
a big hit for Noel Gay at the end of the 1930s. Reginald Armitage
was an organist at Wakefield Cathedral when he began writing
for Charlot revues in 1926 and assumed the professional name
Noel Gay, taken from the names of Noël Coward and revue
star Maisie Gay. Me and My Girl opened at the Victoria
Place in London in 1937. It starred Lupino Lane as cockney Bill
Snibson who inherits an earldom but refuses to leave his cockney
girlfriend behind. The big dance number ‘The Lambeth Walk’
became the rage in dance halls across Britain. The other hit
song was ‘The Sun has Got his Hat On’. Despite its
success, Gay wrote few other musicals, and concentrated on writing
hit songs including ‘Leaning on a Lamp Post’ for
George Formby.
In 1985, Gay’s son Richard revived Me and My Girl,
with Robert Lindsay and Emma Thompson in the lead roles. It
was an even greater success than the original and ran for eight
years. Subsequent casts included Brian Conley, Gary Wilmot,
Les Dennis and Su Pollard.
1950s and 1960s
