Ivor Novello was a Welsh actor, dramatist, singer and composer who became one of the most popular British entertainers of the first half of the 20th century.
Michael William Balfe was an Irish composer, best remembered for his operas, especially The Bohemian Girl.
Dorothy Dickson was an American-born, London-based theater actress and singer, and a centenarian.
The Dancing Years is a musical with book and music by Ivor Novello and lyrics by Christopher Hassall, set in Vienna, from 1911 until 1938. It follows a Jewish composer and his love for two women of different social classes, with an ending set against the background of Nazi persecution.
Leontine Sagan was an Austrian-Hungarian theatre director and actress of Jewish descent. She is best known for directing Mädchen in Uniform (1931).
Christopher Vernon Hassall was an English actor, dramatist, librettist, lyricist and poet, who found his greatest fame in a memorable musical partnership with the actor and composer Ivor Novello after working together in the same touring company. He was also a noted biographer of Rupert Brooke and Edward Marsh.
Robert Tobias Andrews was a British stage and film actor. He is perhaps best known as the long-term companion of Ivor Novello.
Cyril Ornadel was a British conductor, songwriter and composer, chiefly in musical theatre. He worked regularly with David Croft, the television writer, director and producer, as well as Norman Newell and Hal Shaper. He was awarded the Gold Badge of Merit by the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors for services to British Music and won a total of four Ivor Novello Awards.
Zena Dare was an English actress and singer who was famous for her performances in Edwardian musical comedy and other musical theatre and comedic plays in the first half of the 20th century.
King's Rhapsody is a musical with book and music by Ivor Novello and lyrics by Christopher Hassall.
Pacific 1860 is a musical written by Noël Coward. The story is set in a fictional Pacific British colony during the reign of Queen Victoria. It involves a romantic and sentimental story about a visiting prima donna and her conflict between love and career. There is also the theme of snobbishness from the island's establishment.
Crest of the Wave is a musical with book and music by Ivor Novello and lyrics by Christopher Hassall.
Glamorous Night is a musical with a book and music by Ivor Novello and lyrics by Christopher Hassall, Novello's collaborator in six of the eight Novello musicals staged between 1935 and 1951. Glamorous Night was the first of several hit Novello musicals in the 1930s given expensive, spectacular productions.
Olive Sarah Gilbert was a British singer and actress, who, in a career spanning seven decades, performed first in opera and then in many of Ivor Novello's musicals in London's West End.
We'll Gather Lilacs, also called We'll Gather Lilacs In The Spring, is a song by Welsh composer Ivor Novello which he wrote for the hit musical romance Perchance to Dream. The stage musical opened at the Hippodrome Theatre in London's West End in 1945 and ran until 1948. The song, sung in the show by Olive Gilbert, was the most popular and enduring to emerge from the production.
It was originally recorded by Muriel Barron & Olive Gilbert (1945) and by Geraldo and his Orchestra, who reached the UK charts with it in 1946. A recording by Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra was a minor hit in the US in 1946. It has since been performed by many artists, including notably Anne Ziegler and Webster Booth, Richard Tauber, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Marion Grimaldi and Julie Andrews.
Minnie Rayner was a British stage and film actress.
Ivy Tresmand was an English soubrette who appeared mostly in musical theatre.
Frederick Walter James Peisley was a British stage, film and television actor and theatre director whose career spanned five decades. He is known for The Secret of the Loch (1934), Gentlemen's Agreement (1935) and Murder at the Cabaret (1936). His later career was mostly in television.
Helen Landis was an English singer and actress, known for her performances in musical theatre, operetta and opera, especially roles in early British productions of Rodgers and Hammerstein's and Ivor Novello's musicals and the contralto roles in the Savoy operas with the Gilbert and Sullivan for All company, with whom she toured extensively for more than 20 years.
Maidie Andrews was an English actress and singer who, in career that spanned six decades, was a child actress and later a stage beauty who appeared in musical comedy including the original London productions of No, No, Nanette (1925) and Cavalcade (1931). The latter years of her career saw her taking roles in television and film.
