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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.
Dame Margaret Taylor Rutherford, was an English actress of stage, television and film.
The Rivals is a comedy of manners by Richard Brinsley Sheridan in five acts which was first performed at Covent Garden Theatre on 17 January 1775. The story has been updated frequently, including a 1935 musical and a 1958 episode of the TV series Maverick starring James Garner and Roger Moore, with attribution.
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.
John David Bennett was an English actor.
The Finborough Theatre is a fifty-seat theatre in the West Brompton area of London under artistic director Neil McPherson. The theatre presents new British writing, as well as UK and world premieres of new plays primarily from the English speaking world including North America, Canada, Ireland, and Scotland including work in the Scots language, alongside rarely seen rediscovered 19th and 20th century plays. The venue also presents new and rediscovered music theatre.
Little Fish is a musical with music, lyrics, and book by Michael John LaChiusa. The musical is suggested by two short stories by Deborah Eisenberg, Days and Flotsam. It concerns a group of friends living in New York City, one of whom, Charlotte, decides to stop smoking and then swims to compensate for the lack of nicotine. LaChiusa has said that he sees Little Fish as a "parable of sorts" for New York after the September 11 attacks.
Theodore & Co is an English musical comedy in two acts with a book by H. M. Harwood and George Grossmith Jr. based on the French comedy Théodore et Cie by Paul Armont and Nicolas Nancey, with music by Ivor Novello and Jerome Kern and lyrics by Adrian Ross and Clifford Grey. It was produced by Grossmith and Edward Laurillard and directed by Austen Hurgon, opening at the Gaiety Theatre on 19 September 1916 and running for 503 performances. It starred Grossmith, Fred Leslie and Leslie Henson.
Gareth Valentine is a Welsh composer, arranger, conductor and musical director. He has worked extensively in London's West End on musical productions and also conducted orchestras worldwide including the BBC Concert Orchestra, Welsh National Opera Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Pasdeloup orchestra, RPO Concert Orchestra, Queensland Symphony Orchestra, ENB Sinfonia, Orchestre de chambre de Paris and many others. After graduating from the Royal College of Music, London, he studied with Sir Peter Pears at Aldeburgh.
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.
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 Novello musicals in the 1930s given an expensive, spectacular production, with several scene changes and a large cast, including many extras and dancers. Scenes included villas on a suburban street where a horse-drawn carriage was driven, the set of an operetta performed in the fictional country of Krasnia, shipboard skating and assassination scenes, the sinking of the ship, a bustling gypsy wedding and a Royal ballroom.
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.
Sylvia Cecil was an English singer and actress. She began her career in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, with whom she performed, off and on, from 1918 until 1937. She also performed in musical theatre, concerts, music hall and variety from 1921, and broadcast on radio. In the 1940s and 1950s she starred in several musicals by Ivor Novello and Noël Coward.
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.
Love for Love is a Restoration comedy written by English playwright William Congreve. It premiered on 30 April 1695 at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre. Staged by Thomas Betterton's company the original cast included Betterton as Valentine, William Smith as Scandal, John Bowman as Tattle, Thomas Doggett as Ben, Samuel Sandford as Foresight, William Bowen as Jeremy, John Freeman as Buckram, Anne Bracegirdle as Angelica, Elizabeth Bowman as Mrs Foresight, Elizabeth Barry as Mrs Frail, Elinor Leigh as Nurse and Abigail Lawson as Jenny.
Lilacs in the Spring is a 1954 British musical film directed by Herbert Wilcox and starring Anna Neagle, Errol Flynn and David Farrar. The film was made at Elstree Studios with sets designed by the art director William C. Andrews. Shot in Trucolor it was distributed in Britain by Republic Pictures. It was the first of two films Neagle and Flynn made together, the other being King's Rhapsody. It was released in the United States as Let's Make Up.
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.
Who Is Sylvia? is a 1950 comedy play by the British writer Terence Rattigan about a man obsessed with the image of a woman he met as a seventeen year old and his search for her throughout the rest of his life. The play offered a thinly veiled portrayal of Rattigan's own philandering father. Like Perchance to Dream, Ivor Novello's long-running musical terminating only two years previously, Rattigan chose a line from William Shakespeare for his title. The line is the first wistful question of a song passage in The Two Gentlemen of Verona.
Sir Anthony Love; Or, The Rambling Lady is a 1690 comedy play by the Irish writer Thomas Southerne. It was originally staged by the United Company at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane with a cast that included Susanna Mountfort in a breeches role as Sir Anthony Love, William Mountfort as Valentine, Joseph Williams as Ilford, William Bowen as Sir Gentle Golding, Anthony Leigh as An Abbe, John Hodgson as Count Canaile, Samuel Sandford as Count Verole, George Bright as Waitwell, Colley Cibber as Servant to Sir Gentle, Charlotte Butler as Floriante, Anne Bracegirdle as Charlote and Frances Maria Knight as Volante. The play's incidental music was composed by Henry Purcell.
Love in a Wood; Or, St James's Park is a 1671 comedy play by the English writer William Wycherley. His debut play, it was first staged at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane by the King's Company.
References
- Profile of the show at the Guide to musical theatre website
- Perchance to Dream at the Encyclopedia of Musical Theatre by Stanley Green
