Plot
The year is 1840. The Emperor of China warns the young Queen Victoria to know her place ("The Emperor's Greeting"). The scene is set, panto-style, in a quaint, cardboard English village, "Dunroamin-on-the-Down", ancestral home of Sir Richard (Dick) Whittington and his widowed mother Lady Dodo.
Dick sets off with his manservant Jack Idle and the men of the village to seek their fortune in London or in the new towns of the Industrial Revolution. Jack is sad to leave his girlfriend, Sally. His horse Randy and her mare Cherry also fancy each other and have to be rebuked for their friskiness ("Whoa, Boy"). Lady Dodo pines for the good old days, but Dick believes the age of gold is yet to come.
Sally, left with her mare, sings of her confusion. She likes Jack but pines for Sir Richard, who is also her legal guardian. Secretly, she and Dodo take off on their own for London.
In the City, Dick encounters Obadiah Upward, an up-and-coming merchant, who explains how their fortunes can be made in distant China from the sale of poppies. Dodo and Sally arrive and they agree to make the journey.
They sail to India, and, in the poppy fields, Dodo tells Upward why she loves him ("Nostalgie de la Boue"). Dick and Jack reflect on British India, the East India Company and the Battle of Plassey in a Kipling-esque ballad ("John Companee").
En route for China aboard one of Upward's opium clippers, Dick persuades Jack and Sally to sample their wares, and they savour a pipe dream of paradise.
The Emperor of China tells Victoria to stop the cultivation of poppies, but she replies that the "Bounty of the Earth" is to be shared by every nation. She leaves him alone to lament his son's addiction to the drug. He sends Commissioner Lin to Canton to stamp out the trade. Here, Lin meets Viceroy Teng and his daughter Yoyo who is confused by Europeans ("They All Look the Same To Us").
Obadiah refuses to be intimidated by Lin's threats and sends Dick up the coast to seek fresh markets. Victoria joins his crew as an interpreter and Christian missionary and is questioned on her religious scruples. She explains there is a blessed trinity of Civilisation, Commerce and Christianity that that justifies trade ("Blessed Trinity").
Before they leave, Dodo guesses that Sally loves Dick and tells her he is not only her guardian but also her half-brother.
The Chinese lay siege to the European compound, and the animals have to be slaughtered for food. Jack sings Randy a last lullaby before killing him ("Rock-A-Bye Randy").
In the war that follows, the Chinese are defeated and surrender Hong Kong Island. Dodo and Upward sing of how the British and French soldiers sacked the Imperial Summer Palace in Peking ("Rat-a-Tat-Tat").
Peter Richard Nichols was an English playwright, screenwriter, director and journalist.
Lin Zexu, courtesy name Yuanfu, was a Chinese political philosopher and politician. He was a head of state (Viceroy), Governor General, scholar-official, and under the Daoguang Emperor of the Qing dynasty best known for his role in the First Opium War of 1839–42. He was from Fuzhou, Fujian Province. Lin's forceful opposition to the opium trade was a primary catalyst for the First Opium War. He is praised for his constant position on the "moral high ground" in his fight, but he is also blamed for a rigid approach which failed to account for the domestic and international complexities of the problem. The Emperor endorsed the hardline policies and anti-drugs movement advocated by Lin, but placed all responsibility for the resulting disastrous Opium War onto Lin.
Susan Georgina "Su" Pollard is an English actress and singer. Her career has spanned over 45 years; she is most famous for her role in the sitcom Hi-de-Hi! She also appeared in You Rang, M'Lord? and Oh, Doctor Beeching!
Sally Ann Howes was an English actress and singer. Her career on screen, stage and television spanned six decades. She is best known for the role of Truly Scrumptious in the 1968 musical film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. In 1963, she was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Lead Actress in a Musical for her performance in Brigadoon.
The New Wimbledon Theatre is situated on the Broadway, Wimbledon, London, in the London Borough of Merton. It is a Grade II listed Edwardian theatre built by the theatre lover and entrepreneur, J. B. Mulholland, who at the time was also owner of the King's Theatre in Hammersmith and had owned the Theatre Metropole in Camberwell in the 1890's. Built on the site of a large house with spacious grounds, the theatre was designed by Cecil Aubrey Massey and Roy Young. It seems to have been the only British theatre to have included a Victorian-style Turkish bath in the basement. The theatre opened on 26 December 1910 with the pantomime Jack and Jill.
Julia Hills is an English actress, known for portraying the role of Rona in all eight series of the BBC sitcom 2point4 Children. She also portrayed various roles in Channel 4's first late night satirical sketch show Who Dares Wins, Beryl in two series of the sitcom Dad and Caroline Joyner in Casualty.
Clarice Mayne was an English music hall and variety theatre singer and performer.
Ilkley Upstagers' Theatre Group, or simply Upstagers, is an amateur theatre group based in Ilkley, West Yorkshire.
Matheson Alexander Lang was a Canadian-born stage and film actor and playwright. He is best remembered for his theatrical performances in Great Britain in Shakespeare plays.
Phyllis Dare was an English actress and singer famous for her performances in Edwardian musical comedy and other musical theatre in the first half of the 20th century.
Liza Kate Pulman is a British singer and actress. She is one third of the satirical comedy trio Fascinating Aïda which received Drama Desk Award nominations in 2005 and 2010.
Dick Whittington and His Cat is the English folklore surrounding the real-life Richard Whittington, wealthy merchant and later Lord Mayor of London. The legend describes his rise from poverty-stricken childhood with the fortune he made through the sale of his cat to a rat-infested country. However, the real Whittington did not come from a poor family of common stock, and there is no compelling evidence supporting the stories about the cat, or even whether he owned one.
Neva Carr Glyn or Neva Carr Glynn was an Australian stage, film and radio actress born in Melbourne to Arthur Benjamin Carr Glyn, a humorous baritone and stage manager born in Ireland, and Marie Carr Glyn, née Marie Dunoon Senior, an actress with the stage name "Marie Avis". She had one half-sister Gwendoline Arnold O'Neill and two half-brothers Sacheverill Arnold Mola and Rupert Arnold Mola. She was named "Neva" after a great-aunt, who was a contralto of some quality. Both spellings of her surname appear in print roughly equally and apparently arbitrarily.
George Marlow was an Australian theatrical entrepreneur born in London of Jewish extraction, noted for bringing melodrama and pantomime to Sydney audiences in the early 1900s. His name has been frequently mis-spelled as "George Marlowe".
Anne Solway Hegerty is an English professional quizzer and television personality. Since 2010, she has been a "chaser" on the ITV game show The Chase as "The Governess", and was a contestant on the 2018 series of the ITV reality show I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!
Sohini Alam is a British singer of Bangladeshi descent who sings in the bands Khiyo, Lokkhi Terra, and GRRRL. She has performed internationally on stage, radio, and television and worked on music for dance, theatre, and film. Alam is a founding member of the arts company Komola Collective and co-music director of the documentary film Rising Silence. After providing vocals for dancer/choreographer Akram Khan's DESH, she spent three years touring internationally with his show Until the Lions.
Ada Blanche was an English actress and singer known early in her career for vivacious performances in Victorian burlesque and pantomime and later in character roles in Edwardian musical comedy.
Leedham Bantock was a British singer, Edwardian musical comedy actor, early film director, dramatist and screenwriter. In 1912 he became the first actor to portray Father Christmas in film.
Maud Rachel Boyd was an English actress and singer known for musical theatre and principal boy roles in pantomime.
Jessica Hung Han Yun is a British theatrical lighting designer, known for her work in theatre, concerts, and opera productions. Hung Han Yun has won an Olivier Award, WhatsOnStage Award, Knight of illumination award and Off West End Award for her work.
