| Salad Days | |
|---|---|
 Original cast recording, 1954 | |
| Music | Julian Slade |
| Lyrics | Julian Slade and Dorothy Reynolds |
| Productions | 1954 Bristol 1954 West End 1958 New York 1976 West End revival 1996 West End revival 2009–12 Hammersmith (two revivals) |
Salad Days is a musical with music by Julian Slade, and with book and lyrics by Dorothy Reynolds and Julian Slade. The musical was initially performed in 1954 in the UK in Bristol and then in the West End, where it ran for 2,283 performances.
Julian Slade and Dorothy Reynolds had been working together on writing musicals since 1952, writing the book, music and lyrics. Reynolds was also an actress. [1] They wrote Salad Days as a "summer musical for the Bristol Old Vic's resident company." [2]
The title is taken from William Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra : "My salad days, When I was green in judgment, cold in blood, To say as I said then!", [3] and the phrase has come to be used generally to refer to one's days of youthful inexperience. The musical's enduring popularity lies in its light-hearted innocence and apparent simplicity, in sharp contrast to the many "hard-nosed" American musicals of the era, and its bright score including the songs "We Said We Wouldn't Look Back", "I Sit in the Sun", and "We're Looking for a Piano". [4]
Jane Raeburn and Timothy Dawes meet in a park, soon after their graduation, to plan their lives. They agree to get married, and do so in secret, but Timothy's parents have urged him to ask his various influential uncles—a minister, a Foreign Office official, a general, a scientist—to find him suitable employment. He and Jane, however, decide that he must take the first job that he is offered. A passing tramp offers them £7 a week to look after his mobile piano for a month, and, upon accepting, they discover that when the piano plays it gives everyone within earshot an irresistible desire to dance.
After attempts by the Minister of Pleasure and Pastime (Timothy's Ministerial uncle) to ban the disruptive music, the piano vanishes, and Timothy enlists his scientific Uncle Zed to take them in his flying saucer to retrieve it. When it is found, the tramp reappears to tell them that their month is up and the piano must be passed on to another couple. He also reveals that he is a hitherto unknown uncle of Timothy (whose parents had referred to as "the one we don't mention"). Timothy and Jane look forward to the future with confidence.
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Salad Days premiered in the UK at the Theatre Royal, Bristol in June 1954, and transferred to the Vaudeville Theatre in London on 5 August 1954, running for 2,283 performances [5] to become the longest-running show in musical theatre history until overtaken by My Fair Lady in the U.S. (1956) and Oliver! in the U.K. (1960). In the Evening Standard Awards for 1955, Salad Days was given the Award for Most Enjoyable Show (although The Pajama Game won as Best Musical). The musical was produced by Denis Carey, with dances arranged by Elizabeth West, and with a cast that featured Dorothy Reynolds in a variety of roles, John Warner as Timothy and Eleanor Drew as Jane. Slade played one of the two pianos. The reviewer in The Guardian wrote: "There is no pointed satire, only a passable line of wit, but the effect is one of genuine high spirits and those who liked it on Thursday were ready to call it the gayest piece of entertainment since The Mikado. Others were heard to compare it to a children's party, meaning that they found the fun jejune, 'undergraduate,' and limited." [6] It played to over 1.25 million people and grossed over $1.8 million. [7]
The Canadian premiere of Salad Days in 1956 was at the Hart House Theatre, University of Toronto for several months [8] with Barry Morse as director and Alan Lund as choreographer. The Canadian cast included Jack Creley, Betty Leighton, Barbara Franklin, John Clark, Roland Bull, Norma Renault and Eric Christmas. [9] The show transferred to the Royal Alexandra Theatre and then to Her Majesty's Theatre in Montreal. Morse wrote that it played "successfully" and was "again a triumph". [8] Morse revived the production at the Crest Theatre, Toronto, and then brought it to New York with a slightly different cast. The New York production, featuring Richard Easton, opened at the Barbizon Plaza Theatre (then located at Avenue of the Americas and 58th Street) on November 10, 1958, and ran for 80 performances. [10] [11] Morse described the theatre as "not a Broadway theatre ... a perfectly comfortable and centrally situated theatre which was housed in a hotel." He further wrote "as rotten luck would have it there was a newspaper strike which started just a few days before we opened." [8] [12] There were no reviews, and the show closed in January 1959 when, according to Morse, "our financial resources were used up." [8]
The show was revived in the West End in April 1976 at The Duke of York's Theatre, running for 133 performances, and featured Elizabeth Seal. [13] Salad Days was next revived in April 1996 at London's Vaudeville Theatre, directed by Ned Sherrin and featuring Simon Connolly, Nicola Fulljames and Richard Sisson. In his review for The Guardian, Michael Billington wrote: "Time has also changed both the show and our attitude towards it. What seemed hopelessly innocent in 1954 has now acquired the patina of camp." [14]
The show received a new production by Tête à Tête opera company, directed by Bill Bankes-Jones, originally produced in November 2009 at Riverside Studios in London, and revived for over two months in 2010–11. That revival was a sell-out and the production was revived again for Christmas & New Year 2012–13 at Riverside Studios [15]
The Original Cast recording (1954) was recorded by Oriole Records. [16] The Original Cast recording of the Duke of York's Theatre revival was released by That's Entertainment. [17] A 40th anniversary studio cast recording was produced by EMI in 1994, featuring Janie Dee. [18] and an Original Cast recording of the 40th anniversary production at the Vaudeville Theatre was released by First Night, consisting of four songs. [17]
It was filmed for Australian television in 1958. A recording of the 2013 Tête à Tête production is available from the website.
The musical was parodied, in a particularly bloody manner, by Monty Python in their sketch "Sam Peckinpah's Salad Days".
£7,000 from the Salad Days profits – a large sum in those days— was given to the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School towards the purchase and conversion of two large adjoining Victorian villas at 1 and 2 Downside Road in Clifton. In 1995 the enduring benefit to students of that donation was formally recognised when a new custom-built dance and movement studio in the School's back garden was named the Slade/Reynolds Studio.
Bristol Old Vic is a British theatre company based at the Theatre Royal, Bristol. The present company was established in 1946 as an offshoot of the Old Vic in London. It is associated with the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, which became a financially independent organisation in the 1990s. Bristol Old Vic runs a Young Company for those aged 7–25.
The Bristol Old Vic Theatre School (BOVTS) is a drama school in Bristol, England. The institution provides training in acting and production for careers in film, television and theatre.
42nd Street is a 1933 American pre-Code musical film directed by Lloyd Bacon, with songs by Harry Warren (music) and Al Dubin (lyrics). The film's numbers were staged and choreographed by Busby Berkeley. It stars an ensemble cast of Warner Baxter, Bebe Daniels, George Brent, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell and Ginger Rogers.
Julian Penkivil Slade was an English writer of musical theatre, best known for the show Salad Days, which he wrote in six weeks in 1954, and which became the UK's longest-running show of the 1950s, with over 2,288 performances.
42nd Street is a 1980 stage musical with a book by Michael Stewart and Mark Bramble, lyrics by Al Dubin and Johnny Mercer and music by Harry Warren. The 1980 Broadway production won the Tony Awards for Best Musical and Best Choreography and it became a long-running hit. The show was also produced in London in 1984 and its 2001 Broadway revival won the Tony Award for Best Revival.
This is a selected list of the longest-running musical theatre productions in history divided into two sections. The first section lists all Broadway and West End productions of musicals that have exceeded 2,500 performances, in order of greatest number of performances in either market. The second section lists, in alphabetical order, musicals that have broken historical long run records for musical theatre on Broadway, in the West End or Off-Broadway, since 1866, in alphabetical order.
"Salad days" is a Shakespearean idiom referring to a period of carefree innocence, idealism, and pleasure associated with youth. The modern use describes a heyday, when a person is/was at the peak of their abilities, while not necessarily a youth.
The Vaudeville Theatre is a West End theatre on the Strand in the City of Westminster. Opening in 1870, the theatre staged mostly vaudeville shows and musical revues in its early days. The theatre was rebuilt twice, although each new building retained elements of the previous structure. The current building dates from 1926, and the capacity is now 690 seats. Early stage mechanisms, including rare thunder drums and lightning sheets, survive in the theatre.
Michael William ffolliott Aldridge was an English actor. He was known for playing Seymour Utterthwaite in the television series Last of the Summer Wine from 1986 to 1990 and he had a long career as a character actor on stage and screen dating back to the 1930s.
Follow That Girl is a musical adapted by Julian Slade and Dorothy Reynolds from their original Bristol Old Vic production Christmas in King Street. The story centers on a girl named Victoria Gilchrist, whose parents want her to marry one of two businessmen. She objects and runs away. Her capture after a long chase by a policeman, Tom, leads to romance and finally marriage to him. The original production contained many topical and local Bristol references — the heroine Victoria was named after the Bristol University Students Union building — but most of these were replaced when the show was revamped for its West End production.
Free as Air is a musical with lyrics by Dorothy Reynolds and Julian Slade and music by Julian Slade. They are the same team responsible for the much better known musical Salad Days, although Free as Air is said to be "more slick and professional by some critics". The musical is still performed, particularly by amateur companies with large casts and choruses.
Christine L. T. Finn was an English actress, known primarily for her role in the 1950s TV serial Quatermass and the Pit, and, after that, her voice work for the 1960s Thunderbirds television series. She also performed in film, radio and theatre in a career that started in the 1940s and lasted until the mid-1970s.
Elizabeth Power is an English actress. Power began her career in repertory theatre and went on to appear in several West End musicals. However, she is best known for her work on British television, in particular her role as Christine Hewitt in the BBC soap opera, EastEnders (1992–1993). She has since gone on to feature in various stage productions.
Elizabeth Anne Seal is a British actress. In 1961, she won the Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical for her performance in the title role of Irma La Douce.
Salad Days may refer to:
Tête à Tête is an opera company based in Cornwall that currently operates in Cornwall, London and North-East England. Its primary mission is to reach new audiences, support artists' development, and to extend the boundaries of traditional opera.
Gillian Lewis is an English character actress who, after a varied stage career in the 1950s and early '60s, appeared in a number of television drama series until the late 1970s. Her best known roles were probably as the runaway heiress Geraldine Melford in the original London production of Slade and Reynolds' musical Free as Air and, on television, as Drusilla Lamb, secretary to Mr. Rose in the detective series of that name.
John Hickson Warner was a British film, television and stage actor whose career spanned more than five decades. His most famous role was that of Timothy Dawes in Salad Days, which premiered in the UK at the Theatre Royal in 1954, and transferred to the Vaudeville Theatre in London in the same year.
Dorothy Reynolds was a British writer and actress.
This is a summary of 1954 in music of all genres in the United Kingdom.
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