The Crooked Mile is an avant-garde musical set in Soho, London with music by Peter Greenwell to book and lyrics by Peter Wildeblood. [1] It was based on Wildeblood's 1958 novel, West End People. The play premiered at the Cambridge Theatre, London, in 1959, directed by Kenneth Alwyn and starring Millicent Martin and Elisabeth Welch. The music was orchestrated by Gordon Langford.
The show ran for 164 performances, closing prematurely on 30 January 1960, despite continuing mainly positive reviews. [2] [3] [4]
The cast recording was made in August 1959 and released on Top Rank UK JKP 2035 1959 EP [5]
West Side Story is a musical conceived by Jerome Robbins with music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and a book by Arthur Laurents.
Lionel Bart was an English writer and composer of pop music and musicals. He wrote Tommy Steele's "Rock with the Caveman" and was the sole creator of the musical Oliver! (1960). With Oliver! and his work alongside theatre director Joan Littlewood at Theatre Royal, Stratford East, he played an instrumental role in the 1960s birth of the British musical theatre scene after an era when American musicals had dominated the West End.
The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway is the sixth studio album by the English progressive rock band Genesis. It was released as a double album on 22 November 1974 by Charisma Records and is their last to feature original frontman Peter Gabriel. It peaked at No. 10 on the UK Albums Chart and No. 41 on the Billboard 200 in the US. It is their longest album to date.
"Mack the Knife" or "The Ballad of Mack the Knife" is a song composed by Kurt Weill with lyrics by Bertolt Brecht for their 1928 music drama The Threepenny Opera. The song tells of a knife-wielding criminal of the London underworld from the musical named Macheath, the "Mack the Knife" of the title.
Anthony Newley was an English actor, singer, songwriter, and filmmaker. A "latter-day British Al Jolson", he achieved widespread success in song, and on stage and screen. "One of Broadway's greatest leading men", from 1959 to 1962 he scored a dozen entries on the UK Top 40 chart, including two number one hits. Newley won the 1963 Grammy Award for Song of the Year for "What Kind of Fool Am I?", sung by Sammy Davis Jr., and wrote "Feeling Good", which became a signature hit for Nina Simone. His songs have been sung by a wide variety of singers including Fiona Apple, Tony Bennett, Barbra Streisand, Michael Bublé and Mariah Carey.
Charles Strouse is an American composer and lyricist best known for writing the music to such Broadway musicals as Bye Bye Birdie, Applause, and Annie.
George Forrest was an American writer of music and lyrics for musical theatre best known for the show Kismet, adapted from the works of Alexander Borodin. He was also known professionally at times as Chet Forrest.
Robert Craig Wright was an American composer-lyricist for Hollywood and the musical theatre, best known for the Broadway musical and musical film Kismet, for which he and his professional and romantic partner George Forrest adapted themes by Alexander Borodin and added lyrics. Kismet was one of several Wright and Forrest creations that was commissioned by impresario Edwin Lester for the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera. Song of Norway, Gypsy Lady, Magdalena, and their adaptation of The Great Waltz were also commissioned by Lester for the LACLO. The LACLO passed most of these productions to Broadway.
Monty Norman was a British film score composer and singer. A contributor to West End musicals in the 1950s and 1960s, he is best known for composing the "James Bond Theme", first heard in the 1962 film Dr. No. He was an Ivor Novello Award and Olivier Award winner, and a Tony Award nominee.
Max Adrian was an Irish stage, film and television actor and singer. He was a founding member of both the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre.
Redhead is a musical with music composed by Albert Hague and lyrics by Dorothy Fields, who with her brother, Herbert, along with Sidney Sheldon and David Shaw wrote the book/libretto. Set in London in the 1880s, around the time of Jack the Ripper, the musical is a murder mystery in the setting of a wax museum.
Michael Rolf Kunze is a foremost German musical theater lyricist and librettist.
Take Me Along is a 1959 musical based on the 1933 Eugene O'Neill play Ah, Wilderness, with music and lyrics by Bob Merrill and book by Joseph Stein and Robert Russell.
The New Yorkers is a musical written by Cole Porter and Herbert Fields (book). Star Jimmy Durante also wrote the words and music for the songs in which his character was featured.
Peter Wildeblood was an Anglo-Canadian journalist, novelist, playwright and gay rights campaigner. He was one of the first men in the UK to publicly declare his homosexuality.
Elisabeth Margaret Welch was an American singer, actress, and entertainer, whose career spanned seven decades. Her best-known songs were "Stormy Weather", "Love for Sale" and "Far Away in Shanty Town". She was American-born, but was based in Britain for most of her career.
David William Heneker was a writer and composer of British popular music and musicals, best known for creating the music and lyrics for Half a Sixpence.
Peter Ashley Greenwell was an English composer and pianist best known as an accompanist to Noël Coward. He wrote the music for the songs of The Crooked Mile (1959) and other musicals and plays, and also composed scores for British comedy films such as The Virgin Soldiers (1969), Our Miss Fred (1972), Up the Front (1972) and Don't Just Lie There, Say Something! (1973).
"Last Night in Soho" is a single by English pop band Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich, released by Fontana on 28 June 1968. Written by the band's regular songwriters Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley, it was the follow-up to the chart topper "The Legend of Xanadu" and gave the band their final top-ten placing on the UK Singles Chart, reaching number 8.
Gervase Laurence Farjeon was an English theatre producer, director, manager and designer. Born into a theatrical and artistic family he became director of productions at the Players' Theatre in London and co-commissioned and produced The Boy Friend, a British musical of the 1950s. He nursed it through its record-breaking five-year run in London's West End and in the 1960s produced further shows in London and elsewhere in the United Kingdom. Later he was in demand as a producer and set designer for pioneering companies who used theatrical techniques for corporate conferences, product launches, and cabarets. An animal lover, in later life he worked voluntarily with the Born Free Foundation inspecting zoos around Europe for the European Community. From 1965 he was the literary executor of his aunt, the English author and poet Eleanor Farjeon and allowed her hymn Morning Has Broken to be recorded by the pop singer Cat Stevens. It became an international hit.