Guy Reginald Bolton was an Anglo-American playwright and writer of musical comedies. Born in England and educated in France and the US, he trained as an architect but turned to writing. Bolton preferred working in collaboration with others, principally the English writers P. G. Wodehouse and Fred Thompson, with whom he wrote 21 and 14 shows respectively, and the American playwright George Middleton, with whom he wrote ten shows. Among his other collaborators in Britain were George Grossmith Jr., Ian Hay and Weston and Lee. In the US, he worked with George and Ira Gershwin, Kalmar and Ruby and Oscar Hammerstein II.
Walter John "Jack" Buchanan was a Scottish theatre and film actor, singer, dancer, producer and director. He was known for three decades as the embodiment of the debonair man-about-town in the tradition of George Grossmith Jr., and was described by The Times as "the last of the knuts." He is best known in America for his role in the classic Hollywood musical The Band Wagon in 1953.
Mary Louisa Molesworth, néeStewart was an English writer of children's stories who wrote for children under the name of Mrs Molesworth. Her first novels, for adult readers, Lover and Husband (1869) to Cicely (1874), appeared under the pseudonym of Ennis Graham. Her name occasionally appears in print as M. L. S. Molesworth.
Susan Joan Pringle Holderness is an English actress. She is known for portraying the role of Marlene Boyce in the British sitcom Only Fools and Horses from 1985 to 2003, and its spin-off The Green Green Grass from 2005 to 2009.
Blitz! is a musical by Lionel Bart. The musical, described by Steven Suskin as "massive", was set in the East End of London during the Blitz. The story drew on Bart's childhood memories of London's Jewish East End during the Blitz and, like most musicals, centred on a romance between a young couple, in this case a Jewish woman and a Cockney man, although the largest role and main point-of-view character is that of Mrs Blitztein, the young woman's mother. Steven Suskin describes it as "Abie's Irish Rose set against the burning of Atlanta." Bart himself described the play as "…three human stories inside an epic canvas; the major human conflict – the major plot – personifies the spirit of London and how that spirit developed during the period of the piece."
Beatrice "Binnie" Mary Hale-Monro was an English actress, singer and dancer. She was one of the most successful musical theatre stars in London in the 1920s and 1930s, able to sing leading roles in operetta as well as musicals, and she was popular as a principal boy in pantomime. Her best-remembered roles were in the musicals No, No, Nanette (1925) and Mr. Cinders (1929), in which she sang "Spread a Little Happiness".
"Knees Up Mother Brown" is a pub song, believed to date back as early as the 1800s, but first published in 1938, and with origins in the East End of London.
Herbert Sydney Wilcox CBE was a British film producer and director.
Marianne Stone was an English character actress. She performed in films from the early 1940s to the late 1980s, typically playing working class parts such as barmaids, secretaries and landladies. Stone appeared in nine of the Carry On films, and took part in an episode of the Carry On Laughing television series. She also had supporting roles with comedian Norman Wisdom.
The Girl from Utah is an Edwardian musical comedy in two acts with music by Paul Rubens, and Sidney Jones, a book by James T. Tanner, and lyrics by Adrian Ross, Percy Greenbank and Rubens. The story concerns an American girl who runs away to London to avoid becoming a wealthy Mormon's newest wife. The Mormon follows her to England, but she is rescued from a bigamous marriage by a handsome actor.
Limelight is a 1936 British musical film directed by Herbert Wilcox and starring Arthur Tracy, Anna Neagle and Jane Winton. It was released in the U.S. as Backstage.
Elsie Randolph was an English actress, singer and dancer. Randolph was born and died in London.
Yes, Mr Brown is a 1933 British musical comedy film directed by Herbert Wilcox and starring Jack Buchanan, Hartley Power, Elsie Randolph and Margot Grahame. According to the Idaho Falls Post Register, the film was "gay catchy...entertainment with plenty of light comedy", in which "the manager of the Viennese branch of a large American toy firm [played by Buchanan] sets out to entertain his visiting boss [played by Power] in an effort to win a partnership." Yes, Mr. Brown is currently missing from the BFI National Archive, and is listed as one of the British Film Institute's "75 Most Wanted" lost films.
Jean Gillie was an English film actress of the 1930s and 1940s. Gillie appeared in 20 British and two American films before her career was cut short by her early death.
Little Nellie Kelly was a two-act musical comedy of the Jazz Age, written, produced and directed by George M. Cohan. After opening in Boston in July 1922, it had long runs on Broadway in 1922–1923, in the West End of London in 1923–1924, and on tours.
This is a summary of 1933 in music in the United Kingdom.
Henry Arthur Mornington Wellesley, 3rd Earl Cowley JP, styled as Viscount Dangan between 1884 and 1895, was an English aristocrat.
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.
This'll Make You Whistle is a British musical with a book by Guy Bolton and Fred Thompson and music and lyrics by Maurice Sigler, Al Goodhart and Al Hoffman. It premiered at the Kings Theatre, Southsea before beginning a 190 performance run in the West End lasting from 15 September 1936 until 27 February 1937, originally at the Palace Theatre before transferring to Daly's Theatre.
