Musical theatre is a form of theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance. The story and emotional content of a musical – humor, pathos, love, anger – are communicated through words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an integrated whole. Although musical theatre overlaps with other theatrical forms like opera and dance, it may be distinguished by the equal importance given to the music as compared with the dialogue, movement and other elements. Since the early 20th century, musical theatre stage works have generally been called, simply, musicals.
Ivor Novello was a Welsh composer and actor who became one of the most popular British entertainers of the first half of the 20th century.
Kiss Me, Kate is a musical written by Bella and Samuel Spewack with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. The story involves the production of a musical version of William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew and the conflict on and off-stage between Fred Graham, the show's director, producer, and star, and his leading lady, his ex-wife Lilli Vanessi. A secondary romance concerns Lois Lane, the actress playing Bianca, and her gambler boyfriend, Bill, who runs afoul of some gangsters. The original production starred Alfred Drake, Patricia Morison, Lisa Kirk and Harold Lang.
Whistle Down the Wind is a musical with music composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, who also co-wrote its book with Patricia Knop and Gale Edwards, and its lyrics were written by Jim Steinman. It is based on the 1961 film Whistle Down the Wind, whose source novel of the same name was written by Mary Hayley Bell in 1959.
Show Boat is a musical with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. It is based on Edna Ferber's best-selling 1926 novel of the same name. The musical follows the lives of the performers, stagehands and dock workers on the Cotton Blossom, a Mississippi River show boat, over 40 years from 1887 to 1927. Its themes include racial prejudice and tragic, enduring love. The musical contributed such classic songs as "Ol' Man River", "Make Believe", and "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man".
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.
Michael Ashley Ball is an English singer, presenter and actor. He made his West End debut in 1985 playing Marius Pontmercy in the original London production of Les Misérables, and went on to star in 1987 as Raoul in The Phantom of the Opera. In 1989, he reached number two in the UK Singles Chart with "Love Changes Everything", a song taken from the musical Aspects of Love, where he played Alex. He played the role in London and on Broadway. His album Coming Home To You reached number one in the UK making it his 4th number one album to date. On 24 April 2020, Ball and Captain Tom Moore entered the UK Singles Chart at number one with a cover of "You'll Never Walk Alone", with combined chart sales of 82,000 making it the fastest-selling single of 2020.
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.
Adele Dixon was an English actress and singer. She sang at the start of regular broadcasts of the BBC Television Service on 2 November 1936.
Elsie Randolph was an English actress, singer and dancer. Randolph was born and died in London.
William Kendall was a British film, stage and television actor. He appeared in the West End in several musicals starring Jack Buchanan including Mr. Whittington, Castle in the Air and This'll Make You Whistle. He starred in the 1953 play Four Winds by Alex Atkinson.
This'll Make You Whistle is a 1936 British musical comedy film directed by Herbert Wilcox and starring Jack Buchanan, Elsie Randolph and William Kendall. The film was based on the stage musical of the same title which Buchanan had starred in.
Frederick A. Thompson, usually credited as Fred Thompson was an English writer, best known as a librettist for about fifty British and American musical comedies in the first half of the 20th century. Among the writers with whom he collaborated were George Grossmith Jr., P. G. Wodehouse, Guy Bolton and Ira Gershwin. Composers with whom he worked included Lionel Monckton, Ivor Novello and George Gershwin.
Tails Up! was a 1918 London revue presented by André Charlot starring Jack Buchanan. The premiere took place at the Comedy Theatre, London on 1 June 1918 with Philip Braham conducting the band, and the show ran for 467 performances.
As Long as They're Happy is a comedy play by the British writer Vernon Sylvaine which was first staged in 1953. A successful hit, it ran at the Garrick Theatre in the West End for 370 performances between July 1953 and May 1954. Veteran entertainer Jack Buchanan directed and starred as a stockbroker trying to cope with the extravagant behaviour of his daughters. Other members of the cast included Dorothy Dickson, Nigel Green, David Hutcheson and Stephen Hancock.
Moya Nugent was a British actress and singer. She made a few broadcasts and three silent films but was chiefly known as a stage performer, and was particularly associated with the works of Noël Coward, appearing in twelve of his plays and two of his revues. Before that, she appeared early in her career in Peter Pan, and was cast in other children's plays and pantomimes. She was in the West End casts of revues by Cole Porter and others, and in musical comedies such as Lilac Time.
Eunice Crowther was a British singer, dancer, and choreographer, who in the early part of her career worked on stage, before moving on to television work for the BBC in the late 1940s. In the 1950s she became a dance director.
Clarence Blakiston was a British film and stage actor, comedian and singer who during his career across five decades played the title role in the Sherlock Holmes parody Sheerluck Jones, or Why D’Gillette Him Off at Terry's Theatre (1901–02) which ran for 138 performances and who appeared in the original production of The Admirable Crichton at the Duke of York's Theatre in 1902.
Mr. Whittington is a British musical with a book by Clifford Grey, Greatrex Newman and Douglas Furber and music by Johnny Green, Jack Waller and Joseph Tunbridge with additional lyrics provided by Edward Heyman. It was based on the traditional story of Dick Whittington, designed as a vehicle for the entertainer Jack Buchanan.
Castle in the Air is a comedy play by the British writer Alan Melville, which was originally performed in 1949.
