Words and Music (musical)
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''Words and Music'' is a
musical Musical is the adjective of music. Musical may also refer to: * Musical theatre, a performance art that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance * Musical film and television, a genre of film and television that incorporates into the narr ...
revue A revue is a type of multi-act popular theatrical entertainment that combines music, dance, and sketches. The revue has its roots in 19th century popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own duri ...
with sketches, music, lyrics and direction by
Noël Coward Sir Noël Peirce Coward (16 December 189926 March 1973) was an English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what ''Time'' magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and ...
. The revue introduced the song "
Mad About the Boy "Mad About the Boy" is a popular song with words and music by actor and playwright Noël Coward. It was introduced in the 1932 revue ''Words and Music (musical), Words and Music'' by Joyce Barbour, Steffi Duna, Norah Howard and Doris Hare. The ...
", which, according to The Noël Coward Society's website, is Coward's most popular song. The critics praised the show's sharp satire and verbal cleverness.


History and reception

''Words and Music'' opened in London at the
Adelphi Theatre The Adelphi Theatre is a West End theatre, located on the Strand in the City of Westminster, central London. The present building is the fourth on the site. The theatre has specialised in comedy and musical theatre, and today it is a receiv ...
on 16 September 1932, after a
Manchester Opera House The Opera House in Quay Street, Manchester, England, is a 1,920-seater commercial touring theatre that plays host to touring musicals, ballet, concerts and a Christmas pantomime. It is a Grade II listed building. The Opera House is one of the mai ...
tryout in August 1932. It consisted of a series of sketches, some with songs, and starred
Ivy St. Helier Ivy Janet Aitchison (1886, Saint Helier, Jersey – 8 November 1971, London, England) better known as Ivy St. Helier was a British theatre, stage actress, composer and lyrics, lyricist. Stage On the stage, St. Helier played Manon la Crevette in ...
,
Joyce Barbour Joyce Barbour (1901–1977) was an English actress. She was the wife of the actor Richard Bird (actor), Richard Bird. Barbour was born in Birmingham on 27 March 1901 the daughter of Horace and Miriam Barbour, her father was an assurance cle ...
,
John Mills Sir John Mills (born Lewis Ernest Watts Mills; 22 February 190823 April 2005) was an English actor who appeared in more than 120 films in a career spanning seven decades. He excelled on camera as an appealing British everyman who often portray ...
,
Romney Brent Romney Brent (born Romulo Larralde; 26 January 1902 – 24 September 1976) was a Mexican actor, director and dramatist. Most of his career was on stage in North America, but in the 1930s he was frequently seen on the London stage, on television ...
,
Doris Hare Doris Breamer Hare, MBE (1 March 1905 – 30 May 2000) was a British actress, comedian, singer, and dancer best known for portraying Mabel Butler in the British sitcom ''On the Buses'' and its film spin-offs, after replacing the original actres ...
,
Moya Nugent Moya Nugent (27 March 1901 – 26 January 1954) 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, appear ...
and
Effie Atherton Effie Atherton (born Euphemia Walker Anderson; 3 July 1907 – 11 February 2005), was a British singer, dancer, film actress, and musical comedy performer, known initially for her stage appearances in the West End of London and on Broadway in ...
and, in a small part,
Graham Payn Graham Payn (25 April 1918 – 4 November 2005) was a South African-born English actor and singer, also known for being the life partner of the playwright Noël Coward. Beginning as a boy soprano, Payn later made a career as a singer and ac ...
. It ran for 164 performances, short of the two years Coward had expected, closing on 4 February 1933. ''
The Manchester Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' wrote of the show, :"Mr. Coward has never sharpened his quill to better purpose than here. In many of the numbers his neatly polished libretto has more than mere verbal ingenuity, and his musical score, though by this time its conventions are familiar, shows a wide and diverting range both in parody and in construction... an acid Anglo-Indian scene with a chorus of sahibs declaiming that 'no matter how much we sozzle and souse, the sun never sets upon Government House', leads to a swinging mock-heroic number with the refrain 'But mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun' that has a true Gilbertian flavour." ''
The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'' wrote, "Mr. Coward has the gift of attack... he had the audience cheering before the opening chorus was spent.... Mr. Coward has, above all else, the gift of satire, and this revue, being primarily satirical, is his best work in the musical kind... the active fierceness which is the distinction between genuine satire and empty sneering." The paper thought "Something to do with Spring" the only failure in the show, praised "Mad About the Boy", "Midnight Matinée" and the parodies of Casanova and ''
Journey's End ''Journey's End'' is a 1928 dramatic play by English playwright R. C. Sherriff, set in the trenches near Saint-Quentin, Aisne, towards the end of the First World War. The story plays out in the officers' dugout of a British Army infantry comp ...
'', and was undecided about "Let's Say Goodbye." It praised the performances of St Helier, Brent, Hare, Barbour, Steffi Duna and Nora Howard. ''
The Daily Mirror ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
'' commented, ''Words and Music'' "bears the stamp of genius.... 'Mad Dogs and Englishmen' is another song that goes with such snap and sparkle that it is bound to be heard wherever there are gramophones and pianos.... ''Words and Music'' has nothing in common with the average revue. Mr Coward, indeed, lifts it far above the ordinary"."Noel Coward's New Triumph", ''Daily Mirror'', 17 September 1932, p. 4 Coward later said of the show, "''Words and Music'' was almost a very good revue, but it wasn't quite. I've never quite made up my mind why. It could possibly have been my fault. But it wasn't entirely. It had no great big star in it, though there was a wonderful cast." The show was revised and opened on
Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...
in 1939 with the title ''
Set to Music Set, The Set, SET or SETS may refer to: Science, technology, and mathematics Mathematics *Set (mathematics), a collection of elements *Category of sets, the category whose objects and morphisms are sets and total functions, respectively Electro ...
''. In 2013
Lost Musicals Lost Musicals is a British musical theatre project established in 1989 by Ian Marshall Fisher. It is dedicated to presenting lost or forgotten musicals by famous American writers, and has been responsible for the first revivals of the lesser-known w ...
presented the show in concert at the intimate Lilian Baylis Studio of
Sadler's Wells Theatre Sadler's Wells Theatre is a performing arts venue in Clerkenwell, London, England located on Rosebery Avenue next to New River Head. The present-day theatre is the sixth on the site since 1683. It consists of two performance spaces: a 1,500-seat ...
in London. Ian Marshall Fisher directed the production, which was Lost Musicals' first and only British show, as Fisher found that he was unable to reconstruct the American version, ''Set to Music''. The cast included Issy van Randwyck.


Sketches

One sketch was titled "Journey's End", and was a parody of the
R. C. Sherriff Robert Cedric Sherriff, FSA, FRSL (6 June 1896 – 13 November 1975) was an English writer best known for his play '' Journey's End'', which was based on his experiences as an army officer in the First World War. He wrote several plays, many nov ...
play of the same name Play most commonly refers to: * Play (activity), an activity done for enjoyment * Play (theatre), a work of drama Play may refer also to: Computers and technology * Google Play, a digital content service * Play Framework, a Java framework * Pla ...
. It "camps up carnage...balloons being flung onto the stage...and the orchestra playing '' Deutschland über Alles''. Another sketch, singled out for praise by both ''The Manchester Guardian'' and ''The Daily Mirror'', was "Children's Hour" in which Coward satirised the pretensions of adults by putting their high-flown remarks into the mouths of children. The sketch ended with the song "Let’s Live Dangerously", "a merry little skit on present day habits"


Songs

(In the order printed in ''The Lyrics of Noël Coward'', pp. 114–18): *Maggie (opening chorus) *Débutantes *Let's Live Dangerously *Children of the Ritz * Mad Dogs and Englishmen *Planters' Wives *Let's Say Good-bye *The Hall of Fame *
Mad About the Boy "Mad About the Boy" is a popular song with words and music by actor and playwright Noël Coward. It was introduced in the 1932 revue ''Words and Music (musical), Words and Music'' by Joyce Barbour, Steffi Duna, Norah Howard and Doris Hare. The ...
*Journey's End *Housemaids' Knees *Three White Feathers *Description of Ballets *Something to Do With Spring *The Wife of an Acrobat *The Younger Generation *Midnight Matinée *The Party's Over Now The Noël Coward Society's website, drawing on performing statistics from the publishers and the
Performing Rights Society PRS for Music Limited (formerly The MCPS-PRS Alliance Limited) is a British music copyright collective, made up of two collection societies: the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society (MCPS) and the Performing Right Society (PRS). It undertake ...
, names "Mad About the Boy" as Coward's most popular song. "Mad Dogs and Englishmen" is also among the top ten most performed Coward songs. "The Party's Over Now" ranks in the top thirty of Coward songs."Appendix 3 (The Relative Popularity of Coward's Works)"
Noël Coward Music Index, accessed 9 March 2009


Notes


References

*Coward, Noël. ''The Lyrics of Noël Coward'', Heinemann, London, 1965. *
Castle, Charles Charles Castle (26 May 1939 – 5 October 2013) was a South African-born British tap dancer, writer and television producer. without paywall via '' Irish Independent'', 27 October 2013) Castle produced two documentaries, ''This Was Richard Tauber ...
. ''Noël'', Sphere Books, London, 1974. {{Authority control 1932 musicals Revues Musicals by Noël Coward