London Calling! (musical)

London Calling! was a musical revue, produced by André Charlot with music and lyrics by Noël Coward, which opened at London's Duke of York's Theatre on 4 September 1923. It is famous for being Noël Coward's first publicly produced musical work and for the use of a 3-D stereoscopic shadowgraph as part of its opening act. The revue's song "Parisian Pierrot", sung by Gertrude Lawrence, was Coward's first big hit and became one of his signature tunes.

This article is about the Noël Coward revue. For other uses, see London Calling (disambiguation).
London Calling!
MusicNoël Coward
Philip Braham
LyricsNoël Coward
BookNoël Coward
Ronald Jeans
Productions1923 West End, London

Background and productions

The basis of London Calling! began at the Swiss resort of Davos in Christmas 1922, when Coward presented a musical outline of a new revue project involving himself and Gertrude Lawrence, to benefactor Lord Lathom, who was also a friend of André Charlot.[1] Lathom had liked it and approached Charlot to produce it. Charlot's West End musical production Rats, which premiered on 21 February 1923 at the Vaudeville Theatre, also starred Lawrence. At first Charlot did not have Coward in mind to perform in London Calling!, but Coward used his contractual right of veto to turn down all other suggestions for leading man. Charlot gave way and paid him a wage of £40 a week with the success of the show.[2][3]

The revue featured 25 sketches, skits, songs and dance routines, with choreographic assistance by Fred Astaire who was working in London's Shaftesbury Theatre with his sister Adele at the time. Astaire taught Coward tap-dancing at the nearby Guildhall School of Music.[4] Though a leading lady in West End plays, Lawrence made her singing debut with Coward's musical works, an association that would continue throughout their careers. Lawrence had previously worked with him on the Liverpool production of Gerhart Hauptmann's play Hannele in 1913.[5] The revue sketches made light of London society at the time, with one sketch called "The Swiss Family Whittlebot" poking fun at The Sitwells, known for their avant-garde poetry and ideas.[6]

The revue was directed by Herbert Mason; it opened at the Duke of York's Theatre on 4 September 1923 and ran for 367 performances.[7] Charlot was developing a new production entitled André Charlot's London Revue of 1924 and had replaced Lawrence with singer Joyce Barbour in January 1924, at which point the production was nearing the end of its 5-month run. Coward would produce his breakthrough play, The Vortex, in 1924.[8]

Original cast

Songs

(In the order listed in The Lyrics of Noël Coward, pp. 5–18):

  • Tamarisk Town (Coward) – Gertrude Lawrence
  • Other Girls (Coward) – Noël Coward and chorus
  • When My Ship Comes Home
  • Carrie (Coward) – Gertrude Lawrence
  • There's Life in the Old Girl Yet (Coward) – Maisie Gay and chorus
  • Russian Blues (Coward) – Gertrude Lawrence and chorus
  • Prenez Garde, Lisette (Coward) – Maisie Gay
  • Sentiment (Philip Braham and Coward) – Noël Coward
  • Parisian Pierrot (Coward) – Gertrude Lawrence
  • What Love Means to Girls Like Me (Coward) – Maisie Gay
  • When We Were Girls Together (Coward) – Maisie Gay and chorus
  • Spanish Grandee (Coward) – Noël Coward

Other numbers performed:

  • Temperamental Honeymoon (Coward) – Noël Coward and chorus
  • You Were Meant for Me (Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle) – sung as a final duet between Coward and Lawrence

Shadowgraph and connections with radio

The opening act of London Calling! utilised Laurens Hammond's patented 3-D shadowgraph process, which required the patrons to wear special colour-tinted glasses. American inventor Hammond had earlier developed a Teleview sequential viewing system for use as part of the successful productions of the Ziegfeld Follies (1907–1931).[9] Its use influenced producer André Charlot, who was in the United States at the time of the Follies, to attempt something similar in Europe. Because the patent did not have immediate effect in foreign countries, Hammond was unable to collect any royalties from the production of London Calling!. With the success of the show, Charlot became referred to as "the British Ziegfeld", a title he loathed.[10]

Apart from the influence between productions on the use of shadowgraph, the first song title mentioning the medium of radio was in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1922. The name of the song was "Listening on Some Radio". The phrase "London Calling!" was the call sign of BBC Radio in London (2LO), which also began transmitting in 1922.

gollark: Once I ran into a simple optimization problem which conceivably *could* have been solved with some small amount of calculus, but it was more effort than just guessing a good enough solution.
gollark: I'll be between [REDACTED] and [DATA EXPUNGED] years old!
gollark: Well, yes, we probably could do non-environmentally-bad things in general, paradox, except people are terrible at coordinating or long-term planning.
gollark: Does that much lithium even exist?
gollark: For everyone. Instantly.

See also

Notes
  1. The History of Lathom Archived 20 November 2008 at the Wayback Machine
  2. Morley, Sheridan. Coward, p. 27, Haus, 2005 ISBN 1-904341-88-8
  3. £40 in 1923 would equate to at least £1,600 in 2007 terms measuringworth.com Archived 31 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine
  4. New Theatre Quarterly, 39:37 ISSN 0266-464X
  5. Day, Barry (ed.) The Letters of Noel Coward. (Page 34) Random House, 2007 ISBN 978-0-375-42303-1
  6. Morley, Sheridan. Coward. (Page 29) Haus, 2005 ISBN 1-904341-88-8
  7. Mander, Raymond; Joe Mitchenson (2000) [1957]. Theatrical Companion to Coward. Barry Day and Sheridan Morley (2000 edition, ed.) (second ed.). London: Oberon Books. p. 74. ISBN 978-1-84002-054-0.
  8. "Everyman Theatre", The Times, 26 November 1924, p. 8
  9. "Shadows on the Wall". 3dmovingpictures.com. Retrieved 24 August 2013.
  10. Kenrick, John. History of the Musical Stage at Musicals101.com, The Cyber Encyclopedia of Musical Theatre, Film and Television

References
  • Coward, Noël. The Lyrics of Noël Coward, Heinemann, London, 1965.
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