West End Broadway: The Golden Age of the American Musical in London by Adrian Wright (review)

Adrian Wright’s West End Broadway: The Golden Age of the American Musical in London provides a new and important lens for the study of the Broadway musical. By focusing on London productions of American shows between 1945 and 1972, Wright examines the relationship between the innately ‘American’ nature of the genre and its perceived universality. Several times he poses the question ‘Was their journey really necessary?’ In some instances, the answer is resoundingly affirmative while in others, despite great hopes, it turns out to be just the opposite.

After an introductory chapter in which Wright contextualizes his study, he offers a year-by-year survey of American shows that played in London, organized by the year of their British premiere. Most of the shows Wright discusses played on Broadway, but this is not always the case, as demonstrated in two musicals by American creators that both opened in London in 1972, Harold Rome’s Gone with the Wind and Charles Strouse and Lee Adams’s I and Albert. Wright usually covers subsequent British versions of American shows in tandem with the original London productions. Each chapter concludes with a brief discussion of original British musicals that opened in that particular year followed by lists of Broadway shows that ultimately came to the UK and ones that did not. Wright thus contextualizes London productions of American shows alongside the new musicals that were appearing in both London and New York.

For each of the major productions that transferred from New York to London, Wright offers cogent insights into the show itself and its salient features. Where the book becomes most useful is in the commentary that follows in which Wright explores the similarities and differences between the American and British productions and discusses the show’s reception in the British press.

Two of the principal factors Wright addresses when it comes British productions of American musicals are casting and the production team. In many instances, British actors replace American ones. As Wright explains, this is not as significant in ensemble shows such as Oklahoma! but becomes critical in star vehicles. Especially when a huge American star becomes associated with the show and could be heard on an original cast recording, it can be difficult to find someone to succeed that person, whether in London or in America. The original star’s shadow frequently hovers over any subsequent interpretation.

This is certainly the case in The King and I, where, as Wright describes, the British actor Herbert Lo-e played Yul Brynner playing the King (p. 92). In many instances, a British performer without the star power of the American predecessor simply could not draw audiences to the theatre. Wright gives as examples Janet Blair, who assumed Judy Holliday’s role in Bells are Ringing (p. 131), and the team of Ian Carmichael and Anne Rogers, who just did not recapture the Broadway appeal of Robert Preston and Mary Martin in the London production of I Do, I Do (p. 247). However, when the popular British comedian Bruce Forsyth starred in the London production of Little Me in 1964, the show’s run of 334 performances exceeded that of the original Broadway production with Irving Caesar (pp. 217–18). (Little Me’s 1984 London revival, built around another British comedian, Russ Abbot, also played 334 performances (p. 218).)

American stars sometimes reprised their Broadway roles in London. My Fair Lady is one such case: its British-born stars, Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison, appeared in London after triumphing in New York (pp. 136 ff.). Man of La Mancha’s Joan Diener played Aldonza in both New York and London (p. 246), while Richard Kiley, who created the title role in New York, played in a second London production the year after the original one closed (p. 246). In Applause, the final show discussed in the...