CDs: Circus of Life
A hit in the West End and on Broadway in the early '60s, Stop the World---I Want to Get Off related the story of an everyman called Littlechap, from birth to death, from office boy to businessman to elder statesman. Played by Anthony Newley in London and New York, Littlechap goes from penury to wealth but somehow loses himself along the way. Anna Quayle played Littlechap's wife, Evie, as well as three other women with whom he dallies, a Russian, a German, and an American.
More noteworthy than its plot was the show's circus-of-life conception. Sean Kenny's single set depicted the inside of a circus tent with bleachers for a Greek chorus of seven women. Newley wore white-face clown make-up, and the company sported modified clown costumes. Beyond the chorus, there was simply one man Newley, one woman Quayle, and twins Susan and Jennifer Baker, playing Littlechap's daughters.
Because of the simplicity of the production, the show cost all of £2,000 to mount when it opened at London's Queen's Theatre on July 20, 1961 for a run of 485 performances.
The show caught the eye of Broadway producer David Merrick, who imported it to the Shubert Theatre and later the Ambassador during the same season he brought to New York an even bigger London hit, Oliver! Along with the show, Merrick brought over London leads Newley, Quayle, and the Baker twins. Opening October 3, 1962, Stop the World played 555 Broadway performances, with Newley eventually replaced by Joel Grey. Quayle won a Tony, while Newley, his show, and his score were nominated.
By the time the show opened in London, Newley, who co-authored Stop the World with Leslie Bricusse and also directed, was a popular vocalist, and for his first vehicle, Newley wrote himself an enormous role that required him to carry the proceedings. Newley got considerable help from a very appealing and accesible score that included hit songs in "What Kind of Fool Am I?," "Gonna Build a Mountain," and "Once in a Lifetime."
Stop the World played a brief return visit to New York during the summer of 1978, when Sammy Davis Jr., who had recorded several of the songs from the show in the early '60s, decided to revive it as a vehicle for himself. This production yielded a fairly unwatchable film that was shot directly off the stage and went by the title Sammy Stops the World. In 1966, Stop the World had yielded an earlier film, co-starring Tony Tanner Newley's London replacement and Millicent Martin, and filmed directly on Sean Kenny's original circus-tent set.
Newley revived the show for a tour of U.S. summer tents during 1986, then revived it for a brief run in London in 1989. But the enjoyable score notwithstanding, Stop the World doesn't revive particularly well, its comment on politics and the sexes and its avant-garde staging techniques very much of their time. In 1996, Stop the World was seen again, this time in a TV taping starring Peter Scolari and Stephanie Zimbalist. It's fairly remarkable that Stop the World got preserved three times but never with Newley, who wrote the show for himself and will forever be identified with it.
With diminishing returns, Newley and Bricusse went on to collaborate on two more allegorical, unconventional concept pieces, The Roar of the Greasepaint-The Smell of the Crowd and The Good Old Bad Old Days. The former played Broadway but not London, while the latter played London but not Broadway.
There are four English-language cast recordings of Stop the World, two --original London Decca, original Broadway London Records-- starring Newley and Quayle, one with Sammy Davis Warner Brothers, and one the soundtrack to the '66 film version Warner Brothers.
In 2001, Decca Broadway reissued on CD the Broadway cast recording. Now the U.K. label Must Close Saturday is reissuing Decca's West End world premiere recording. Choosing between the two makes for a tough call, as Newley and Quayle are dandy on both recordings. Unlike the London album, the Broadway set features the full overture and "Family Fugue." It's also slightly more theatrical, including more bits of dialogue to set up the numbers.
But Newley is slightly fresher and more appealing on the London album. By the time of the Broadway recording, he had become slicker and more assertive. The difference is most notable in the eleven o'clock number, "What Kind of Fool Am I?," which is better delivered on the West End recording. Note too that the London chorus of seven women included future star Marti Webb Half a Sixpence, Evita, Song and Dance; the New York ensemble yielded no big names, although it included Sylvia Tysick, the mediocre ingenue from the London cast recording of Bye Bye Birdie.
If you already possess Decca Broadway's Broadway Stop the World, this new release of the West End recording is not a must. Still, there are numerous differences in lyrics and other material between the two recordings, with the Broadway version eliminating a number of references that New York audiences would not have understood. Indeed, the two recordings are sufficiently different so that one may be able to enjoy possessing both.
VIRTUE IN DANGER Must Close Saturday
Continuing its reissues from the English Decca catalogue, Must Close Saturday is giving a CD debut to the cast recording of another '60s musical, Virtue in Danger, based on Sir John Vanbrugh's 1696 play success The Relapse, a combination of romantic comedy and farce.
In the London neighborhood known as Puddle Dock, the Mermaid Theatre opened in 1959 with a hit musical, Lock Up Your Daughters, based on a Restoration comedy. While a Broadway version of the show was aborted on the road, the London Lock Up Your Daughters had several returns and transfers, and encouraged a series of British musicals based on Restoration plays.
A clear attempt to repeat the success of Lock Up Your Daughters with another musical based on an early classic play and featuring a good deal of bawdy humor, Virtue in Danger opened at the Mermaid on April 10, 1963. On June 3, the new musical transferred to the Strand, but it quickly faltered and closed there at the end of the month, having played a total of 121 performances. Lock Up Your Daughters was playing simultaneously in the West End, at Her Majesty's Theatre.
The cast of Virtue in Danger included Barrie Ingham Herbie in the London Gypsy, on Broadway in Copperfield and Aspects of Love and the great Patricia Routledge "Keeping Up Appearances", still at an early stage in her lengthy period of being wonderful in musical flops Love Match, Darling of the Day, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Say Hello to Harvey. Also present are John Moffatt Cowardy Custard, Lewis Fiander London 1776 and I and Albert, and Alan Howard.
Some of the critics maintained that the Virtue in Danger score, with music by James Bernard and lyrics by librettist Paul Dehn, was not sufficiently strong to justify musicalizing the play. But the cast recording reveals that the score is mostly delightful. It's notable for its collection of piquant, exclamatory song titles "Don't Call Me Sir!," "Fortune, Thou Art a Bitch!," "Hurry, Surgeon!," "Nurse, Nurse, Nurse!," "Stand Back, Old Sodom!".
But even more noteworthy are the numerous catchy or lovely items, including Routledge's "I'm in Love with My Husband," "Let's Fall Together" and "Wait a Little Longer, Lover," and Ingham's "Why Do I Feel What I Feel?"
With a harpsichord prominent in the eleven-piece orchestra, the score has appropriate and attractive period touches throughout. Virtue in Danger is a little-known winner.