At the Drop of Another Hat is musical

Musical theatre

Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

 revue

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 American popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own during its golden years from 1916 to 1932...

 by Flanders and Swann

Flanders and Swann

The British duo Flanders and Swann were the actor and singer Michael Flanders and the composer, pianist and linguist Donald Swann , who collaborated in writing and performing comic songs....

, similar in format to its long-running predecessor, At the Drop of a Hat

At the Drop of a Hat

At the Drop of a Hat is a musical revue by Flanders and Swann, described by them as "An After-Dinner Farrago". In the show, they both sang on a nearly bare stage, accompanied by Swann on the piano...

(1956). In the show, they both sang on a nearly bare stage, accompanied by Swann on the piano. The songs were linked by contemporary social commentary, mostly by Flanders

Michael Flanders

Michael Henry Flanders OBE, was an English actor, broadcaster, and writer and performer of comic songs. He is best known to the general public for his partnership with Donald Swann performing as the duo Flanders and Swann....

. Highlights included "Ill Wind", in which Flanders sings rapidly about a pilfered horn to the tune of the Rondo from Mozart's Horn Concerto No. 4

Horn Concerto No. 4 (Mozart)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Horn Concerto No. 4 in E-flat major, K. 495 was completed in 1786.- Structure :The work is in three movements:*I. Allegro moderato*II. Romance *III. Rondo 6/8...

 and "New Built Up Area", a soliloquy by Flanders in which a disgruntled resident of Salisbury Plain

Salisbury Plain

Salisbury Plain is a chalk plateau in central southern England covering . It is part of the Southern England Chalk Formation and largely lies within the county of Wiltshire, with a little in Hampshire. The plain is famous for its rich archaeology, including Stonehenge, one of England's best known...

 complains of the newly erected Stonehenge

Stonehenge

Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument located in the English county of Wiltshire, about west of Amesbury and north of Salisbury. One of the most famous sites in the world, Stonehenge is composed of a circular setting of large standing stones set within earthworks...

.

The revue premiered at the Haymarket Theatre

Haymarket Theatre

The Theatre Royal Haymarket is a West End theatre in the Haymarket in the City of Westminster which dates back to 1720, making it the third-oldest London playhouse still in use...

 in London on 2 October 1963 and ran until 21 March 1964. It was revived on the West End, at the Globe Theatre, from 29 September 1965 to 19 February 1966.

The show toured widely, including tours in Australia (1964), Hong Kong and England (1965) and US in 1966. A Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 production played at the Booth Theatre

Booth Theatre

The Booth Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 222 West 45th Street in midtown-Manhattan, New York City.Architect Henry B. Herts designed the Booth and its companion Shubert Theatre as a back-to-back pair sharing a Venetian Renaissance-style façade...

 from 31 December 1966 to 9 April 1967.

Songs (includes all versions)

First half

• "The Gasman Cometh: A Ballad of Unending Domestic Upheaval (It All Makes Work for the Working Man to Do)"
• "Sounding Brass"
• "From Our Bestiary"
• "Bilbo's Last Song"
• "By Air"
• "Slow Train"
• "A Sloth"
• "Bedstead Men"
• "Los Olividados"
• "More Songs for Our Time"
• "The Rat Race"
• "Sea Fever"
• "Old Hat (Kokoraki)"
• "Ill Wind" - (Mozart's Horn Concerto in E flat major, rondo finale with cadenza)
• "Ostrich Song"
• "First and Second Law"
• "Twice Shy"
• "From Our Bestiary"
• "Say Who You Are (Carter)",

Second half

• "All Gall"
• "Horoscope"
• "Old Hat (Madeira M'Dear)"
• "Wompom"
• "Twenty Tons of TNT"
• "Friendly Duet"
• "In the Bath"
• "Armadillo Idyll"
• "Lovely War"
• "Motor Perpetuo"
• "New Built-Up Area"
• "In the Desert"
• "Food for Thought"
• "Prehistoric Complaint"
• "Bedstead Men"
• "Commonwealth Fair"
• "A Song of Patriotic Prejudice"
• "Hippo Encore"
• "Guide to Britten"

Flanders and Swann's Bestiary

Included in the performance of At the Drop of Another Hat were several songs about animals. Most of the following songs were not included in the original cast recording, but issued with additional songs on a separate disc:

• "The Warthog"
• "The Seahorse"
• "The Chameleon"
• The Whale (Mopy Dick)"
• "The Sloth"
• "The Rhinoceros"
• "Twosome - Kang and Jag"
• "Dead Ducks"
• "The Elephant"
• "The Armadillo"
• "The Spider"
• "Threesome"
  • "The Duck-Billed Platypus"
  • "The Hummingbird"
  • "The Portuguese Man-of-War"
• "The Wild Boar"
• "The Ostrich"
• "The Wompom"

Note that many of the songs were originally from At the Drop of a Hat

Recordings

• Parlophone
  Parlophone
  Parlophone is a record label that was founded in Germany in 1896 by the Carl Lindström Company as Parlophon. The British branch was formed in 1923 as "Parlophone" which developed a reputation in the 1920s as a leading jazz label. It was acquired in 1927 by the Columbia Graphophone Company which...
  
   #PCS 3052, recorded live at The Haymarket Theatre on 2 October 1963 (released in 1964), containing fourteen selections (ASIN B003UJF6EI). EMI
  EMI
  The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...
  
   re-released this on compact disc in 1991 and included three more selections (ASIN B00004SE0Q). The album was produced by George Martin
  George Martin
  Sir George Henry Martin CBE is an English record producer, arranger, composer and musician. He is sometimes referred to as "the Fifth Beatle"— a title that he often describes as "nonsense," but the fact remains that he served as producer on all but one of The Beatles' original albums...
  
  , and has been described as an "enjoyable smorgasbord of early- to mid-'60s British humor".
• Angel Record #PMC1216, At the Drop of Another Hat
• Angel Record #PMC1164 (Parlophone #PCS 3026 in the UK), The Bestiary of Flanders and Swann