In Town is a musical comedy

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...

 written by Adrian Ross

Adrian Ross

For the NFL player see Adrian Ross Arthur Reed Ropes , better known under the pseudonym Adrian Ross, was a prolific writer of lyrics, contributing songs to more than sixty British musical comedies in the late 19th and early 20th centuries...

 and James T. Tanner

James T. Tanner

James Tolman Tanner was an English stage director and dramatist who wrote many of the successful musicals produced by George Edwardes.-Life and career:...

, with music by F. Osmond Carr and lyrics by Ross. It was produced by George Edwardes

George Edwardes

George Joseph Edwardes was an English theatre manager of Irish ancestry who brought a new era in musical theatre to the British stage and beyond....

 at the Prince of Wales Theatre

Prince of Wales Theatre

The Prince of Wales Theatre is a West End theatre on Coventry Street, near Leicester Square in the City of Westminster. It was established in 1884 and rebuilt in 1937, and extensively refurbished in 2004 by Sir Cameron Mackintosh, its current owner...

, opening on 15 October 1892, and transferred to the Gaiety Theatre

Gaiety Theatre, London

The Gaiety Theatre, London was a West End theatre in London, located on Aldwych at the eastern end of the Strand. The theatre was established as the Strand Musick Hall , in 1864 on the former site of the Lyceum Theatre. It was rebuilt several times, but closed from the beginning of World War II...

 on 26 December 1892, running for a successful 292 performances. It starred Arthur Roberts, together with Edmund Payne

Edmund Payne

Edmund Payne , was an actor, comedian, singer and dramatist best known for his comic appearances in Edwardian Musical Comedy. His father was Edmund Payne, a master cabinet builder and his mother was Eliza Payne née Ince....

, Eric Lewis

Eric Lewis (actor)

Frederic Lewis Tuffley , better known by his stage name, Eric Lewis, was an English comedian, actor and singer...

, and singing star Florence St John. Topsy Sinden

Topsy Sinden

Harriet Augusta Sinden , better known as Topsy Sinden, was an English dancer, actress and singer. She was best known for her performances in Edwardian musical comedy and pantomime, both in London and on tour. Sinden was an accomplished tap dancer and skirt dancer.-Life and career:Sinden was born...

 danced in the piece. It played in New York in 1897.

In Town was one of the first musical comedies

Edwardian Musical Comedy

Edwardian musical comedies were British musical theatre shows from the period between the early 1890s, when the Gilbert and Sullivan operas' dominance had ended, until the rise of the American musicals by Jerome Kern, Rodgers and Hart, George Gershwin and Cole Porter following World War I.Between...

 on the London stage. It was lighter than a Gilbert and Sullivan

Gilbert and Sullivan

Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...

 style comic opera

Comic opera

Comic opera denotes a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending.Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a new operatic genre, opera buffa, emerged as an alternative to opera seria...

, but more coherent in construction than a burlesque. The piece initiated Tanner's and Edwardes's famous series of modern-dress musical shows and helped set the new fashion for the series of Gaiety Theatre

Gaiety Theatre, London

The Gaiety Theatre, London was a West End theatre in London, located on Aldwych at the eastern end of the Strand. The theatre was established as the Strand Musick Hall , in 1864 on the former site of the Lyceum Theatre. It was rebuilt several times, but closed from the beginning of World War II...

 musical hits that followed. Many of the best-known London couturiers began to design costumes for stage productions by the 1880s. The illustrated periodicals were eager to publish photographs of the actresses in the latest stage hits, and so the theatre became an excellent way for clothiers to publicise their latest fashions. The plot of In Town, though thin, is a smart tale of backstage and society intrigue. One of the popular songs from the show was "The Man About Town".

Synopsis

Captain Coddington, a penniless lad-about-town who gives a young aristocrat friend, Lord Clanside, a tour of the slightly naughty lifestyles both high and low, to be found in London. Coddington invites all the ladies of the Ambiguity Theatre to lunch; Clanside agrees to pay the bill if he is invited to the party. Afterwards, with several uninvited guests, they visit the theatre to see a rehearsal. Coddington romances the prima donna of the theatre and wins her.

Roles and original cast

The original cast was as follows:

• Captain Arthur Coddington – Arthur Roberts
• The Duke of Duffshire – Eric Lewis
  Eric Lewis (actor)
  Frederic Lewis Tuffley , better known by his stage name, Eric Lewis, was an English comedian, actor and singer...
  
  
• Lord Clanside – Phyllis Broughton
• The Rev. Samuel Hopkins – E. Bantock
• Benoll – H. Grattan
• Shrimp – Jessie Rogers
• Duchess of Duffshire – Maria Davis
• Flo Fanshawe – Sylvia Gray
• Kitty Hetherton – Florence St. John
  Florence St. John
  Florence St. John , was an English singer and actress of the late Victorian and Edwardian eras famous for her roles in operetta, musical burlesque, music hall, opera and, later, comic plays.-Life and career:...
  
  

External links

• Information about shows that opened in London in 1892