This article is about the 1925 musical revue. For the 1920 film, see On with the Dance (1920 film)

On with the Dance (1920 film)

This article is about the 1920 film. For the 1925 musical revue, see On With the Dance . For the 1975 Upstairs, Downstairs episode, see On With the Dance....

. For the 1975 Upstairs, Downstairs

Upstairs, Downstairs

Upstairs, Downstairs is a British drama television series originally produced by London Weekend Television and revived by the BBC. It ran on ITV in 68 episodes divided into five series from 1971 to 1975, and a sixth series shown on the BBC on three consecutive nights, 26–28 December 2010.Set in a...

 episode, see On With the Dance

On With the Dance

This article is about the 1975 Upstairs, Downstairs episode. For the 1920 film, see On with the Dance . For the 1925 musical revue, see On With the Dance ....

.

On With the Dance is a 1925 musical 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...

 produced by C. B. Cochran

Charles B. Cochran

Sir Charles Blake Cochran , generally known as C. B. Cochran, was an English theatrical manager. He produced some of the most successful musical revues, musicals and plays of the 1920s and 1930s, becoming associated with Noel Coward and his works.-Biography:Cochran was born in Sussex and educated...

, written and composed by Noël Coward

Noël Coward

Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...

 and Philip Braham

Philip Braham

Philip Braham was an English composer of the early twentieth century, chiefly associated with theatrical work.-Biography:...

. Coward wrote his songs while he was acting in his first stage hit, The Vortex

The Vortex

The Vortex is a play by the English writer and actor Noël Coward. The story focuses on sexual vanity and drug abuse among the upper classes. The play was Coward's first great commercial success....

. 1925 was a busy year for Coward, in which he produced three other plays in London: Hay Fever

Hay Fever

Hay Fever is a comic play written by Noël Coward in 1924 and first produced in 1925 with Marie Tempest as the first Judith Bliss. Laura Hope Crews played the role in New York...

, Fallen Angels and Easy Virtue.

The show opened at the Palace Theatre, Manchester

Manchester

Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

, England, on 17 March 1925 and transferred to the London Pavilion

London Pavilion

The London Pavilion is a building located on the corner of Shaftesbury Avenue and Coventry Street on the north-east side of, and facing, Piccadilly Circus in London...

, where it ran for 229 performances. It is best remembered for Alice Delysia's singing "Poor Little Rich Girl". Cochran wanted to cut the piece and had to be dissuaded by Coward. As well as Delysia, the cast included Hermione Baddeley

Hermione Baddeley

Hermione Baddeley was an English character actress of theatre, film and television. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Room at the Top and a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play for The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here...

, Ernest Thesiger

Ernest Thesiger

Ernest Frederic Graham Thesiger CBE was an English stage and film actor. He is best known for his performance as Dr...

, Nigel Bruce

Nigel Bruce

William Nigel Ernle Bruce , best known as Nigel Bruce, was a British character actor on stage and screen. He was best known for his portrayal of Doctor Watson in a series of films and in the radio series The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes...

 and Douglas Byng

Douglas Byng

thumb|right|200px|Portrait by [[Allan Warren]]Douglas Byng was a British comic singer and songwriter in West End theatre, revue and cabaret. Billed as "Bawdy but British", Byng was famous for his female impersonations. His songs are full of sexual innuendo and double entendres...

. On opening night, Coward was not yet the famous name he would be by the end of the year: The Manchester Guardian review mentioned him only once, and The Times

The Times

The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

review did not mention him at all.

Songs

(In the order listed in The Lyrics of Noël Coward, pp. 19-30):

• Cosmopolitan lady
• I'm so in love
• Poor little rich girl
• First love
• Couldn't we keep on dancing?
• Raspberry time in Runcorn
• Spinsters' song
• The vicarage dance
• Choir boys' song
• Even clergymen are naughty now and then
• Church parade
• Come a little closer

The Noël Coward Society, drawing on performing statistics from the publishers and the Performing Rights Society, ranks "Poor little rich girl" among Coward's ten most popular songs. The show also features four ballets, not by Coward. One of them, based on William Hogarth

William Hogarth

William Hogarth was an English painter, printmaker, pictorial satirist, social critic and editorial cartoonist who has been credited with pioneering western sequential art. His work ranged from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like series of pictures called "modern moral subjects"...

's The Rake’s Progress, was composed by Roger Quilter

Roger Quilter

Roger Quilter was an English composer, known particularly for his songs.-Biography:Born in Hove, Sussex, Quilter was a younger son of Sir William Quilter, 1st Baronet, who was a noted art collector...

 and choreographed by Leonid Massine.