Primrose (musical)

Production history#

Primrose was produced by Grossmith and J. A. E. Malone, who wanted to follow up on their earlier successes composed by Jerome Kern. Extensive excerpts from the score were recorded with original 1924 cast members conducted by Ansell, and have been re-released on CD. P. G. Wodehouse rewrote the lyric of ‘When Toby is out of Town’ as ‘The Twenties are Here to Stay’, interpolated into a 1960 revival of Gershwin’s Oh, Kay! In their joint memoir Bring on the Girls!, Wodehouse and Bolton relate a story about Grossmith holding auditions for Primrose, where he made a routine request of Sylvia Hawkes, a beautiful young dancer, who later married a series of famous men: An Australian production with Maude Fane and Alfred Frith opened in Melbourne, at His Majesty’s Theatre in April 1925, before touring nationally. It was produced by J. C. Williamson’s company. The show was not produced on Broadway, where it would have competed with Lady, Be Good!. The American première of Primrose did not take place until 1987, when an unstaged concert production at the Coolidge Auditorium of the Library of Congress was given, without dialogue, together with another Gershwin score, Pardon My English (1933), both conducted by John McGlinn. Soloists included Rebecca Luker and Kim Criswell. The next performance in North America was in 2003, when Musicals Tonight! presented a series of staged concerts at the 14th Street YMCA in New York City’s Greenwich Village, with dialogue, but accompanied only by piano, directed by Thomas Mills. Ohio Light Opera mounted the first fully staged American production of the show in 2017.

Roles and original cast#

• Jason – Ernest Graham
• Freddie Falls – Claude Hulbert
• May Rooker – Vera Lennox
• Sir Benjamin Falls – Guy Vane
• Joan – Margery Hicklin
• Hilary Vane – Percy Heming
• Toby Mopham – Leslie Henson
• Michael – Thomas Weguelin
• Manager of hotel – Harold Bradley
• Pinkie Peach (Mdme Frazeline) – Heather Thatcher
• Lady Sophia Mopham – Murial Barnby
• Pritchard – Sylvia Hawkes

Plot summary#

Setting: Act 1: A houseboat moored at a dock along the upper Thames; Act II: A seaside resort in France; Act III: Mopham House, Park Lane, London Primrose consists of three interconnected love stories about Freddie and May, Hilary and Joan, and Toby and Pinkie. Freddie is reluctantly engaged to his cousin Joan, but falls in love with amateur golfer May Rooker. Joan, a naive, pretty young socialite, loves dashing Hilary Vane, a successful author of romantic yarns who lives on a houseboat. Hilary is writing a story whose heroine, Miss Primrose, is at a similar impasse. Hilary returns Joan’s love, but Freddie and Joan are under the thumb of Sir Barnaby Falls – Joan’s guardian and Freddie’s uncle – who, for financial reasons, refuses consent to their marrying anyone except each other. The romance of aristocratic Toby Mopham and the vulgar but ambitious beautician Pinkie Peach is impeded by Toby’s second thoughts after rashly proposing; he enlists Hilary’s to pretend to woo Pinkie so that Toby can catch them in flagrante and break off the engagement. However, Joan also catches Hilary wooing Pinkie. During an eventful dance sequence, Toby overcomes his reluctance to marry, Sir Barnaby gives way, and all three couples are free to marry.

Song list#

• Overture
• Leaving Town While We May (The Countryside) – Chorus
• Till I Meet Someone Like You – Freddie and May
• Isn’t it Wonderful – Joan and chorus of men
• This Is the Life for a Man – Hilary
• When Toby Is out of Town – Toby and chorus of women
• Some Far-Away Someone – Joan and Hilary
• The Mophams – Toby, Pinkie and Michael
• Finale, Act I – Company
• Opening chorus – Chorus
• Four Little Sirens – Quartet
• Berkeley Square and Kew – Freddie and Joan
• Boy Wanted – Pinkie and chorus
• Mary Queen of Scots – Freddie and Toby
• Wait a Bit, Susie – Hilary, Joan and chorus
• Naughty Baby – Joan and chorus of men
• Finale, Act II – Company
• Ballet – Orchestral
• That New Fangled Mother of Mine – Toby
• I Make Hay when the Moon Shines – Pinkie
• Beau Brummell – Hilary and chorus
• Finale, Act III – Company

External links#

• Piano/vocal score
• Full cast list of the London cast
• Cast recording listing at Discogs.com
• Rare original cast recordings and information about the musical