London Musicals 2010.pub - Over The Footlights

24
ME AND JULIET
London run: Finborough, October 5 th – 30 th
Music: Richard Rodgers
Book & Lyrics: Oscar Hammerstein II
Director: Thom Southerland
Choreographer: Sally Brooks
Musical Director: Joseph Atkins
Cast: Laura Main (Jeanie), John Addison (Bob),
Robert Hands (Larry), Dafydd Gwyn Howells (Mac),
Jodie Jacobs (Betty), Peter Kenworthy (Ruby), Gemma Atkins,
Terry Doe, Daniella Gibb, Reeda Harris, Brendan Matthew,
Stephen McGlynn, Tom O’Brien, Olivia O’Shea, Anthony Wise
Songs: A Very Special Day, Marriage Type Love, Keep it Gay, The
Big Black Giant, No Other Love, It’s Me, I’m Your Girl
Jodie Jacobs
Story: Backstage in a show called “Me and Juliet”, Jeanie, a singer
in the chorus is besotted with Bob, the jealous, heavy-drinking
electrician, in spite of being warned by Sidney, a fellow electrician, that Bob is only toying with her. Meantime Larry,
the assistant stage manager, secretly in love with Jeanie, urges her to audition for the position of understudy to Juliet
in the show. Larry is reprimanded by Mac, the stage manager, who tells him never to get romantically involved with
a cast member in the same show, but when Mac’s girl-friend, Betty, gets the part, Larry is furious. Gradually romance
blossoms between Jeanie and Larry, but they have to keep it secret from Bob. When Bob finally finds out it leads to a
general all-round physical fight involving Bob, Mac and Larry. Ruby, the company manager, has to sort it all out, and
inform Bob that Larry and Jeanie had secretly married earlier that day. Taken aback, and rather sheepishly, Bob gives
in, Jeanie is congratulated by her showmates, and the show within the show goes on.
Notes: The show opened on Broadway on May 28 th 1953 and closed after 358 performances. It opened to an
enormous advance, and had recovered its production costs within six months. When it closed, after ten months, it had
made a small profit of $100,000, and later played a six week season in Chicago. For anyone except Rodgers and
Hammerstein this would have represented a success, but the show is usually classed as a failure when compared to
their other mega-hits. (An unknown Shirley MacLaine was in the chorus on Broadway, and an equally unknown
Shirley Jones was in the Chicago chorus.). Subsequent short-run off-Broadway revivals were staged in 1970 and
2002, but the show has never had a major Broadway revival. This fringe theatre version was billed as its European
premiere – 47 years after its first performance.
FLASHDANCE THE MUSICAL
London run: Shaftesbury Theatre, October 11 th – January 15 th , 2011
Photo by Brinkhoff & Mögenburg