When Musical Comedy Was Queen!

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One hundred and one years ago, in the days when musical comedy was Queen, Frank Curzon produced a new piece at London's Wyndham's Theatre under the title The Girl Behind the Counter. It was praised as a model of its kind, ran from April to September, toured, was exported to America (where it was remade as a vehicle for Lew Fields) and so forth ...

Hayden Coffin as Charlie Chetwynd

The London version starred the statuesque baritone Charles Hayden Coffin as the principal 'boy' of the affair, the sweet-voiced Isabel Jay as the shop-girl heroine, accused of stealing a ten-pound note, and Horace Mills and Coralie Blythe as the little soubrets in the affair ...

Adolphus Dudd (Mills) and his Susie (Blythe) at the costume ball

Julian Hicks designed the scenery and the costumes were designed by the ubiquitous 'Karl'.

Winnie Willoughby (Miss Jay)

And those costume designs have found their way into -- yes -- the bottom of my cupboard. Well, today they have been dragged out. They have been there for at least fifteen years. And I don't want them to go back. I bought them years and years ago. When I was earning 135 pounds a week. I remember I had to run back to the office, at the end of the sale, and beg our accountant for a sub on my wages. But I knew what was going to happen if I didn't buy them. The main buyers at the sale included David Drummond, Richard McNutt and David Wood. Knowledgeable dealers in theatrical ephemera. The sets would be broken up and sold one 'picture' at a time, to maximise revenue.

I had come for one set in particular. The designs for Edward Solomon's The Nautch Girl. I had to fight, but I got them. The complete Savoy Theatre set. For something more than a month's wages. I cared for them, used them in my books, and finally passed them on to a Savoy Theatre specialist via whom I know they will end up in a museum or library. Mission accomplished!

I watched Percy Anderson's designs for Merrie England go for 750L, the original Peter Pan sketches fetched 1200L, Oliver Messel's Helen! 520L. 40 Anderson designs for Covent Garden's flop Joan of Arc brought 420L, his The Emerald Isle 520L and his Chu Chin Chow 500L. David Drummond paid 700L for the 47 designs for Cavalcade... while 22 Mister Cinders sketches only fetched 300L.  But with all these memorable goodies on sale, there were, naturally, some lots which didn't attract so much attention. And so, having heart-achedly watched wonderful historical stuff go out of the auction room, destined for the 'decorators' market, I finally cracked ...

Soubrette Susie (Blythe)

And that is how the 'rescued' designs for The Girl Behind the Counter and Dear Little Denmark ended up in a farmhouse cupboard in New Zealand...

Until now ....