Événement

Ivor Novello's Gay's The Word, In Concert

Please note. Online sales end 3 hours before each performance, but there will be day of sales at the door for all performances.

APPLAUSE! Musicals In Concert brings this incredibly rare 1951 musical gem to life.

Gay's The Word
Music and Book by Ivor Novello, Lyrics by Alan Melville, Book Revised by Richard Stirling

Ivor Novello's final musical, Gay's the Word premiered in 1951, and harks back to a lost theatrical world of operetta and music hall with a crazy hilarious plot and witty lyrics by Alan Melville.

A backstage musical comedy, Gay's The Word focuses on the character "Gay" an actress whose light is fading a little and when facing bankruptcy after an out-of-town flop, seizes the opportunity to open a drama school. The school isn't plain sailing by any means as the money starts to run out, the teachers grow frustrated with the lack of talent in the student body and some dastardly smugglers also arrive to cause further mayhem. Songs from the show include, Vitality, If Only He'd Looked My Way (recorded by Frank Sinatra as If Only She'd Looked My Way), Bees Are Buzzin' and On Such a Night as This.

Ivor Novello captured the imagination of British theatre audiences in the 30's & 40's with lavish, entertaining productions set in "Ruritania" a mythical land of his own invention and also one which reflected the historical and social events in the real world around him. Gay's The Word Novello, lampoons these earlier works for which he was known including Glamorous Night (1935), Careless Rapture (1936), The Dancing Years (1939), Perchance to Dream (1945), and King's Rhapsody (1949). None of his musicals crossed the Atlantic to Broadway.

Gay's The Word features an exciting cast including Michelle Baynton, Michelle Collier, Darren Dyhengco, Imelda Gaborno, Laura Gobbo, Heather, Guthrie Sheane, Evan Kascak, Kenneth Lai, Jacob MacKinnon, Alex McLeod, Sabrielle McCurdy-Foreman, Jennifer McLaren, Nick Preston, Jill Raymond, Diana Sandberg, Karita Sedun, Stephen Street, Eva Tavares, and Andrew Wade. Gay's The Word is music directed by Caitlin Hayes and directed by APPLAUSE! founder Scott Ashton Swan.