Perchance to Dream

Synopsis

Spanning the Regency, Victorian and post-war eras, and featuring a score filled with some of Novello's most ravishing songs including Love is My Reason, When I Curtsied to the King, A Woman's Heart and the classic We'll Gather Lilacs, Perchance to Dream is a classic Novello musical - an escapist 'musical romance' whose original 1945 run in the West End played for 1,022 performances. In 1818, Sir Graham Rodney, an impoverished womaniser, is the owner of Huntersmoon, a magnificent old country house, but seeks relief from his life of leisure by masquerading as the dread highwayman "Frenchy". Just at the moment when he finally finds love, the law runs him to ground with tragic results. A generation later, his estate has passed to the wrong side of the family and tragedy strikes a second time. More than a century must go by before the ghosts of Huntersmoon can finally be laid to rest...

Our Review:

6 September 2011

In 1945 Ivor Novello’s Perchance to Dream ran for over 1000 performances and was very much of its time. It had a socking great leading role for Ivor himself (non-singing), a whole bevy of pert and beautiful young ladies to swoon at his feet, and two glorious melodies to set the heart racing – “We’ll Gather Lilacs” and “Love is my Reason”. It was sheer escapism and clearly a winning formula.

Nowadays, musical theatre has progressed to the extent that we demand the same density and complexity as in a straight drama. Not for us, now, a lightweight confection with bits of ballet and showpiece songs shoe-horned into a gossamer-thin plot. We are therefore tempted to view this as pure nostalgia for a bygone era – as evidence of how ill-fashioned and twee musical tastes once were – but that is to disregard the essential charm of the genre.

There may be little genuine emotion involved here in this story of romantic l...

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