Gay's the Word

Synopsis

Ivor Novello affectionately sends up his own Ruritanian extravagances in this irrestistible backstage musical comedy. Stage star Gay Daventry, bankrupted from the flop of her latest operetta, opens a drama school and finds - after various misadventures - that the one quality needed to get her back in the spotlight is, to name the show's hit song, Vitality! Other numbers include If Only He'd Looked My Way (subsequently recorded by Frank Sinatra), Bees Are Buzzin' and the enchanting On Such A Night As This, all combining Novello's melodic talent with Alan Melville's sharp wit.

Our Review:

Michael Coveney - 11 February 2013

Ivor Novello's last musical proves a frothy and fascinating fiasco with lovely songs, wonderful lyrics (by Alan Melville) and a knock-out performance by dynamic, effervescent Sophie-Louise Dann as Gay Daventry, a big musical theatre star on the way down in Manchester.

The role was written for Cicely Courtneidge, renowned for the first act closer, "Vitality," here done more andante than allegro, but captivating all the same: a well-drilled chorus, a doughty pianist (James Church), and Dann leading the paean to the secret of all success to rhyme with finality and practicality.

One of her fellow artistes, Linda Severn (the soprano role written for the recently deceased Lizbeth Webb) saves her bacon with a gift of £2,000 to found a drama school in Folkestone where, despite the intervention of a couple of smugglers and the hilarious bitching of a quartet of impecunious teachers - Myra Sands, Eileen Page, Gaye Brown and Elizabeth Seal (who wa...

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Latest User Review

Ryan - 28 February 2013:

You'll be hard pushed to find a full wattage performance of such charm, fun and comedic brilliance as that given by Sophie-Louise Dann. She's beyond sublime like a cross between the best of Julie Walters written by Victoria Wood and Julia McKenzie....

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