Darling of the Day (1968)

Synopsis

Written in 1968, based on Arnold Bennett's ?Buried Alive', Styne (?Funny Girl' & ?Gypsy'), Harburg (Finian's Rainbow & film "The Wizard Of Oz') and Johnson ( films ?Roxie Hart' & ?The Grapes Of Wrath') adapted this story of a celebrated artist, yearning for anonymity. He fakes his own death and assumes his valet's identity but carries on painting - which means his art mysteriously keeps reappearing.

Our Review:

Michael Coveney - 25 March 2013

This forgotten musical by the composer of Gypsy and Funny Girl, Jule Styne, and the lyricist of Finian's Rainbow, E Y "Yip" Harburg, won a Tony on Broadway for Patricia Routledge in 1968, having garnered very mixed reviews and a closing notice after just 31 performances.

  It's an Edwardian anomaly of a show, set in the London world of art dealers and pub crawlers and based on a play written exactly a century ago by Arnold Bennett, initially scripted by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall, then by Nunnally Johnson, and first starring horror film hero Vincent Price as a withdrawn painter posing as his own late manservant in order to reinvent himself as an artist.

  Routledge's role of Alice Challis, a Putney widow who marries the disguised artist, is here taken by bouncy, chirpy Katy Secombe, while Price's suave brush-man, Priam Farll, is very well sung by James Dinmore. Rebecca Caine chips in vividly in with an art gallery patr...

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Latest User Review

Sue Richards - 11 April 2013:

Beautifully crafted. We had a lovely evening. Well done all!...

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