London Calling
Noël Coward spent Christmas 1922 as the guest of Ned Lathom (3rd Earl of Lathom, Edward Bootle-Wilbraham) and his sister Barbara at Davos in Switzerland where he joined a party of showbusiness guests at The Grand Hotel, Davos-Platz - Coward stayed at the Hotel Belvedere. Here he convinced Ned and eventually the theatrical impresario André Charlot, to provide the finance and opportunity for a revue that became London Calling - named after a new radio station call sign.
". . . in the hotel's ballroom late one evening, Noël played and sang 'Parisian Pierrot' and other songs for the first time in public. This was pleasing to Charlot who tried never to put a song in any show unless he had heard it performed by its composer.
He later wrote that Coward had, "persuaded me of his greatness." He was not quite so effusive about Coward's sketches - which he did not allow the author to read to him. Reading them over in his room, he quite liked the "telephone sketch'" (this was later 'Early Mourning', a tour de force performed by Gertrude Lawrence) but thought the rest, "stank to high heaven." What happened the day after Coward's audition is recalled quite differently by its major players. Charlot claimed that he wanted to use some of his material but added a suggestion that Noël do what Cohan did (George M Cohan the great US musical theatre performer, "the man who owned Broadway") - write, produce and star in a whole show of his own.
Here wrote Charlot later, "Coward revealed his lack of confidence - no use arguing, he must have some help." So according to Charlot, it was Coward’s idea to collaborate. Coward eventually contradicted this interpretation. he recalled that Charlot was "expansive and benign'" and that a "series of cigar-laden conferences" followed. He worked on the sketches in the morning and submitted them to Lathom and Charlot in the afternoons. In the end for whatever reason, Ronald Jeans was invited to join Coward in writing the show."
Extract from 'André Charlot - The Genius of Intimate Revue' by James Ross Moore (ISBN 0-7864-1774-9)
This was Noël's first revue and he found it 'a very tricky and technical business... everything has to be condensed to an appalling brevity.'
The revue, staged in 1923, was a great success with Fred Astaire helping with some choreography and Elsie April his arranger and orchestrator (the beginning of an association with Noël that lasted until 1946). Despite the large amount of box office receipts, Ned Lathom lost a lot of money on the show - largely due to his obsessive and expansive spending - even to the point of dressing the chorus in Molyneux-designed dresses.
A song featured in the revue was to provide Coward with an early musical success - Parisian Pierrot sung by Gertrude Lawrence and featured towards the end of the show:
Programme
Part 1: Breaking it Gently; Great Expectations; Tamarisk Town; Devon; The Ministering Angel; Other Girls; Rain Before Seven; When My Ship Comes Home; The Old Lady Shows Her Muddle; Carrie Was A Careful Girl; Little Baggy Maggy.
Part 2: There's Life In The Old Girl Yet; Early Mourning; London Calling; Love's labour; You Were Meant For Me; The Swiss Family Whittlebot; Sentiment; Parisian Pierrot; An Atmospheric Drama; What Love Menas; Follow A Star.
Musical Numbers
Carrie; Other Girls; Parisian Pierrot; Prenez Garde, Lisette; Russian Blues; Sentiment (music by Braham); Tamarisk Town; There’s Life In The Old Girl Yet; What Love Means to Girls Like Me; When My Ship Comes Home; You Were Meant For Me (by Sissle & Blake).
Recordings
There's Life in the Old Girl Yet (Maisie Gay, accompanied by the Phoenix Theatre Orchestra. cond. Philip Braham; 25 March 1924)
What Love Means to Girls Like Me (Maisie Gay, accompanied by the Phoenix Theatre Orchestra. cond. Philip Braham; 25 March 1924)
Carrie (Gertrude Lawrence, pno. acc. by R. H. Bowers; New York, 17 Nov. 1925)
Parisian Pierrot (Gertrude Lawrence, acc. Claude Ivy & Chenil Orch., 3 Nov 1931)
Cast
The original cast were:
Noël Coward, Gertrude Lawrence, Eileen Molyneux, Arthur Lowrie, Tubby Edlin, Maisie Gay, Billy Fry, Jill Williams, Tony Williams, Winifred Satchell, Sybil Wise, April Harmon, Childs Brothers (Leonard Childs, William Childs), Dolores Sisters, Betty Nicholas, Wyn Clare and Chorus.