One of the most surprising facts about the Ivor Novello musicals between 1935 and 1951 is that they had so good a critical response. Even those who found much to criticise in Novello’s playwriting and compositions acknowledged the skill and theatrical cunning with which they were assembled. Gervase Hughes has crushingly suggested that ‘his gift of superficial melody, backed by rudimentary technique, furnished a repletion of sentimental effusions which could be plugged ad nauseum’ and ‘Any intrinsic merit his operettas may have possessed has been inflated beyond reason in the panegyrics of undiscriminating eulogists; it is high time the bubble was pricked. ‘ Hughes’ criticism may or may not be valid, and it may be that a declining interest in Novello has seen the bubble burst. This critic is percipient enough to see that while the Edwardian musical theatre had celebrated the female form (one has only to remember all those ‘Girl’ musicals), Novello, while giving audiences a regular diet of female stars who could sing his songs, himself personified a celebration of a certain type of male beauty. This stately manifestation could only be strengthened by the fact that Novello did not (except on one occasion) break into song; dignity was preserved. Novello, possibly even more so than Coward, depended on a public image, and one that had long been implanted into the public consciousness.

The qualities of his work may be up for discussion, but Novello’s success was a much more subtle achievement than Hughes may have realised. The briefest acquaintance with some of the musicals’ dialogue has the flavour of that found in his plays, and in the scenes which Novello writes for himself and his leading lady there is a definite flippancy, a skittishness, a lack of wit and a dash of the puerile, dusted over with a sort of languorous romanticism. Such a style may have been almost a reflex action by Novello, a way of distancing himself from the necessary heterosexual overtones demanded by the romantic situations into which his plays forced him.