Works that emanated from other countries but premiered in Britain earn their own corner in the British musical’s history. Some are more obviously British than others, less obviously ‘adopted’ . In some cases, their uncertain provenance has meant they have almost slipped out of the few books on the genre. These are not American musicals that were reproduced in Britain; those are obviously American, and beyond the scope of this book. The adopted British musical sometimes had American blood in it, or South African or Australian or Italian, but it won its theatrical nationalisation when it premiered not in the countries from which it in the main emanated, but in London. There is, of course, no cohesiveness in this disparate band of works. They do not form anything like a school, but as a group they offer up several interesting and often overlooked pieces.

Golden City

If London was to welcome ‘foreign’ shows to first reveal themselves in its theatres, the ‘musical romance’ Golden City (Saville Theatre, 15 June 1950; 140) set a high standard for the post-war period. With book, music and lyrics by the Southern Rhodesian John Tore, the play was directed by the Old Vic’s Michael Benthall, with choreography by Robert Helpmann, designs by Audrey Cruddas, and orchestrations by Philip Green. These were distinguished forces to bring to the British musical of 1950, and indicated an intent to take the form seriously. In Benthall–Helpmann–Cruddas there was the feeling that a creative team, already in harmony with one another’s work, meant business. There can have been no comparably warming spectacle in British musicals of the 1950s than the Cruddas sets and costumes. Compared to them, the rackety flats and backcloths of some of the most well-attended American musicals were inferior. As a series of stage pictures, Golden City knocked Oklahoma! back into the paint workshop. Cruddas had been born in Johannesburg, and at least brought some understanding of landscape and authentic culture to the framing of Tore’s adventure, set in a Gold Rush Cape Town in 1886.