The Decline of West End Musical Comedy, 1912–1939

Abstract

According to some musical theatre historians, West End musical comedy was struggling even before the outbreak of the Great War. Ganzl, for example, identifies the early signs of collapse in a number of ways. He continues to describe the popularity of ‘foreign’ shows and ‘foreign’ composers – especially Franz Lehár, Oscar Strauss and Leo Fall – as evidence of a ‘British’ decline. It was the case that shows like A Waltz Dream (1908), The Dollar Princess (1909), The Chocolate Soldier (1910), The Count of Luxembourg (1911) and Gipsy Love (1912) were very successful, but again it is hard to see how this signified the collapse of West End musical theatre. Quite apart from the difficulties in distinguishing ‘foreign’ shows from their British counterparts, once they had been subjected to the West End musical comedy treatment, these ‘Viennese’ shows shared an environment with musicals that were entirely ‘home-grown’ – Monckton’s The Quaker Girl with 536 performances at the Adelphi and the Rubens show The Sunshine Girl (1912), which had 336 performances at the Gaiety are notable in this respect. Moreover the war period itself saw a string of hugely successful West End musical comedies. Besides Chu Chin Chow, Betty had a West End run of 391 performances; Theodore & Co, played 503 performances; The Maid of the Mountains, 1,352; The Better ‘Ole, 811; The Boy, 801; A Southern Maid (1917), 306; Yes, Uncle (1917), 626; and Kissing Time, 430 (see appendix 1). This wartime popularity hardly bears out the suggestion that musical comedy was in irretrievable decline before the outbreak of war; nor does it wholly support another familiar idea – that the pre-war period saw the fading of West End composers and writers of musical comedy.