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unusual facts about Edwardian musical comedy


W. H. Berry

After learning his craft in pierrot and concert entertainments, he was spotted by the actor-manager George Grossmith Jr., and appeared in a series of musical comedies in comic character roles.


Kissing Time

Kissing Time, an earlier version of which was titled The Girl Behind the Gun, is a musical comedy with music by Ivan Caryll, book and lyrics by Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse, and additional lyrics by Clifford Grey.

Morocco Bound

Morocco Bound is a farcical English Edwardian musical comedy in two acts by Arthur Branscombe, with music by F. Osmond Carr and lyrics by Adrian Ross.

Nellie Briercliffe

Briercliffe left the D'Oyly Carte company in January 1918 and appeared in London in the musical comedy Pamela, at the Palace Theatre with Lily Elsie and Owen Nares.

The Better 'Ole

The Better 'Ole, also called The Romance of Old Bill, is an Edwardian musical comedy with a book by Bruce Bairnsfather and Arthur Elliot, music by Herman Darewski, and lyrics by Percival Knight and James Heard, based on the cartoon character Old Bill, an infantryman, drawn by Bairnsfather.

The Chieftain

The fault lay partly in Burnand's weak and pun-filled libretto, but also was a result of changing audience tastes, as musical comedy, such as those produced at the Gaiety Theatre by George Edwardes, was supplanting light opera on the London stage.

The Grand Duke

In addition to whatever weaknesses the show had, as compared with earlier Gilbert and Sullivan pieces, the taste of the London theatregoing public had shifted away from comic opera to musical comedies, such as A Gaiety Girl (1893), The Shop Girl (1894) and An Artist's Model (1895), which were to dominate the London stage through World War I.

The Sunshine Girl

The Sunshine Girl is an Edwardian musical comedy in two acts with a book by Paul A. Rubens and Cecil Raleigh, lyrics and music by Rubens and additional lyrics by Arthur Wimperis.

Whirled into Happiness

Whirled into Happiness is a musical comedy with music by Robert Stolz, and book and lyrics by Harry Graham, adapted from Stolz's Der Tanz ins Glück, with a libretto by Robert Bodanzky and Bruno Hardt-Warden.

William Terriss

He was also a notable Shakespearian performer and father of the Edwardian musical comedy star Ellaline Terriss.


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