By Steven Suskin
21 Feb 2010

AN EVENING WITH BEATRICE LILLIE [Sepia 1123]
And why not mix Mary Martin with Beatrice Lillie? Lillie (1894-1989) was one of the unique talents of the Broadway/West End musical theatre of the second quarter of the last century. Revues were her métier, with folks like Dietz and Schwartz, Rodgers and Hart, Vincent Youmans, Cole Porter and Noel Coward providing material to fit. Her greatest successes came in the '30s and '40s. With the arrival of television in the post-World War II era, the days of the full-scale Broadway revue were suddenly gone; why go to theatre when you could see a fresh and topical new star-studded revue every week on TV with the likes of Milton Berle, Sid Caesar and their ilk? Lillie, whose droll and sophisticated style was perhaps too specialized for the small screen, regrouped with a not-quite-one-woman revue, An Evening with Beatrice Lillie. Not-quite-one-woman in that Lillie was accompanied by Reginald Gardiner, an accomplished comedian in his own right, as well as two character ladies; a singer; and the husband/wife duo pianists known as Eadie and Rack.

An Evening with Beatrice Lillie came into the Booth on Oct. 2, 1952 and was an instant hit. (My book "Opening Night on Broadway" — long out-of-print, alas — includes a comparative summary of the critical reception of about 300 musicals that opened from 1943 to 1964. By my calculation, only eight shows received unanimous raves from the major first-night newspaper critics: Brigadoon, Guys and Dolls, How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying, The Music Man, My Fair Lady, South Pacific, Wonderful Town — and An Evening with Beatrice Lillie.)

Following an eight-month run and a special Tony Award, Lillie took her revue to London, where Gardiner was replaced by an up-and-coming performer named Leslie Bricusse. Yes, the same Leslie Bricusse.

At any rate, Sepia has given us the original cast album of An Evening with Beatrice Lillie, coupled with selections from a 1958 LP the star recorded in London. An Evening includes such selections as Rodgers & Hart's "Rhythm," a wonderfully clever melange introduced by Bea in the 1933 London revue Please! and repeated three years later in The Show Is On; Dietz and Schwartz's "Nanette," from The Band Wagon; Coward's "Weary of It All," "Piccolo Marina" and "The Party's Over Now"; and the Lillie specialty "There Are Fairies at the Bottom of My Garden." Also on hand is a specialty of Mr. Gardiner's, his monologue about "Trains" (presented on two tracks).

We don't get a complete picture of Lillie's talents; there are some earlier and livelier recordings floating around with the younger Lillie. But Sepia's CD will give today's listener a good idea of what Lillie sounded like, around the age of 60. A very special talent, and one not to be overlooked.

(Steven Suskin is author of the recently released updated and expanded Fourth Edition of "Show Tunes" as well as "The Sound of Broadway Music: A Book of Orchestrators and Orchestrations," "Second Act Trouble," and the "Opening Night on Broadway" books. He can be reached at Ssuskin@aol.com)