By Steven Suskin
24 Aug 2003

TRELAWNY [Must Close Saturday MCSR 3007]
Julian Slade's 1972 Trelawny — from Arthur Wing Pinero's Trelawny of the Wells — is something else again. It was commissioned for the reopening of the Bristol Old Vic; Slade's musical Salad Days — one of the most successful British musicals of the pre-Cameron Mackintosh era — had been written for the same venue. (Mackintosh, who confesses deep admiration for Salad Days, produced the unsuccessful London production of Trelawny.)

Gemma Craven made her West End debut in the lead, replacing Hayley Mills (who played the role in Bristol). Also starred were Ian Richardson and Max Adrian, the nominal star of the original Broadway production of Candide. Lending a hand is song-and-dance man Teddy Green, remembered along Broadway for his energetic efforts to bolster three sixties flops, Baker Street, Pickwick and Darling of the Day.

Trelawny was a bit old-fashioned for its time, veering toward operetta in the age of Superstar and Hair. But it is a sweet score, somewhat in the vein of Robert and Elizabeth (which is substantially superior).

While Trelawny is not an all-time great, or a CD you must have, it is pleasantly listenable and should please fans of Slade and the genre in general.

Must Close Saturday's other releases include Pieces of Eight [MCSR 3006] and The Amazons [MCSR 3003]. The former, Peter Cook's pre-Beyond the Fringe revue, starred Kenneth Williams and Fenella Fielding. Some of the targets of this topical 1959 piece are far afield at this point, but there are delights along the way. Three of the songs come from Laurie Johnson, just off Lock Up Your Daughters. Two others, for Fielding, come from The Boy Friend's Sandy Wilson. (Wilson put Fielding on the theatrical map with a knockout solo in his 1958 musical Valmouth.) Fielding is a delight, and Myra de Groot sparks several numbers, two of them with lyrics by — so help me — one of the authors of Broadway's Molly. The disc includes four sketches from Cook — amusing, although not necessarily tracks that you'll want to hear over and over. But funny. "Not many people out there tonight," complains an actor another about that evening's audience in a skit called "The Laughing Grains." "Just a lot of riffraff," she says. "Not even a lot of riffraff. Just riffraff." There is also "The Last to Go," an enigmatic sketch about a cup of tea from, yes, Harold Pinter.

The Amazons is an oddity, a 1971 collaboration between composer John Addison, lyricist David Heneker and librettist Michael Stewart.Like Trelawny, it was an adaptation from Pinero. Unlike Trelawny, it closed after its Nottingham tryout without transferring to London.

The Amazons — "a charming Edwardian musical" — was unearthed by Heneker archivist Stewart Nicholls, who brushed it off for the Theatre Museum in Covent Garden in May 2002. That production — which included original cast members Elizabeth Counsell and Myra Sands — was recorded by Must Close Saturday. Yes, it is old-fashioned, and must have seemed hopelessly outdated in 1971; the thought of a one-piano accompaniment almost scared me away from listening to it. But the show, about three upper-class girls who have been raised as boys, has some interesting ideas in song and plot. I have not had time to listen to it extensively — I'm still playing Crooked Mile, thank you very much — but I've heard enough of The Amazons to want to get back to it in the future.

As for Must Close Saturday, let us hope that they can generate enough sales to enable them to bring us more vintage British musicals. (These CDs can be ordered from footlight.com or direct from www.must-close Saturday-records.co.uk.) I can think of at least a dozen West End cast musicals that I'd like to have on CD, and I'm sure there are other titles out there that — like The Crooked Mile — I've yet to discover.

— Steven Suskin, author of "Broadway Yearbook 2001-2002," "Show Tunes," and the "Opening Night on Broadway" books. He can be reached by e-mail at Ssuskin@aol.com