Leaders In Profile Playwright Resents Name Of “The New Novello”

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28754, 27 November 1958, Page 20

Leaders In Profile Playwright Resents Name Of “The New Novello”

LBU

SIMON KAVANAUGH)

LONDON, November 14. ! Literate Britons have quite a time keeping up with the Wilsons. ' One way and another they keep i getting into the gossip columns. There’s Colin. “The Outsider,” gossip-worthy because he's the angriest of the Angry Young Men; Angus, a brilliant novelist of solid achievement: finally. Sandy, beloved of the columnists because everyone keeps hoping he will rescue Drury lane from American thraldom. In their enthusiasm over the prospect of Sandy Wilson ending trans-Atlantic domination of the musical comedy world, they garland him with epithets such as “the new Ivor Novello,” “the second Noel Coward.”

. Understandably. Wilson does I not relish this. “I don't want to jbe a second anybody,” he says. Not that this is in any way a slight on either of these masters of musical comedy. It’s just that the trouble with British musical comedy is that so many people insist on trying to be “new Novellos’’ and “second Cowards" j and can never hope to be as good as the originals. This explains why Americans still rule at Drury Lane, the throne room of British musical comedy, and why Wilson is still trying to cap the success of his first big hit and long-run success, “The Boy Friend.” He refuses to conform to formula and the “angels" and the big time producers don’t want to take the risk of breaking new ground.

I “The Boy Friend" became a ' front-rank hit on both sides of 'the Atlantic despite the shortsightedness of thcatreland's moneybags. Wilson was 29. not J long down from Oxford after war ’service, and a provider of lyrics

and music for intimate reviews. j when he wrote “The Boy Friend.” He was convinced he had something really good in this happy, evocative show which went back to the giggle and slap of the nine-teen-twenties for its inspiration. Producers were inveigled down from their West End eyries to

the little club theatre where it was being staged, then wined and dined into a sympathetic frame of mind.

The big shots just didn’t see the point. One of them told crestfallen Wilson: “Nice little show. Put a star comic in it and bring the girls’ dresses up-to-date. Then perhaps I'll put it on.”

It took rave notices by newspaper critics to open the eyes of the West End theatremen to the hit they were ignoring.

At the same time they cannot altogether be blamed for their lack of perception. A quick glance at Wilson's background I found nothing to distinguish himj from countless other bright young, men who made a name for them- i selves writing school and uni-1 versity shows and then graduated to the semi-amateur fringes of theatredom. Revues at Harrow At Harrow, his housemaster had let him write revues and stage them in the dining hall. He had gone on writing revues for the Experimental Theatre Club at Oxford between 1946 and 1949 Then further to bedevil Wilson's

chances of West End fame was the fact that for years success in musical comedy had been identified with the big. the brassy, the mammoth production, wellinsured by Broadway success. But although the smash-hit success of “The Boy Friend" both in the West End and on Broadway confounded the smarties, they have remained uncomfortable about Wilson and his work.

As a result, much of Wilson’s later work has gone into cold storage. For instance, about the time that “The Boy Friend" was beginning to click, Wilson was commissioned to write a musical around Shaw’s “Pygmalion." There was a “misunderstanding," the project was shelved and London had to wait until two Americans produced “My Fair Lady."

Another Wilson musical is gathering dust: a musical which, those who have seen it say. has all the elements of Drury Lane success. It is “Oh. Henry." and is written around Sir Alexander Korda's original script for the Charles Laughton film. “The Private Life of Henry the Eighth.” The excuse here is that a suitable “Henry" has still to be found.

Also lost sight of in the dust of backstage differences was Wilson's “My Royal Past." No Financial Worries Financially. Wilson has not had to worry. “The Boy Friend" has been worth about £lOOO a week to him. And Wilson is mod st in his material comforts 'he virtually had to be winkled out of his basement flat in London to take a house more appropriate tn his professional status!.

But Wilson dors worry about the tacit conflict between himself and the commercial theatre. The theatrical moguls are impressed by proven success formula and Wilson is not. This rather frightens the men who think in box-office terms.

They are likely to be confirmed in their fear by Wilson's latest show, “Valmouth." which has opened in London —and had its run extended.

The show is written around the novel of Edwardian Ronald Firbank, a curious fantasy about decadent goings-on at an imaginary spa. In it a cardinal in full regalia sings a song extolling his cathedral as “the ritziest of ’hem all." a nun dances a jig and there is much comic dialogue by affected women aboui prayers and religious conversion.

Wilson concedes that it makes kindly fun of the trappings of religion but never, never pokes fun at religion itself.

Nevertheless, one large recording concern has refused to put the show on a long player because, they have told Wilson, jt is sacrilegious and offensive. Needless to say. this has sot the “I-told-you-so" brigade to nudging one another and saying “He's no second Novello." And that is why Alexander Galbraith Wilson is. in time, likely to be at least as successful in his field as Novello or Coward