Toffs!

 

 "Burlington Bertie From Bow"...

an old parody of an older music hall classic,

"Burlington Bertie",

written by Harry B. Norris back in 1900 

and popularized by Vesta Tilley, who

(like Julie Andrews, in her Star! version above and below)

 dressed as a man in top hat and tails.

The parody came along in 1915,

by William Hargreaves who wrote it for 

his wife, Ella Shields, to perform.

 

 This is Ella, above, who performed the parody

for the rest of her life (always in male drag).

In this version, Bertie is no longer an "aristocratic wastrel",

just a penniless, likable guy, with a shabby tux.

No "toff", he!

 "I've just had a banana, with Lady Diana..."

 Yup, Mary Martin'll be "Waitin' For The Evening Train"

from Jennie

(above and below with co-star George Wallace).

with music by Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz, 1963.

Oodles of problems on the road...

and things didn't get much better once it landed on Broadway.

The Walter Kerr review in the NYTimes:

  "a woeful tale of some woeful people told in a woeful way."

There ya woe.

 

 A 21 year old Angela Lansbury

in Til The Clouds Roll By,

a music-packed, Hollywood-ized (Hollanderized?)

version of the life of Jerome Kern.

Jerome wrote "How'd You Like To Spoon With Me?" 

for The Earl And The Girl,

back in 1905, with Edward Laska.

 Nope. Not Broadway. Not at all.

But pretty damn wonderful...Jo Stafford,

 "Ridin' The Gravy Train".

Interesting side note:

Jo worked behind the scenes on the movie 

A Damsel In Distress,

doing arrangements and back up vocals (with her sisters)

on "Nice Work If You Can Get It."

The arrangement had to be simplified, supposedly,

Fred had difficulty with the syncopation

(hard to believe, right?).

But in Jo's words,

 "The man with the syncopated shoes couldn't do the syncopated notes".

 Below a great pic of Jo with Ann Sheridan,

Brown Derby-ing.

 The best "ship" in the fleet,

"Friendship",

as sung by Joel Grey and Sutton Foster

in AND out of costume

for Anything Goes, the revival done in 2011.

Cole Porter wrote that song originally for
DuBarry Was A Lady (1939)

in which it was sung by Bert Lahr and Ethel Merman (below).

Would love to have witnessed that "ship!"

 In 2009,

Rupert Everett, Angela Lansbury and Christine Ebersole

performed in a revival of Noel Coward's

Blythe Spirit,

and tho the Times called the production "bumpy",

I say a hearty PSHAW to that!

Christine was inspired to record several Coward songs,

for use as incidental music between acts,

and that resulted in an album

of those marvelous songs.

We'll hear "When My Ship Comes Home."