At the May meeting the members were taken on a musical ride with John Balls and his Ghetto Blaster.
The musicals introduced were from 1943 to 1960 with most musicals eventually getting made into films.
Rogers and Hart were at the forefront of these musicals. Hart died in 1942. Rogers then joined forces with Hammerstein.
Most Musicals started off on Broadway before coming to London.
Their first was OKLAHOMA followed in 1945 with CAROUSEL and from that we listened to ‘You’ll never walk alone’ very much used by Liverpool F.C. It was made into a film in 1956. In 1946 Irvin Berlin had a huge hit with ‘ANNIE GET YOUR GUN’ [based on the Annie Oakley story and we listened to Ethel Merman singing ‘Anything you can do I can do better’
At the same time 1940 to 1948 was of course the famous Cole Porter era with ‘KISS ME KATE’ that became a film in 1953. His best song was ‘Brush up your Shakespeare’ based on the Taming of the Shrew. ‘SOUTH PACIFIC’ ran for 5years on Broadway becoming a film in 1958 and in 1950 we had ‘GUYS AND DOLLS’.
1951 was a Rogers and Hammerstein musical ‘THE KING AND I’ about the king of Siam. and with the film in 1956 we had Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr with ‘Getting to know you’.
The first two British musicals came in 1954 ‘THE BOYFRIEND’ followed by ‘SALAD DAYS’ . MY FAIR LADY’ became a huge success in 1957 in New York and made into a film in 1964 We had got to the Julie Andrews era with ‘MARY POPPINS ‘. 1957 we had ‘WEST SIDE STORY and ‘THE SOUND OF MUSIC’ which in 1959 was made into that unforgettable film. We finished the evening with a rousing rendition of ‘The Hills are Alive’
A very interesting evening bringing memories alive.
We meet on the third Thursday of each month in the Village Hall at 7.30pm we have ‘History of Norfolk on a stick’ at our July meeting there is no meeting in August
Our published books ‘Old Catton in the 20th Century and ‘Historic Houses are on special offer of £5 for both instead of the R.R. P. of £13.45 available from
Barry Leggett 01603 429986