Where’s Charley?
1948
Song List
Unused Songs
Saunter Away
The Train That Brought You ToTown
Your Own College Band
“A lively score in a number of entertaining styles – Gilbert and Sullivan pastiche for the beginning, a marching song complete with umph-umph out of a French horn, a comic chorale for some female gossips, and standard romances in a pleasantly sentimental vein. Mr. Loesser combines song-writing with composing, which is a most acceptable notion.”
-Brooks Atkinson, Times
“A sublimely satisfactory evening. With its taste, its beauty, and its vigor it is the sort of show you fall in love with, and go back to see over and over again.”
-William Hawkins, World-Telegram
History
Opened at the St. James Theatre in New York on October 11, 1948 and ran for 792 performances. It was filmed by Warner Brothers in 1952 with Ray Bolger, Allyn Ann McLerie and Horace Cooper repeating their original roles. The Original London Cast recording, starring Norman Wisdom, is the only full recording of the score to date.
Short Synopsis
Life would be simple for Oxford undergraduates Jack and Charley if only they could be alone with their girlfriends, Kitty and Amy. Unfortunately, the English propriety of 1892 as embodied by Amy’s stuffy uncle, Lord Spettigue, prevents such an encounter. The lads had planned to enlist the aid of a chaperone – none other than Charley’s Aunt. But she is nowhere to be found, so, necessity being the mother invention, Charley dons the costume of an elderly matron and plays his own aunt. The confusion reaches its peak when Lord Spettigue and Jack’s father start pursuing the bogus-aunt, and Charley’s real aunt makes an untimely appearance. The musical is based on the classic play Charley’s Aunt, this elegant musical farce pits the ingenious boys against the forces of greed and hypocrisy – and greed and hypocrisy don’t stand a chance.
