Scene from the 1941 JCW revival of Kissing Time, with Don Nicol (centre) as Bibi St. Pol. Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne.
The Bolton/Wodehouse/Caryll musical comedy The Girl Behind the Gun/Kissing Time does not seem to have achieved a professional revival in either the USA or the UK. In Australia, however, it was a different matter!
1924 Revival
Perhaps on account of the musical only being performed in Melbourne, Sydney, and Adelaide during the initial 1920 season, JCW decided to dig out the old scenery and along with A Cabaret Girl and A Night Out, add it the repertoire of the New English Comedy Company’s 1923 tour of New Zealand. With Madge Elliott and Alfred Frith as the leads, the line-up also included Cyril Ritchard, Cecil Kellaway, Field Fisher, Marie Eaton, Nellie Payne, Floie Allan and Fred Mackay. For this current revival, the show was directed by Harry B. Burcher. Ballets and dances were arranged and invented by Minnie Everett. The Musical Director was Victor Champion.
Kissing Time was performed in New Zealand for the first time at the Grand Opera House in Wellington on 9 November 1923, with short seasons in Christchurch, Dunedin, Hastings and Wanganui, Napier and Auckland to follow.
Cyril Ritchard, 1924. This photo is inscribed: ‘To my Godmother with every possible good wish.’ A reference to his character in Kissing Time perhaps?
Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne
Program cover for Kissing Time, Theatre Royal, Melbourne, 24 May 1924
National Library of Australia, Canberra
On Saturday, 26 January 1924, JCW’s New English Comedy Company, having returned to Australia, opened at the Theatre Royal, Sydney with a two-week revival of Kissing Time. When the musical closed on 7 February, the company headed to Newcastle, where they played a short season at the Victoria Theatre that also included A Night Out and Going Up.
Except for Nellie Payne (who had played Zelie in the original 1920 production), the 1924 revival presented an entirely new line-up:
“KISSING TIME.”
A POPULAR REVIVAL.
Mingled with the crowd of young ladies, dressed in those latest Paris modes essential to any self-respecting musical comedy, there appeared on the stage of the Theatre Royal on Saturday night uniformed members of the French and British armies, lady chauffeurs in brown leather coats, picturesque Red Cross nurses, and other types created by the war. The action is set during the period of demobilisation. As one of the characters says, we are finished with wartime—this is “Kissing Time.”
The revival of “Kissing Time” drew a crowded house. There is much in it to please—bright music, bearing something of the Gilbert and Sullivan touch in the first act, abundant humour of a clean and spontaneous character, and a cast wholly capable. The plot is an involved one, lending, in the final scene, to three persons vigorously laying claim to the same name.
As usual, Mr. Alfred Frith directed the storm of laughter. His first entrance was preceded by a series of mighty explosions off stage, suggesting that something had interfered with the armistice. From a breezy introduction he progressed through a variety of situations, keeping up the laughter with clever burlesque, aided by his extraordinarily plastic countenance. First he attempted to explain away an inconvenient letter which his wife (played by Miss Nellie Payne) had discovered among his mail. Failing in this endeavour, he was forced to watch Georgotte revenge herself by indulging in a flirtation with her supposed godson, Brichoux, in the person of Mr. Cyril Ritchard. After his departure the two begin to rehearse a play that the godson has written, and are in the midst of an embrace when Georgette’s guardian, Colonel Bollinger, arrives from Algeria. He has never seen Georgette’s husband, and jumps to the obvious conclusion. To save the situation they allow the colonel to think they are husband and wife. The situation is further complicated by an amazing manner, creating situations which are highly amusing.
As the rather plump colonel, resolute in keeping up the standard of the army, and with a decided weakness for the ladies, Mr. Cecil Kellaway was uniformly delightful. Moving innocently among the wheels within wheels, he was forever putting in his place the eclipsed head of the house, and finally ordered him downstairs to cook the dinner. Miss Madge Elliott, as Lucienne Touquet, whose conversation with the colonel largely consisted of the phrase, “You may,” in response to his request that he might kiss her hand, was largely in eclipse during the first act, though in her song, “Some Day Waiting Will End,” she scored a notable success. She sang with a clear, sweet voice, and was decisively encored. In the second act her duet, “Joan and Peter,” with Mr. Cyril Ritchard was punctuated with clever dancing, and this also proved popular. Attired in a silvery dress and cloak, ablaze with diamonds, she monopolised the second scene of the act, save for a passage across the stage of Mr. Frith. Her song at this point was “Thousands of Years Ago.” Another success was “There’s a Light in Your Eyes,” a second duet with Mr. Ritchard.
The weight of the singing in the first act rested on Miss Nellie Payne, who made a vivacious and attractive Georgette. “Godmothers,” with the chorus, and “Ma Cherie,” were her principal numbers. Others who stood out among the cast were Mr. Edwin Brett as the real Brichoux, Miss Floie Allan as a neat French maid, Miss Marie Eaton as Lady Mercia Merivale, and Misses Reita Nugent and Dorothy Seaward, and Mr. Jack Hooker in eccentric dances.
[Sydney Morning Herald, 28 January 1924, p.5]
In March 1924 the New English Musical Comedy Company was in Melbourne for the first Melbourne production of The Cabaret Girl. Kissing Time followed on 24 May and played until 13 June. Apart from Mabel Munro, who had replaced Marie Eaton as Lady Mercia Merivale, the cast remained the same as in Sydney the previous January. Whirled into Happiness played for the final week of the season after which time the company lost two of its key attractions: Cyril Ritchard and Madge Elliott who were off to try their luck in London. (See Thus Far: The story of my life, Part 3)
The Songs
With this revival there were some alterations to the songs. ‘Desertions’, ‘Sweet Hawaiian Moonlight’ and ‘Tell Me Why’ were gone. Cyril Ritchard as Max was given a new comic song ‘I’m Tickled to Death, I’m Single’ with lyrics by Clifford Seyler and music by Melville Gideon (originally written for the revue The Co-Optimists (1925) at His Majesty’s Theatre in London and sung by Melville Gideon).
The musical program was as follows:
Act 1
Opening Chorus (Fred Mackay & Chorus Ladies)
‘Godmothers’ (Nellie Payne & Chorus)
‘Motors’ (Alfred Frith & Chorus)
‘A Happy Family’ (Nellie Payne, Alfred Frith & Cyril Ritchard)
‘Some Day Waiting Will End’ (Madge Elliott)
‘I’m Tickled to Death, I’m Single’ (Cyril Ritchard)
‘I Like It’ (Nellie Payne, Alfred Frith, Cyril Ritchard & Cecil Kellaway)
‘Don’t Fall in Love with Me’ (Madge Elliott & Alfred Frith)
Finale
Act 2, Scene 1
‘Cookery’ (Alfred Frith & Chorus Ladies)
‘How Warm It is To-day’ (Nellie Payne, Alfred Frith, Cyril Ritchard & Cecil Kellaway)
‘Women Haven’t Any Mercy on a Man’ (Alfred Frith)
‘Joan and Peter’ (Madge Elliott & Cyril Ritchard)
Finale
Act 2, Scene 2
Dance— ‘Raffles’ (The Gentleman Thief) (Jack Hooker & Reita Nugent)
‘Thousands of Years Ago’ (Madge Elliott & Chorus Gentlemen)
Act 2, Scene 3
Dance— Eccentric (Jack Hooker & Dorothy Seaward)
‘Ma Cherie!’ (Nellie Payne & Chorus)
‘There’s a Light in Your Eyes’ (Madge Elliott & Cyril Ritchard)
Finale (Entire Company)
Margery Hicklin in Kissing Time, from JCW program, 1927
National Library of Australia, Canberra
Cover of JCW program for Kissing Time, Melbourne, 1927
National Library of Australia, Canberra
1927 Revival
In February 1927 a short Melbourne-only season of Kissing Time was presented by JCW’s New Comedy Company. A totally new cast was assembled with the exception of Floie Allan, who had played Zelie in 1924, now being entrusted with the more senior role of Georgette St. Pol. The revival also served to introduce Leo Franklyn, a new English comedian, to Australian audiences. He had been engaged to replace George Gee who was returning to London. When he arrived in Australia, he was under the impression that his first role would be in Rose Marie—but when Kissing Time was announced for revival he had only a week to rehearse. Fortunately for him, he had played the role on tour in the UK during 1923. Franklyn would remain in Australia for a decade. Later in the 1950s and 1960s he was a prominant member of Brian Rix’s farce company at the Whitehall Theatre in London.
Kissing Time ran for a week at the Theatre Royal, from 12–19 February. As per the 1924 revival, the musical was produced under the direction of Harry B. Burcher. The original 1920 scenery by W.R. Coleman, George Upward, and W. Coleman Jr. was used. The costumes were by J.C. Williamson Modes and Buckley & Nunn Ltd. Ballets and dances were arranged and invented by Minnie Everett. Victor Champion was the Musical Director.
AMUSEMENTS.
HIS MAJESTY’S THEATRE— KISSING TIME.
With the revival of Kissing Time at His Majesty’s Theatre on Saturday by J.C. Williamson’s New English Musical Comedy Company, Melbourne is the richer theatrically by the addition of a tuneful, merry and altogether attractive show. The enthusiasm of the big audience might have denoted the first night of a new piece—for although Kissing Time is an old favorite with Australian audiences, the clever company give the familiar numbers a new interest and freshness, and the production ripples along without a dull moment.
Kissing Time echoes the days of 1914–18— it has a war setting, and its hilarious plot dances along hand in hand with pretty ambulance drivers, beautiful Red Cross nurses and soldier boys on leave.
Its ingenious plot is from the French of Hennequin and Weber, and the book is by Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse, so one does not wonder at the continuous rapid fire of laughter from an audience bombarded with witticisms.
Apart from its own merit, the piece served to introduce to Australian audiences a new comedian from London—Leo Franklyn as Bibi St. Pol, and it is safe to predict a long stay in this country for the newcomer, for on Saturday night he proved conclusively that he has the knack of making his audience laugh. His is a delightful brand of comedy that subtle, rib-tickling kind that has you roaring over the next joke before you have stopped chuckling at the previous one.
Floie Allan invests Georgette St. Pol with a sparkling keenness and sureness of touch. Margery Hicklin is the other lady in the matrimonial mix-up, which is the basis of the plot, and her pretty voice was heard to advantage in the more serious numbers. Mona Barlee makes her Zelie an attractive Miss. Leyland Hodgson emerges triumphantly from behind the fearsome whiskers and gay deceiving of Max Touquet, and Hugh Steyne as Colonel Bollinger gets a chance to show that he can play a dashing old soldier with admirable dash.
Kissing Time in its present revival is dressed charmingly, produced with due regard to its eye-pleasing ensembles and its ear-pleasing ditties, and played so well that Melbourne will be sorry that it is to have but a seven nights’ season. There will be matinees on Wednesday and Saturday.
[The Age (Melbourne), 14 February 1927, p.12]
The Songs
With this revival, the play-list replicated the 1924 revival, however Cyril Ritchard’s song ‘I’m Tickled to Death, I’m Single’ was not included.
Act 1
Opening Chorus (Cecil Scott & Chorus Ladies)
‘Godmothers’ (Floie Allan & Chorus)
‘Motors’ (Leo Franklyn & Chorus)
‘A Happy Family’ (Floie Allan, Leo Franklyn & Leyland Hodgson)
‘Some Day Waiting Will End’ (Margery Hicklin & Chorus)
‘I Like It’ (Floie Allan, Leo Franklyn, Leyland Hodgson & Hugh Steyne)
‘Don’t Fall in Love with Me’ (Margery Hicklin & Leo Franklyn)
Finale
Act 2, Scene 1
‘Cookery’ (Leo Franklyn & Chorus Ladies)
‘How Warm It is To-day’ (Floie Allan, Leo Franklyn, Leyland Hodgson & Hugh Steyne)
‘Women Haven’t Any Mercy on a Man’ (Leo Franklyn)
‘Joan and Peter’ (Margery Hicklin & Leyland Hodgson)
Finale
Act 2, Scene 2
Dance (Robert Lascelles)
‘Thousands of Years Ago’ (Margery Hicklin & Chorus Gentlemen)
Act 2, Scene 3
Dance (Thurza Rogers & Robert Lascelles)
‘Ma Cherie!’ (Floie Allan & Chorus)
‘There’s a Light in Your Eyes’ (Margery Hicklin & Leyland Hodgson)
Finale (The Company)
Kissing Time received a subsequent outing during 1927 when JCW sent their Comic Opera Company on a tour of Queensland and Tasmania, commencing in Rockhampton (Queensland) in June and concluding in Devonport (Tasmania) in October. In addition to Kissing Time, their repertoire included Katja, A Cousin from Nowhere and Rose Marie.
Of the original Melbourne Kissing Time cast, Leo Franklyn, who played Bibi, was the only player to transfer to this new company. Other roles were taken by Raymond Carey (Captain Wentworth), Beryl Hayden (Georgette), Connie Funston (Lady Mercia), Nellie Dennes (Zelie), Don Nicol (Brichoux), Roland Roberts (Max), Adele Crane (Lucienne) and Victor Gouriet (Colonel Bollinger).
Don Nicol, who would go on to enjoy a highly successful career as a comedian, was still at the outset of his career. He had joined one of JCW's touring companies the previous year and was yet to show Melbourne and Sydney audiences what he was capable of. Also a talented cartoonist, he once quipped: ‘I merely went from drawing “funnies” on paper to creating them on the stage.’
(left) From The Mail (Adelaide), 29 August 1931, p.22; (right) Lilian Crisp. From 1931 program, National Library of Australia, Canberra.
1931 Tour
In April 1931 JCW’s Musical Comedy Company embarked on a tour that would take them from Hobart to Adelaide to North Queensland as far as Cairns, to Brisbane, back to Adelaide, and then on to Perth. They took with them a reperoire of seven shows including The New Moon (first time outside of Melbourne and Sydney), The Belle of New York, A Country Girl, A Cousin from Nowhere, The Maid of the Mountains, Katinka and Kissing Time. During the seven month tour, Kissing Time was performed in Adelaide and Brisbane (first time), but due to the brevity of the Hobart and Perth seasons was not performed in those cities.
The company opened in Hobart on 4 April 1931 and played their final night in Perth on 4 November.
The cast of Kissing Time comprised:
With this tour, soprano Lilian Crisp, best known for her performances in G&S, was making a welcome return to her home town of Perth. The season was also significant for her as it was being announced as her final stage appearances prior to her marriage to Lambert Ogborne, a secretary to an engineering firm. [They were married on 17 October 1932 at Kent Town, SA.] Lilian Crisp had been ‘discovered’ by Sir George Tallis who had engaged her for the 1927 G&S tour of Australia and New Zealand. Thereafter she had scored a success opposite James Liddy when she succeeded Beppie de Vries as Kathie in The Student Prince (1929).
The cast also included a huge bonus in the addition of comedian Don Nicol. Reviews of his performance were glowing. Another interesting performer is George Willoughby. He had been a regular on the Australian stage since 1900, playing in everything from comic opera to melodrama, as well as running his own companies. During the 1930s and 40s he often appeared on radio.
Some Reviews
ENTERTAINMENTS.
“KISSING TIME.”
Founded on a French play, the work of its transformation at the hands of Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse, with music by Ivan Caryll, “Kissing Time” has nightly been crowding His Majesty’s Theatre with ripples of laughter and fascination at the lilting airs with which the comedy is bestrewn. The dialogue throughout is apt and smart, and the humourous portions (which predominate) have a distinctly Wodehousian flavour, so much so that one would scarcely have been surprised had “Archie,” “Bertie,” or “Jeeves” stepped into the picture. Miss Lilian Crisp, as before, bore the principal role and her vocalisation evoked much appreciation, especially in the tuneful numbers “When the Lilac Blooms Again,” and “Ma Cherie.” Miss Miriam Lester revealed herself as the possessor of a rich soprano voice of rare quality and range. She, in addition, showed herself a capable actress. Her solos and duets were works of art and earned warm applause. The chief comedy part, that of “Bibi St. Pol,” was in the hands of Mr. Don Nicol who proved excruciatingly funny over his various escapades and subterfuges, and the audiences laughed till they could laugh no more. Other members of the cast of this mirth-producer were George Willoughby, Charles Zoli, Jack Dunne, Vera Spaull, and Eileen Pollard, with the specialty dancers, Bobby Helpman* and Leah Miller.
The play was elaborately and tastefully, mounted and the ballets introduced were alluring. The next change will be to “The Maid of the Mountains,” the record-breaking comic opera, and it will be staged for six nights.
[Queensland Figaro (Brisbane), 22 August 1931, p.9]
*[Who would go on to gain international fame as the classical ballet dancer, actor, director and choreographer, Sir Robert Helpmann.]
NEW SHOWS
“KISSING TIME”
REVIVED
Musical Comedy at Royal
“Kissing Time” returned smart and smiling to the Royal on Saturday, and satisfied a big house, which was so pleased at being able to anticipate the music just one bar ahead of the orchestra. That’s somethine a revival has over a new show, which makes everyone feel chummy about it all. Anyway, “Kissing Time” is a chummy kind of a comedy, what with godsons and husbands and wives being mixed up in a most perplexing way. And there are tears of joy to be shed over the situations that arise as complications keep on piling up. There is no conundrum for the audience which knows everything—that is almost everything—and can sit back and be tickled to hysterics as the players become inextricably enmeshed in a tanglefoot, of loving godsons, defaulting husbands, and wayward wives.
Be it remembered that Georgette St. Pol kept a kind of rest home for a war-weary soldier or two; installed a bouquet of beauiiful belles, and the happy family became godmothers to wartime godsons. Now Georgette had a husband. Bi-Bi, but Colonel Bollinger, her guardian, must be excused for having mistaken Godson Bricheux, (who really wasn’t Bricheux at all, he having slyly exchanged places with another) for Georgette’s husband when he caught the pair unawares. Then did everyone, including the colonel, begin poaching on a grand scale.
Dainty Lilian Crisp
Lilian Crisp, as Georgette, was as dainty as her name. A vicacious and flirtatious wife, she sang her way blithely through such numbers as “Godmothers,” “A Happy Family” (a joyful satire), “How Warm it is To-day” (when the Colonel, embarrassing fellow, has spoken of little branches for the family tree), and “Ma Cherie.”
Miriam Lester scored heavily as the slightly wayward Lucienne Toquet, a friend of Georgette and wife of Georgette’s substitute godson. Among her numbers, “Some Day Waiting Will End,” and “Joan and Peter” (a duet with John Dunne) were as popular as any others in the score.
Don Nicol had a big night’s work as Georgette’s despised husband and as the second, or was it the third, Bricheux the cook, and a more worried husband and a funnier cook you could not imagine. Nicol was seldom off the stage, and even when he supported Miss Crisp in an after-the-show “Thank-you,” he still drew laughs. It takes a very refreshing fellow to keep a crowd laughing so long, and Nicol never missed.
John Dunne, as Max Toquet, Georgette’s substitute godson, began a fine performance with a monologue, “Desertions,” a crisply told tale of his conquests and overthrows, and his singing later confirmed his popularity. Then there were George Willougby, the hearty old Colonel, and Charles Zoli, as Bricheux, and his partner-in-fun. Vera Spaull, as Zelie. the maid, all adding a bit more to the merriment.
There were two spectacular specialty dances— “Apache,” by Bobby Helpman and Leah Miller, and “Danse Russe Trepak,” by Bobby Helpman — delightful items in a show which demanded very little from a ballet.
[Advertiser and Register (Adelaide), 14 September 1931, p.13]
Joy Youlden, Eric Bush and Don Nicol in Kissing Time, 1941
Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne
Don Nicol and the ladies of the chorus and ballet in Kissing Time, 1941
Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne
1941 Revival
When Kissing Time was revived in Sydney in 1941 it was curiously described as the ‘up-to-the minute’ musical comedy, ‘light-hearted and gay’. But it seems, though still retaining its post WWI setting, the story had been ‘freshened up’ with topical humour and the pace accelerated. It was one of three shows that had been given the same treatment, the other two being Rio Rita and Sally. The reason for ‘dragging an old lady out of the box’ (as producer Alan Chapman described it), was due to wartime restrictions limiting the importation of American shows brought about by the dollar exchange crisis.
Kissing Time opened at the Theatre Royal on 27 September 1941. Presented by J.C. Williamson Ltd., it was under the direction of Alan Chapman. New scenery was by Stephen Hodgkinson, and costumes were by Henry, JCW Modes. Miss Bremner and Miss Youlden’s costumes were by Reynards. The musical director was Fred Quintrell, and ballets were supervised by Hazel Meldrum (who had appeared as a dancer in the original 1920 JCW production).
On opening night in Sydney, Gladys Moncrieff watched the show from a box, surrounded by masses of flowers. Twenty-one years earlier, she had created the role of Georgette St. Pol in Australia, now played by Joy Youlden, a Melbourne performer, who was making her first appearance in Sydney.
Except for comedian Don Nicol (who had featured in the 1927 and 1931 tours), there was an entirely new line-up for the 1941 revival:
Ten years on, Don Nicol was the undoubted star of the show. The 1930s had seem him in Sally (1930), Blue Mountain Melody (1934), Balalaika (1937) and Rose Marie (1938), while later in the 1940s he would score success with Let’s Face It (1943) and Follow the Girls (1946). Alas for this king of jesters, his days on the stage were numbered. He died in 1949, aged just 44.
Revival of Kissing Time
Kissing Time, third in the series of J.C.W. musical comedy revivals, was well received at the Theatre Royal on Saturday night.
The show is the best of the revival series so far. It has three good songs and a comedian, Don Nicol.
The plot is a healthy and guileless playbox of mistaken Identity and matrimonial tangles in France during the last war, but is no more simple than the framework of most musicals. It carries a semblance of topicality in its war setting.
Don Nlcol’s comedy has local political allusions, and his easy personality finds a perfect background in the sophisticated charm of the Melbourne soubrette, Joy Youlden.
Marie Bremner plays and sings a colorless role colorlessly. Sydney Wheeler, Eric Bush, and Marie Ryan are good. The brief appearance of baritone John Fraser on Saturday night was applauded.
The chorus sings with precision, but the ballet is ill-arranged, ill-assorted, and badly dressed. Stage settings are colorful and attractive.
[Daily Telegraph, 29 September 1941, p.6]
Musical Show at Royal
Revival of “Kissing Time”
Touched up with modern lighting, which included the blackouts of revue, and the interpolation of new song; and dance numbers, “Kissing Time,” 21 years old, did not look its age on Saturday night, when it started a four weeks’ season at the Theatre Royal.
Apart from the rejuvenation treatment, other things prevent, the show from being too obviously dated. Many of the audience did not know the delightful airs and the plot is pre-Cinderella. As last war comedy, mildly sophisticated, the piece is concerned not with how the poor girl marries the rich man, but with the tangled lives of two married couples and the complications caused by French soldiers on leave. As a background to a large cast of principals, the chorus and ballet are supplied with old-time lavishness.
Judging by the applause, which was generous throughout, the efforts of the dancers earned the warmest approval, especially their tap-dancing and pirouetting. Buttercup costumes worn in some of the numbers were most effective under the cleverly manipulated lights. Earle and Fontaine, specialty dancers, put pep into the presentation with their “Danse Apache” and “Dance d’Allure.”
Among the principals, Marie Bremner gives the consistently good performance always expected from her; Joy Youlden, of Melbourne, making her first appearance in Sydney, has vivacity and a sure stage sense, while Marie Ryan, from Gundagai, plays the French maid, with traditional sophistication.
Don Nicol introduces a number of well-appreciated topical allusions and much new Nicolish comedy, never failing to get a laugh. He is seldom off the stage. A second comedian, Syd Wheeler’s Colonel Bollinger is one of the best of his numerous good characterisations. Eric Bush strikes the right Gallic note in his romantic lead.
Mr. Alan Chapman, the producer, in a curtain address, said: “The old girl ‘Kissing Time,’ had to be dragged out of the box and dressed in these glittering robes because the Government will not allow us to import a new piece at a cost of £230 in dollars on account of the dollar exchange position.
“They say American films are necessary for propaganda,” he added. “But I consider a show is doing good war work if it keeps people laughing and makes them forget their worries.”
“Clark Gable cannot go down the street and buy a pair of shoes in Sydney,” said Syd Wheeler, “but we spend 15 of every pound we earn in this city.”
[Sydney Morning Herald, 29 September 1941, p.3]
(left) Flyer advertising the Melbourne season of Kissing Time, 1941. National Library of Australia, Canberra. (right) Kissing Time caricature by John Frith, The Bulletin, 22 October 1941, p.32
Kissing Time held the stage at the Theatre Royal until 28 October 1941, when the company relocated to His Majesty’s Theatre in Melbourne. With the same cast as in Sydney, the musical was played from 1–26 November. As in Sydney reviews ranged from the ecstatic to the damning, but it seems audiences were willing to give it a go.
Marie Bremner, 1941. Photo by John Lee. From JCW Magazine program for Kissing Time.
National Library of Australia, Canberra
Don Nicol and Joy Youlden in Kissing Time, 1941
Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne
The Songs
The musical program for the 1941 revival followed that of the previous two revivals, but with the addition of two new numbers: ‘Until You Fall in Love’ (lyrics by Jack Poppelwell and music by Michael Carr) and ‘All the Things You Are’ (lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and music by Jerome Kern). The first song had been recorded and made popular by Vera Lynn in late 1940, while the latter song was an interpolation of the most popular and enduring number from Kern and Hammerstein’s Broadway musical Very Warm for May, which had flopped after only 59 performances following its New York opening on 17 November 1939 (and marked the final score composed for Broadway by Jerome Kern, who thereafter confined himself to the more lucrative employment of composing for Hollywood movie musicals).
The musical program was as follows:
Act 1
Opening Chorus (John Fraser & Ladies)
‘Godmothers’ (Joy Youlden, Ladies, Gentlemen & Ballet)
‘Motors’ (Don Nicol, Ladies & Ballet)
‘A Happy Family’ (Joy Youlden, Eric Bush & Don Nicol)
‘Some Day Waiting Will End’ (Marie Bremner, Ladies, Gentlemen & Ballet)
‘I Like It’ (Joy Youlden, Don Nicol, Sydney Wheeler & Eric Bush)
‘Don’t Fall in Love with Me’ (Marie Bremner & Don Nicol)
Finale (Entire Company)
Act 2, Scene 1
‘Cookery’ (Don Nicol & Ladies)
‘How Warm It is To-day’ (Joy Youlden, Don Nicol, Eric Bush & Sydney Wheeler)
‘Until You Fall in Love’ (Marie Bremner & Ladies & Gentlemen)
‘Women Haven’t Any Mercy on a Man’ (Don Nicol)
‘Joan and Peter’ (Marie Bremner & Eric Bush)
‘All the Things You Are’ (John Fraser)
Act 2, Scene 2
‘Dance Apache’ (Earle & Fontaine)
‘Thousands of Years Ago’ (Marie Bremner, Ladies & Gentlemen)
Act 2, Scene 3
‘Dance D’Allure’ (Earle & Fontaine)
‘Ma Cherie!’ (Joy Youlden, Ladies, Gentlemen & Ballet)
‘There’s a Light in Your Eyes’ (Marie Bremner, Eric Bush, Gentlemen & Ballet)
Finale (Entire Company)
Les Thorp Home Movies
From his accustomed position on the first-floor flies gallery on the prompt side of the stage, Les Thorp’s film footage commences with the ballet girls “supplied by The Jennie Brenan School of Ballet” (according to the theatre program) performing in the opening chorus, cutting to a brief glimpse of Joy Youlden (as ‘Georgette St. Pol’) singing ‘Godmothers’ with the accompanying dance routine in which the girls are joined by the male chorus in French army uniforms. Don Nicol (as ‘Bi-Bi St. Pol’) is then glimpsed front stage centre singing ‘Motors’ and then joins in a kick-line with the ballet girls, before executing a spin and exiting on the prompt side. Nicol re-enters soon after and is seen dancing with an evident dummy costumed in a long dress and large floppy picture hat, holding it by the waist and twirling it around. A quick succession of scenes follows with Don Nicol, including Nicol playing what appears to be a cello, while Frank Martin (as ‘Captain Wentworth’) looks on.
Some behind-the-scenes shots follow (at stage level) with individual chorus girls glimpsed, and Sydney Wheeler (as ‘Colonel Bollinger’) cocking a snook and poking his tongue out at the camera-man.
Act II scene 1, set on the Verandah of Georgette St. Pol’s House shows Don Nicol making his entrance in the guise of a Japanese geisha girl. A brief cut to an unidentified singer (Marie Bremner performing‘Until You Fall in Love’?) at the footlights follows and then Nicol is seen in another disguise as a lady in a long plaid coat and brandishing a fox-fur stole (his moustache still evident) conversing with Ron Beck (as ‘Brichoux’).
A very brief scene of someone (Nicol?) juggling three tennis racquets is followed by the ‘Dance Apache’ with the ballet girls shaking maracas, while specialty dancer, Sid Earle (aka Sid Halliday) whirls around the stage banging a tambourine.
Gladys Moncrieff makes an unbilled guest appearance in the show, walks to centre stage acknowledging the audience applause and then sings (most likely a number that was first introduced in the original 1920 production) while the ballet and chorus girls look on.
A brief scene with a tennis party dressed in white and brandishing racquets is followed by a game of musical chairs, with Joy Youlden dressed as a little girl in a frilly white party frock holding her dolly and causing havoc.
The curtain call follows with Gladys Moncrieff at the centre holding a bouquet of flowers wrapped in cellophane singing with the ensemble. Someone (Nicol?) in a milk-maid’s costume with bonnet carrying a pail and a placard reading “LEMONAID 2 CENTS A GLAZ HOM MAID” is briefly seen and is followed by very brief scenes featuring Nicol dressed in top hat and white scarf leading two ladies down to the footlights.
