Du Barry Was A Lady (2001
Production)
Louise Gold starred as May Daly/Mme Du Barry, for the
second time in a Lost Musicals production of Du Barry Was A Lady, at Her
Majesty’s Theatre, on 18th and 25th November 2001, this
production was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 at 14:00 on 27th December
2001. She had played the part eight years earlier at The Barbican Centre in a Previous Lost Musicals production. This
page is about her later performance.
Louise was not the only player in the show who had
been in the earlier production. James Vaughan had played Charlie/The Dauphin
in the that same earlier production
Cast
Jones/Le
Du De
Reporter - Mark
Siney
Kelly - Chris
Vincent
Harry/Capt.
of the Guard - Gavin Lee
Alice/Alisande
De Vernay - Lauren Ward
Man In
Toilet/Florian/Zamore - Jeremy David
Louis
Blore/King of France - Desmond Barrit
Vi
Hennessy/La Duchess - Gabriella Santinelli
May
Daly/Mme. Du Barry - Louise Gold
Alex Barton
- Mark McKerracher
Charley/ The
Dauphin - James Vaughan
Nurse To
King - Shula Keyte
Gatekeeper -
Stephen Llyod-Morgan
Doctor - Mark
Siney
Mme La
Duchesse Du Coeur Flottantes - Jenna Sokolowski
Come On In -
Dancer - Hannah Berry
Come On In - Dancer - Tanya Robb
Production Team
Music/Lyrics
- Cole Porter
Book - Herbert
Fields and Buddy G De Sylva
Original
Production – 6 December 1939,
Orchestra -
BBC Concert Orchestra
Musical
Director - Mark Warman
Director -
Ian Marshall-Fisher
For a full account/review please click here.
As with the previous year’s production of One Touch Of Venus, Louise Gold
used her holiday time from Mamma Mia to do the Lost
Musicals. Which is presumably also why she was not with the Mamma Mia
cast when they appeared on Children In Need.
By complete coincidence, some 60 years earlier, the
original
But In The Morning No suffered some problems
when it was first written, due to its rather (for the time) dirty lyrics, for
many yeas it could not be sung on air, and The Lord Chamberlain was
particularly concerned with this song when the show originally played London.
This may explain why there are so many variations of this song. For this
production lyrics used were, according to The Complete Lyrics Of Cole
Porter: the opening verse, and refrains 3, 7 and 8, namely the ones
that begin “Are you fond of swimming, dear?”, “Are you good at figures, dear?”, and,
“Are you in the market, dear?”.
Friendship is also a song that has
undergone several variations. For this production all the lyrics given in The
Complete Lyrics Of Cole Porter were used, including the often unused
Refrain 2 (the one that begins “If you ever loose your way, come to May”). In
this production they sang the original opening line to Refrain 6 “If they
hang you, pard, send a card” rather than its more often used replacement “If
you ever crack your spine trussle mine”. For more details on this see Anything Goes
(Stage).
It
has been said that King Louis XIV of France (The Dauphan) may have been
left-handed. If that is the case, then it is perhaps particularly apt that in
this production he was played by James Vaughan, who is left-handed.
Louise Gold is one of the few
actresses to have played all five Ethel Merman roles in the quintet of
musicals that Cole Porter wrote for Ethel Merman, having appeared
in a revival of Anything Goes, and in Lost
Musicals earlier concert staging of Du Barry Was A Lady at The Barbican,
as well as their Barbican productions of: Red
Hot & Blue, Something For The Boys,
Panama Hattie.
Louise Gold and James Vaughan
are long standing Lost Musicals performers, having previously
appeared in: One Touch Of Venus (1992
Production), Du Barry Was A Lady
(1993 Production), Of Thee I Sing (where
their performances were a complete contrast to those in this show), Panama Hattie, and were perhaps best teamed in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. They have
also appeared in the film Crush. James Vaughan also helped out on the film Muppet Treasure Island on which Louise Gold puppeteered.
Louise Gold, James Vaughan, Stewart Permutt and Jeremy
David all previously appeared in Panama Hattie.
Stewart Permutt had also previously
appeared with Louise Gold in: Something
For The Boys and Oh Kay .
Jeremy David had also previously
appeared with Louise Gold in: New Girl In
Town.
Mark McKerracher had previously appeared
with Louise Gold in 110 In The Shade.
The BBC Concert Orchestra had previously played for
Sondheim At The Barbican
The BBC Concert Orchestra had previously played for
Let ‘Em Eat Cake which was also broadcast on BBC
Radio 3.
Louise Gold has appeared in quite a
number of Cole Porter musicals, besides the Ethel Merman quintet
of shows, she has also appeared in Kiss Me Kate
and Noel/Cole: Let’s Do It. However, she
has made all too few recordings, the only albums of her singing Cole Porter
are Noel/Cole: Let’s Do It
(Recording), and the JAY/TER’s studio cast album of Anything
Goes (recording) - Website Recommended Album.
Louise Gold
and Desmond Barrit went on to appear at Chichester in Final Chic Cabaret 2003 , together in Curtain Up and to co-host Chichester’s Christmas
Concerts 2003.
Gavin Lee, Louise Gold, and, Tanya Robb have gone on to appear together in Mary
Poppins.
In
the show one of Mme Du Barry’s lines is “I don’t care what they say about
me, so long as they spell my name right.” On the 29 November 2001, The
Camden New Journal did a feature about Ian Marshall-Fisher’s Lost
Musicals, focusing on his recent productions of Let’s Face It
and Du Barry Was A Lady. The feature was illustrated by a
photograph with the caption sic “Louse Gold and Desmond Barrit in Cole
Porter’s Duberry was a Lady”.
Critics Comments
“...Du
Barry Was A Lady, a 1939 rarity in which Bert Lahr and Ethel Merman raised the roof
with their great song Friendship. Desmond Barrit and Louise Gold do much the
same, though hampered by scripts and polite evening dress..... Miss Gold has
two feisty comic numbers.”
“Louise Gold and Desmond Barrit are on
glorious form in the main roles, and Lauren Ward and Gavin Lee, among others,
lend sparkling support.” John Gross, THE TELEGRAPH, 27 November 2001
“In the Ethel Merman part in this concert
performance, Louise Gold nods to her predecessor without bowing to her. With a
big, warm voice and a majestically playful manner, Gold -- you'd call her
Junoesque except Juno never had any fun -- is more womanly than Merman but,
like her, puts the hot numbers across by being joyous and powerful rather than
sexy. One would call it a triumph of confidence if one spoke of a confident tank”.
Rhoda Koenig, The INDEPENDENT, 22 November 2001
“If 90
per cent of the job of a director is sometimes said to be done in the casting,
then Marshall-Fisher is 100 per cent successful. In her tenth Lost Musical
appearance, Louise Gold once again takes on a role originally played by Ethel
Merman and, as her predecessor did, completely owns the stage. Combining sass,
attack and lyrical grace, she has become one of our most formidable leading
ladies.” Mark Shenton, THE STAGE, 22 November 2001.
“ Louise Gold, once more cast in a Merman
role, does splendidly by ‘Katie Went To
Links about Du Barry
Was A Lady
The Lost Musicals Charitable TrustTM: http://www.lostmusicals.org/ -. The site includes photographs from
a number of past productions, including one of Desmond Barritt and Louise Gold
in DuBarry Was A Lady (2001 Production).
TheatreChannel.com page about the show,
includes a photograph of the principals: http://www.theatrechannel.com/DuBarry.htm
Review from The Independent, by Rhoda Koenig: http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/theatre/theatre/reviews/story.jsp?story=106068 or: http://arts.independent.co.uk/theatre/reviews/article145183.ece
Mini-Review from The Telegraph, by John Gross: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/global/01/11/27/theatre.html
Page about the original stage production of Du
Barry Was A Lady, from The Cole Porter Reference Guide: http://www.geocities.com/porterguide/dubarry.html
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