Robert and Elizabeth is an unashamedly romantic musical with a score that reaches operatic dimensions. It is based on the true story of fellow poets Elizabeth Moulton-Barrett and Robert Browning's mutual admiration of each other's work and their eventual marriage. Elizabeth was 39 and Robert's senior by six years when they met. In her teens she developed tuberculosis and this had weakened her spine. This together with the emotional effect of the death of her elder brother on a boating trip while they were together in Torquay made her bedridden. After their marriage in 1846 they moved to Pisa and later Florence where they stayed until Elizabeth's death in 1861. Their marriage produced a son, Robert Barrett in 1849. After his wife's death Browning moved back to London with his son where he continued to write until his death in 1889.
Robert Browning (March 1860)
Photo by Fratelli D'Alessandri
National Portrait Gallery, London
Robert Wiedemann Barrett Browning & Elizabeth Barrett Browning (June 1860)
Photo by Fratelli D'Alessandri
National Poerait Gallery, London
The musical Robert and Elizabeth is based on the play, The Barretts of Wimpole Street by Rudolph Besier that opened at the Queen's Theatre, London on 23 December 1930 and ran for 529 performances. It was almost as successful in New York where it opened the following year on 9 February at the Empire for a very satisfactory run of 370 performances. The musical version, which opened in London at the Lyric Theatre on 20 October 1964, had a longer run than these two productions combined, playing for 948 performances before eventually closing on 4 February 1967. The original play, somewhat altered, reached the silver screen in an MGM Hollywood film version in 1934 starring Charles Laughton as Edward Moulton-Barrett and Frederic March and Norma Shearer as Robert and Elizabeth respectively. Besier's original play was focused more on the relationship between the tyrannical Victorian father and his daughter than the love affair between her and Browning. Sir Cedric Hardwicke was the original father (his knighthood came four years after playing the part) and the musical Moulton-Barrett, John Clements, also received a knighthood after playing the part. The film version with Charles Laughton as the father also moved its focus slightly more to the lovers than the father. A 1956 film remake starring Sir John Gielgud as the father with Bill Travers and Jennifer Jones as the poets was less successful.
Frederic March, Charles Laughton & Norma Shearer in the 1934 MGM motion picture
IMdB
Cedric Hardwicke as Barrett & Gwen Ffrangçon-Davies as Elizabeth in the 1930 London stage production
Mander & Mitchenson collection
Strangely, the very British Robert and Elizabeth came to the London stage via America. The show's billing shows an intriguing 'from an original idea by' credit to the American composer and lyricist Fred G. Moritt. He had written an adaptation entitled The Third Kiss, which he had not been able to get produced in the States but had managed to get a film company to consider. They wanted to prove its success before they would go ahead and a young theatrical producer, Martin Landau who was riding high on a series of profitable plays, was brought onto the scene. Landau's latest hit was the play The Masters, an adaptation of a C P Snow novel by Ronald Millar, and Landau got Millar to look the project over. What appeared was a vastly different piece and the advent of Wendy Toye as director finally sealed the show into the form into which it was later seen. Ron Grainer as composer was Miss Toye's inspiration, and he started the Australian influence upon the show. Grainer to this point had been known as a television theme tune writer, whose credits included such varied themes as those from Maigret, Steptoe and Son and That Was The Week That Was, as well as for the BBC's long-running sci-fi series Doctor Who. Grainer's commission for Robert and Elizabeth helped to change the direction of his career. It was also Ronald Millar's first musical, his career having started off as an artist in the revue Swinging The Gate at the Ambassadors Theatre back in 1940.
Ron Grainer
Ronald Millar
Wendy Toye
The Australian influence continued with the show's stars. John Clements, who received top billing could not have been more English, but his two co-stars were both from the Antipodes. June Bronhill was appearing for the first time in a musical in London – she had played Maria in The Sound of Music in Australia prior to this – but she was very well known on the opera and operetta stages. Keith Michell, on the other hand, was an old hand at the musical having played the dual roles of Oscar and Nestor in Irma La Douce both on West End and Broadway, and his credits also included playing King Charles II in Vivian Ellis's musical adaptation of And So To Bed in the West End in 1951 (directed by Wendy Toye). Further Australian cast members also included Rod McLennan in the role of brother, Alfred Moulton-Barrett.
John Clements
Keith Michell
Robert and Elizabeth started off on its pre-London tour at the Grand Theatre in Leeds in September 1964 as The Barretts and Mr Browning. By the time it had reached the West End in late October it had been re-christened with its present title suggested by the show's director, Wendy Toye. The success that had greeted the show in Leeds and Manchester was also repeated in London with the aforementioned tally of 948 performances to its credit making it one of the longest running British musicals of its era.
Keith Michell & June Bronhill
There were major cast changes during the show's long run. The first of the stars to leave the production was Keith Mitchell who was replaced by Kevin Colson, another Australian making his British debut. Colson had become a leading man when cast in what had been the Keith Michell role in the Australian premiere of Irma La Douce, he had also stared in Sail Away and Carnival. When John Clements contract ended he was replaced by another noble of the theatre, Sir Donald Wolfit.
The last of the stars to leave the London production was June Bronhill being replaced by Jane Fyffe, whose rise to starring roles on the London stage had been via the world of Gilbert and Sullivan in the famed D'Oyly Carte Company. June Bronhill returned to the part of Elizabeth for the Australian production that starred Denis Quilley as Robert and Frank Thring as Edward Moulton-Barrett. It opened in Melbourne on 21 May 1966 and ran for six months followed by a month in Sydney.
With all the American and Australian influences Robert and Elizabeth remains essentially very English. Ronald Millar's book whilst being wonderfully romantic, also manages to be amusing and evocative of the Victorian period. Ron Grainer's music is melodic and worthy of the voices for which it was written and rises high above most musical scores of the period. It is sad to relate that not withstanding its long run and box office appeal that Robert and Elizabeth was not a financial success. This was due mainly to the size of the house it played making it hard to even break even let alone make a profit with the size of the cast and the orchestra. In every other aspect Robert and Elizabeth was a great hit.
However a provincial tour followed at the close of its West End run starring Kevin Colson and Jane Fyffe in the lead roles with Laurence Hardy taking over the role of Moulton-Barrett. Commencing in Liverpool at the Empire Theatre on 10 February 1967, it also played seasons at the Birmingham Theatre and at the Bristol Hippodrome (where Jane’s brother, Patrick Fyffe took over the role of one of her brothers in the show. Patrick would gain fame in later years as ‘Dame Hilda Bracket’ in the comedy drag act Hinge and Bracket with George Logan). The tour continued with seasons at the Royal in Newcastle-on-Tyne (with Valentine Palmer and Maurine London as Robert and Elizabeth), the Theatre Royal, Nottingham, and concluded at the Alhambra Theatre in Glasgow in August 1967 (with Robert Speaight as Moulton-Barrett).
The musical was revived in 1976 at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford starring Sally Ann Howes and Jeremy Brett for which there had been hopes of a transfer to Broadway but that and other attempts to get Robert and Elizabeth to Broadway failed. The closest it got, as mentioned earlier, was the Paper Mill production which had preceded its only other major revival in England at Chichester in 1987. In the States there had also been productions in Chicago and Brunswick.
The major factor the kept the show away from Broadway were the many legal blocks Fred C Moritt, whose original idea the show it was, brought to the courts. He still had hopes that his original version entitled The Third Kiss – of which no original material was used in the London production – would be produced. It never was.
A British revival was also produced at the Chichester Festival Theatre from 29th April 1987 in a revised version that starred Gaynor Miles as Elizabeth, Mark Wynter as Robert and John Savident as Edward Moulton-Barrett.
Rexton S. Bunnett
The cast
The Scenes and Songs
June Bronhill recalled the writing of 'Woman and Man'
After a performance one night I found a note at my hotel asking me to go to Mr Grainer's suite. I thought, 'Oh dear' — I always think the worst — 'What have I done? What am I not doing right?' So in fear and trepidation I went to Ron's suite and they were all there — Ronnie Millar, Ron Grainer, Wendy Toye, Martin Landau and Sandy Faris. Ronnie Millar said, 'We've just realised, June, that because of the cutting of the duet with Keith, you have nothing to sing after the Soliloquy at the beginning of Act II, so Ron and I have just written a nice light, little coloratura song for you which you sing to your father in the big confrontation scene with him.' Ron Grainer played it and they both sang it for me. Well, I nearly fell over backwards because it was anything but a 'nice light little coloratura' thing! It was very dramatic, very high and not really coloratura. It was a song called 'Woman and Man' and it really was quite the most exciting minute and a half of music imaginable. So I started to learn it that night, at about half past eleven. We decided we'd put it in at Manchester, our next port of call before London. As I said, it was very high, dramatic and exciting, finishing on a top D — a pretty high note to sing eight times a week in such a dramatic context. I think it was about the most successful song in the whole show and the boys had written it in twenty minutes!
The Merry Bronhill, June Bronhill (Methuen Haynes, North Ryde, NSW: 1987), p.105
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The story
ACT 1
The opening scene of the show, which takes place in the vicinity of Wimpole Street, London, in 1845. Edward Moulton-Barrett, the dour, over-strict Victorian father, comes upon two of his daughters with their friends from the Guards. L-R, John Clements as Edward Moulton-Barrett, Angela Richards as Henrietta, Mary Denison as Arabel, John Tillinger as George, Jeremy Lloyd as Captain Cook and David Jennings as a fellow officer
It is Wimpole Street, London in 1845 and we are outside the house of Edward Moulton-Barrett (‘The Wimpole Street Song’). Behind the plain facade of Number 50 Wimpole Street, the London home of the Moulton-Barrett family, is to be found the most unbending of Victorian households. In the hall, younger brothers Septimus and Octavius raise their voices in a hymn, accompanied on the harmonium by their sister Arabel. (‘Love and Duty’). We then learn that the home that is headed by an unyielding tyrannical Victorian widower and that the younger members of 'The Family Moulton Barrett' gloomily anticipate lives of enforced celibacy as a result of their father's strict regimen.
In the hall of No. 50 Wimpole Street, the Moulton-Barrett children sing “The Family Moulton-Barrett.” They are, L-R, Alfred (Rod McLennan), Arabel, Henry (John McGee), Octavius (Michael Ridgway), Henrietta, George, Charles (Ivor Danvers) and Septimus (John Parker).
The eldest of Moulton-Barrett's nine children is the bed-ridden Elizabeth and in her room we hear that her sister Henrietta is secretly in love with a young Captain; however, she is unable even to contemplate marriage while Elizabeth remains at a home she so wants to leave (‘The World Outside').
Elizabeth has established a correspondence with the poet and dramatist Robert Browning. In a defiant mood she invites him to tea; an invitation he receives while rehearsing his new play at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket (‘The Moon in My Pocket’).
The amusing scene on the stage of the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, during a rehearsal of Browning's play. David Kelsey is seen, centre right, as the actor Macready.
It becomes clear when Robert visits Elizabeth that he has fallen in love with her through her writings and she is unable to come to terms with this because of her health problems (‘I Said Love’). He believes her sickness to be a purely psychological one brought on by an unfair guilt complex regarding the death of an elder brother.
A new happier mood is now evident at 50 Wimpole Street. Henrietta receives flowers from her love (‘You only to Love Me’) and Elizabeth's health appears to be improving with the strength of Robert's love (‘The Real Thing’). Her doctor is so pleased that he confronts her father with the suggestion that she moves to Italy for the benefits of the sun.
But Moulton-Barrett only sees Elizabeth drifting away from him and accuses her of selfishness in her liaison with Robert. This brings a deterioration in her health and when Robert reappears believing that she is to go to Italy with him it is once again a bed-ridden Elizabeth he finds. They express their love for each other (‘In a Simple Way’) and he successfully gets her to her feet. When she walks they embrace (‘I Know Now’) but their joy soon becomes despair as her father appears and attacks her for contemplating leaving him and cruelly blames her for the death of his son. She is reduced to tears and collapses into her father's arms while Robert is sent away and told never to return.
Browning's vitality and loving encouragement have worked a miracle, and the day comes when Elizabeth is brought out into the garden. But Edward Moulton-Barrett, who has always disapproved of his daughter's friendship with the poet, now takes up an impossible attitude, and it looks as though Robert and Elizabeth will be parted for ever.
ACT II
Time moves on. Elizabeth while obeying her father has drifted further away from him (‘Soliloquy’). However, some of her old spirit comes back as she thinks of Robert and this makes her brothers think she is getting better (‘Pass the Eau de Cologne’). A visit from Bella, the outgoing and about to be married cousin, highlights both the strictness of the Moulton-Barrett family regime and Moulton-Barrett's own sexual frustrations when he attempts to kiss her (‘What’s Natural’). Upon seeing Elizabeth defiantly attempting to walk again he orders the family to the country (‘I'm the Master Here’).
Meanwhile, at the Cremorne Gardens in Chelsea, Robert is engrossed in his new poem dedicated to Elizabeth (‘Escape Me Never’).
Henrietta is also in the Gardens for she is to secretly meet her Captain for, what she plans to be, the last time (‘Hate Me, Please’). Surtees carries the news of the family's planned move to Browning who is enraged that the whole Barrett family should seem to be 'Under a Spell' to their father and he quickly arranges to visit Elizabeth.
As they pack for the country the boys think of what they are leaving (‘The Girls that Boys Dream About’). Robert makes his secret visit to Elizabeth and urges her to elope and marry him. Moulton-Barrett enters the room and Elizabeth declares her love for Robert.
Against her father's one sided view of love (‘What the World Calls Love’) she bravely gives hers (‘Woman and Man’).
The dramatic scene in Elizabeth's room when Moulton-Barrett reveals his abnormal attitude to his daughter. Sensing that his mind is unhinged, Elizabeth agrees at last to run away from home and elope with Browning.
In his study Robert awaits Elizabeth's answer to his call to elope (‘Frustration’) – it comes, and it is 'Yes'. Meanwhile, on Vauxhall station Wilson and Surtees vent their own 'Frustration', as Wilson searches in vain for Elizabeth's pet cocker spaniel, Flush and Surtees contemplates the prospect of how he can make a living sufficient enough to marry and support Henrietta now that he has resigned his commission in the Guards. Robert goes to Vauxhall Station where Elizabeth and he are joined by Henrietta and Captain Cook to bid them farewell. The train is about to leave, but Barrett has forced the story of Elizabeth's flight from her little sister, Arabel, and he turns up with the family in tow to challenge Browning with criminal abduction. Elizabeth stretches forth her hand: it wears a ring. She and Browning have been married. The family crowd happily round her and help her to join her husband in the carriage, but Barrett turns away. A stunned father is left as his daughter and her new husband happily go on their way to a new life in Italy (Finale – ‘I Know Now’).
The final scene, in which Elizabeth and Browning, now man and wife, arrive at Florence to be greeted by the kindly Dr. Chambers (Charles West). To the left are Wilson (Stella Moray), Elizabeth's faithful maid, with Flush, Elizabeth's dog.
CURTAIN
Cast and production photos by Angus McBean (courtesy of Rex Bunnett)
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Frank Van Straten collection
The reviews
Opinion amongst the London critics was divided on the musical’s merits.
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Robert and Elizabeth (Lyric)
By B.A. Young
If I say, as indeed I do say, that Robert and Elizabeth is worth all the other musicals currently running in London rolled into one, that isn't to suggest that I think it's perfect. But it has notable virtues.
The story, which is based by Ronald Millar on The Barretts of Wimpole Street, is ideal material for operetta (and this may almost be classed as operetta). Oversize characters like Barrett and Browning and romantic women like Elizabeth Barrett drop into place in a show of this kind almost without manipulation; and they are played with an exact sense of the slightly flamboyant style required by John Clements, Keith Michell and June Bronhill. What's more, the principals can really sing—not all of them, of course, as well as Miss Bronhill, who soars easily and truly up to high D and beyond, but well enough to maintain their characterisations while they sing, and ably enough to let us hear the words and the notes without benefit of microphones. Even Mr. Clements takes a couple of numbers without relapsing into speech à la Rex Harrison.
The dialogue is adult and sometimes genuinely sophisticated, and the need to split the ears of the groundlings is indulged only sporadically. The lyrics (also by Mr. Millar) are expertly put together, with proper regard for the effect of an interior rhyme here and a rhythmical change there, and with a refreshing absence of the arid futilities that so often get by in lyrics nowadays. The dancing is in the dependable hands of Wendy Toye, who is also responsible for the deft production; and the sets by Malcolm Pride are most delightful to see and to watch changing.
And the music?
I am, I know, hypercritical about the scores of musicals. This one is at all times undeniably musicianly. Ron Grainer has a talent for depicting personality in music (for example Maigret's and the Steptoes' theme-songs), and he has composed music to suit each of his characters individually. It is very tuneful, too, and commendably free of pop-music cliches. My only complaint is that it doesn't exhibit enough of a personal style; it is apt to descend too often into a kind of soundtrack anonymity. On the other hand I have a feeling that Mr. Grainer's next show—and there must be a next—may surprise us.
There are some delightful performances among the smaller parts, notably by Angela Richards as Elizabeth's younger sister Henrietta, Charles West as her doctor, and Dewcroft Pandora as her dog Flush.
The Financial Times (London), Thursday, 22 October 1964, p.24
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June with her cocker spaniel co-star, Dewcroft Pandora as Flush
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The Wimpole Street Romance Comes to Shaftesbury Avenue
by R. B. MARRIOTT
I SHALL be surprised if "Robert and Elizabeth", the new Ronald Millar–Ron Grainer musical based on "The Barretts of Wimpole Street", does not have a very good run at the Lyric, where it opened on Tuesday last. It has a vividly romantic theme, a strong story, tuneful music, lyrics as striking as the dialogue, excellent production and some first rate acting. Mr. Millar has adapted the Besier play with the craft of one who is a successful dramatist in his own right. The story of Elizabeth Barrett's triumph over ill-health, morbid memories, and an ogre-like father, when love and freedom appear with Robert Browning, has been made, for the most part, to hold the stage firmly. The scenes are well shaped and the songs fitted into them with exceptional skill. Embellishments, such as a Victorian street-scene, a gala in Cremorne Gardens, and Vauxhall Station, are full of colour and animation. Malcolm Pride's settings are fascinating in detail as well as elaborate effectiveness, and are managed with remarkable technical efficiency. There can be too much of a good thing however. "Robert and Elizabeth” running for about three hours, is too long. Elizabeth, seen most of the time in her own sitting room, makes two amazing recoveries from her illness. One of these, I suggest, should be cut out. The first happens in the first act; when the second occurs after the interval, there is a sense of anti-climax. I would also cut a song about Edward, Elizabeth's dead brother, which adds nothing to the story, and some dances in the garden at Wimpole Street, which hold up the action. Keith Michell is brilliant as Browning, June Bronhill thrills with her fine voice as Elizabeth, and John Clements creates an outstanding characterisation as Barrett. They have notable support from everyone in the cast.
The Stage (London), Thursday 22 October 1964, p.13
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DEMON KING CONFINED
Lyric Theatre: Robert and Elizabeth
From Our Dramatic Critic
The idea behind this musical version of The Barretts of Wimpole Street is entirely sensible; the show itself is unsatisfactory largely because the idea has only been partly carried out. When Rudolph Besier's play first appeared in 1930 it had a positive function as the first work that managed to present the message of Samuel Butler's The Way of All Flesh to a popular theatre audience. It was less a reconstruction of the romance between Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett than a primer in the tactics of emotional blackmail, and many members of the original audience must have had gruesome memories of their own Mr. Barretts.
Since then the species has died out: the Victorian paterfamilias nowadays is no more than a demon king, and it is as such that Ronald Millar has chosen to exhibit him in the musical. Christmas pantomime elements abound. The Barretts' back garden turns into a village green full of white blossom where the festive yokels of Wimpole Street and Cavendish Square assemble for Springtime frolics (Ron Grainer's score is at its best in the exhilarating syncopations of these folk dances). And Browning, musing amid the illuminations of Cremorne Gardens with fireworks going off for a royal birthday, takes on all the attributes of the fairy-tale prince as he resolves to release the Barrett household from the spell of its malign enchanter. All this makes excellent theatrical sense.
Unfortunately too much of the original play has been preserved for the new treatment to hold its own. The atmosphere of the play is one of stifling confinement, and Mr. Millar has retained enough of it to make a violent contradiction with the freedom of his new material. There is a contradiction of form (between the naturalistic closed structure, and open episodic pantomime) and of the characters' idiom—for while Browning himself is played as a legendary golden boy, his ogrish adversary remains the same severe old gentleman in mutton-chop whiskers.
John Clements gives an excellent straightforward performance of Mr. Barrett, rising in his final assault on his daughter’s emotions to a satanic ugliness which momentarily gives the part its cascade of red fire. As the lovers June Bronhill and Keith Michell lack the sense of mutual contact, but separately their performances are (respectively) demurely musical and fiery. There is a nice sketch by David Kelsey as Macready grimly rehearsing a dreadful Browning play.
Musically the show is long-winded and packed with too many unmemorable numbers. But it is a more sophisticated and dramatically functional score than most that reach the West End, and one of the songs—a valse oubliée for a sotto voce chorus of the Barrett children— is extremely touching.
The Times (London), Wednesday, 21 October 1964, p.16
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"The Real Thing" ballet sequence performed by the 'festive yokels'
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RONALD MILLAR'S musical, Robert and Elizabeth (Lyric), is adapted from Rudolph Besier's "The Barretts of Wimpole Street." Where Mr Donleavy is oblique and allusive, Mr Millar is forthright and clear. In Browning he has indeed a forthright hero who sweeps away opposition with the finesse of a whirlwind. Mr Millar has obviously been moved by the heroism of Browning's love for his elderly invalid Ugly Duckling; and the consequence of this, since he is a skilful dramatist, is that he moves us, too. Keith Michell plays Browning with splendid dash and sublime confidence; he knows the enormous risks Browning ran, and makes us rejoice that he surmounted them. As Elizabeth Barrett, June Bronhill is very attractive and sings gloriously; the lusty way in which she belts out Ron Grainer's tunes from the sick bed is a model to Covent Garden sopranos. John Clements as the forbidding Mr Barrett is throughout impressive, and in one scene (in direct communication with hell) tremendous. Malcolm Pride's settings are ingenious and pleasing.
Harold Hobson
The Sunday Times (London), Sunday, 25 October 1964, p.44
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The World of the Theatre
By J.C. Trewin
After this joyful re-entry [referencing a revival of Ben Travers’ farce “A Cuckoo in the Nest”], it is sad to report the reappearance of a slightly younger play, "The Barretts of Wimpole Street”(1930), in the toils of a musical, "Robert and Elizabeth." Rudolf Besier's drama of the Browning elopement had both a still-remembered tension and one genuine theatrical blaze, the appearance of Browning in the Wimpole Street room. (I can recall Ion Swinley's entrance in a touring version of the play.) At the Lyric Theatre now the old excitement has gone. All we have is a lagging musical (book by Ronald Millar; score by Ron Grainer) that botches and cheapens the original drama without making anything of the new form. Three redoubtable performances urge the piece along: those of June Bronhill as Elizabeth, Keith Michell as a gusty Browning (who has to deal with some grim lyrics) and John Clements as that anvil of thunder-cloud, Edward Moulton-Barrett. There are a few useful tunes; Wendy Toye has provided some decorative evolutions; Malcolm Pride's sets are cunningly-designed. But, in sum, it is a tedious night. And why include the nonsensical scene for Macready, who was a great actor, not a comic Crummles?
The Illustrated London News, Saturday, 31 Oct 1964, p.31
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The story of Robert Browning's courtship of Elizabeth Barrett has all the stuff of drama in it—young lovers, clandestine meetings, horrible old father, secret marriage—but a fearful mess it becomes as a musical comedy in the hands of Ronald Millar and Ron Grainer. What is one to make of a show in which the Barrett children complain constantly that they are never allowed any fun yet go through the entire business with jolly faces and jolly songs to sing like "Pass the Eau de Cologne"? How is one supposed to accept their moan that nothing ever happens in 50 Wimpole Street when the moment Elizabeth Barrett steps into the walled garden the lawn is filled with gay country lads and lasses doing a dance-routine between the daffodils? Never, incidentally, have I felt the use of the word "routine" in this connection to be more justified.
The hero and heroine are meant to be young poets yet they are asked to sing lyrics of such hackle-rising banality as,
Spring,
It's a message full of hope.
It's a feeling you can cope.
It seems a pity to do no more with the dog Flush than exploit the urinary possibilities of his name.
Never knew such a hound
For wetting the ground,
He’ll have us all drowned.
Except for one pleasant song, "The Girls that Boy's Dream About," Ron Grainer's music crept by me and disappeared. The evening was made endurable only by Keith Michell's brisk performance as Browning. The usually delightful June Bronhill is given scant opportunity to make anything of Elizabeth Barrett. It is a dismal, creaking show.
Its name is Robert and Elizabeth and it can be observed at the Lyric.
Jeremy Kingston
Punch (London), Wednesday, 28 October 1964, p. 28
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Robert and Elizabeth BBC-TV telecast
Scenes from Act I of the record-breaking new musical from the stage of the Lyric Theatre, London by arrangement with Martin Landau (for Marlan Productions Ltd.)
First broadcast: Friday 30th April 1965, 20:25 on BBC One London
Directed for television by Mary Evans
(Source: The Radio Times - London)
In 1971 June Bronhill joined her former co-star on his BBC TV programme Presenting Keith Michell to reprise their duet from Robert and Elizabeth in the episode first telecast on 29 March.
The 1976 revival reviewed:
Guildford 'Robert and Elizabeth'
"ROBERT AND ELIZABETH" enjoys a lavish if leisurely revival at the Guildford Yvonne Arnaud. It has a strong identity with equivalent lyrics by Ronald Millar to Ron Grainer's period-cum-modern music. And in this version of the famous Barretts of Wimpole Street story, the Oedipal aspect of Moulton-Barrett and daughter Elizabeth are stressed — certainly from the father's angle — together with the whole Victorian view of physical love. Then into Elizabeth's claustrophobic room and life sweeps Robert Browning like a quintessential life-force from the world outside.
The play stands or falls by the quality of the two leads and Jeremy Brett injects Browning with a poetic zest for life: an example of how a musical can benefit from a powerful performance by a dramatic actor who can also sing. Equally effective as Elizabeth, Sally Ann Howes brings an almost operatic quality to her numbers — especially the show-stopping Soliloquy opening the second half. She too has strong straight acting ability.
Michael Denison plays the father utterly straight with a certain pathos of repression, though his singing voice is slightly shaky! Lucy Fenwick squeezes the most out of the boy-mad cousin, Jeremy Child creates a superb skit on an Army officer circa 1845, and Rosamund Shelley sings amiably. The six brothers have material near to satire and look like doubles for the King's Sisters [sic – presumably King’s Singers]. Jeanna L'Esty and John O'Flynn give good support.
Double revolves and elaborate sets contribute to Graham Brown's design, but running at nearly three hours Val May's direction is still slightly indulgent, as I have said once before! Other credits: costumes by Deirdre Clancy, numbers staged by Robert Arditti, musical director Alexander Faris. Verdict: a triumph for Sally Ann Howes and Jeremy Brett.
John Frayn Turner
The Stage (London). Thursday, 6 January 1977, p.9
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Love story set to music
THE smallest hint of “Victoriana” round about Christmas time enhances the seasonal atmosphere with the sort of cosiness pictured on the traditional cards displaying crinolines and stage coaches.
Val May has translated the yuletide [love] for nostalgia on the stage in his superb production of “Robert and Elizabeth" – which is showing at Yvonne Arnaud Theatre Guildford until January 29.
The musical version of the famous love story of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning is based on “The Barretts of Wimpole Street” by Rudolph Besier, with lyrics by Ronald Millar and music by Ron Grainer.
Sally Howes and Jeremy Brett give outstanding performances in the title roles which tends to exaggerate the rather tepid portrayal by Michael Denison of Elizabeth's domineering father, Edward Moulton-Barrett. The enchantment of the evening as a whole, however, glosses over what could be a vital flaw in the production.
The magnificent sets must be among the best ever seen at Arnaud and, in spite of a few amusing first snags, must be a triumph for the designer, Graham Brown.
Do yourself a favour and book up for an evening's entertainment that can't fail to enthrall you
M. E.
Farnborough News and Mail, Tuesday 11 January 1977, p.12
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Following its season in Guildford (which ran from 22 December 1976 to 29 February 1977), Val May's production opened at the Theatre Royal, Brighton on 1 February for a further three week season, closing on 19 February 1977. The cast then crossed the Atlantic to commence a season in Ottawa, Canada on 1 March as the first city in what was touted as the show's pre-Broadway tour.
