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
STOP PRESS: Louise Gold has
two nominations in the Broadway World West End Awards: http://www.broadwayworld.com/westend/vote2015region.cfm
In particular she has been
nominated for Understudy of The Year Female: http://www.broadwayworld.com/westend/liveupdate2015region.cfm?btype=4338®ion=UK%20/%20West%20End#sthash.2TIlL8gx.dpbs (for her performance as Momma
Rose – she understudied Imelda Staunton)
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. They went on to appear together
in Mexican Hayride.
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, Noel/Cole: Let’s Do It, and, Mexican Hayride. 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. They also went on to appear together in Flaunt It 2008.
Gavin Lee, Louise Gold, and, Tanya Robb have gone on to appear together in Mary Poppins.
Mark Warman played the piano (when Louise Gold returned to the Lost Musicals nine years later) in Darling of The Day.
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
also on http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/4180024/A-Room-of-Ones-Own-Umoja-F-ing-Games-Dubarry-Was-a-Lady.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
This IS
British Theatre Guide (actually a piece about the Lost
Musicals’ 2008 season, however it happens to be illustrated with a very nice
picture of Louise Gold and company in this production of Du Barry Was A Lady): http://www.britishtheatreguide.info/news/lostmusicals08.htm
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