Customer Reviews

The Girl Who Came To Supper (1963 Original Broadway Cast)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Ever since borrowing this record from the library
in 1972 it's music pops into my head at the the
oddest moments. Once heard it has never been forgotten.
It's a joyful little sonnet to life's unexpected twists and turns. Perhaps it is out of fashion, but it is never out of tune.

Noel Coward's last full-scale Broadway show was a fitting tribute to his wit and talent. Beautiful, nostalgic songs and an entertaining story make this a special favorite. Perhaps one day someone will revive this little gem of a musical.

I've had the album of this since it first came out.. I loved it, and always wished I could have seen the show...of course with Florence Henderson. The songs are delightful and funny...and Florence sings beautifully.

I wish I had seen this show with Florence Henderson! The music and lyrics are great...and humorous! It's fun to hear Florence Henderson as she sounded years ago. What a talented performer!

Tho' THE GIRL WHO CAME TO SUPPER was not commercially successful when it opened on Broadway in 1963, it contains a brilliant, late-period Noel Coward score. Stars Jose Ferrer, Florence Henderson and Tessie O'Shea make the most of each song. An adaptation of THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL, which turned up on screen with Olivier and Monroe, the songs are Coward at his theatrically savvy and romantic best. O'Shea makes the very most of a real true showstopper, a quartet of rollicking songs about London during Coronation time. The recording appears to be out-of-print now. It's one of those worth seeking out. Cheery and sentimental, it's always a delight to give this one a listen.

This is a very mediocre Noel Coward score. Except for " London Is A Little Bit Of All Right", the show is one big bore.

Whatever you do, don't buy this album. Florence Henderson is so over the top that her performance in this makes her performance in "The Brady Bunch" seem like Eugene O'Neill and Jose Ferrer should have been put out to pasture like the dead race horse he seemed to mimic in his singing (if anyone can call it that). And Noel Coward just didn't have it by that time in his life as can be witnessed by his other late show the cloying "Sail Away". Only Tessie O'Shea in an Alfred Dolittle imitation gives this funeral pyre its needed light. I wouldn't pay 24 cents for this Cowardly frey into self-delusion and self-parody.

I am amazed at the other five star reviews on this page. Coward's last show is a lumbering elephant about a poor poor lonely middle-aged prince and the chorus girl he meets, romances and loses. How can anyone care about either of them as characters - they are completely irrelevant to our times, their problems those of the aristocracy which has for the most part ceased to exist. The score has only one notable number, a ballad entitled HERE AND NOW. For the rest we have forgettable tunes in songs ranging from under two minutes to over four. Each act is stopped by a completely irrelevant ten minute specialty number (Tessie O'Shea singing a pastiche of four old Coward songs and Florence Henderson singing the plot of the musical her character is appearing in). Neither has any relevance to the plot, neither is funny or endearing, and indeed, the Henderson number ends in what has to be the absolutely stupidist dance number (The Walla Walla Boola) if you don't count The Kangaroo from BRAVO GIOVANNI. The music and lyrics as well as the book are undistinguished, irrelevant and boring. A true dud of a musical.