''Sigh No More'' is a musical

revue A revue is a type of multi-act popular theatrical entertainment that combines music, dance, and sketches. The revue has its roots in 19th century popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own duri ...

consisting of twenty-two scenes and numbers composed, written and produced by

Noël Coward Sir Noël Peirce Coward (16 December 189926 March 1973) was an English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what ''Time'' magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and ...

, with additional items by

Joyce Grenfell Joyce Irene Grenfell OBE (''née'' Phipps; 10 February 1910 – 30 November 1979) was an English diseuse, singer, actress and writer. She was known for the songs and monologues she wrote and performed, at first in revues and later in her solo s ...

Richard Addinsell Richard Stewart Addinsell (13 January 190414 November 1977) was an English composer, best known for film music, primarily his '' Warsaw Concerto'', composed for the 1941 film '' Dangerous Moonlight'' (also known under the later title ''Suicide S ...

and Norman Hackforth."A Noel Coward Revue", ''The Manchester Guardian'', 12 July 1945; p. 3 The show was Coward's first post-

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

musical and starred

Cyril Ritchard Cyril Joseph Trimnell-Ritchard (1 December 1898 – 18 December 1977), known professionally as Cyril Ritchard, was an Australian stage, screen and television actor, and director. He is best remembered today for his performance as Captain Hook in ...

, his wife Madge Elliott and Joyce Grenfell. It also featured

Graham Payn Graham Payn (25 April 1918 – 4 November 2005) was a South African-born English actor and singer, also known for being the life partner of the playwright Noël Coward. Beginning as a boy soprano, Payn later made a career as a singer and ac ...

, Coward's longtime partner, who sang the best-known song in the show, the wistful "Matelot". It opened at the

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

Opera House on 11 July 1945, before transferring to London's West End, where it opened at the

Piccadilly Theatre The Piccadilly Theatre is a West End theatre located at 16 Denman Street, behind Piccadilly Circus and adjacent to the Regent Palace Hotel, in the City of Westminster, London, England. Early years Built by Bertie Crewe and Edward A. Stone ...

on 22 August 1945, running for 213 performances and closing on 23 February 1946.Ivor Brown, ''The Observer'', 26 August 1945, p. 2 Despite its indifferent success, it contained songs that endured in Coward's later cabaret act and elsewhere.

Musical numbers

;Part 1 *Sigh No More – Harlequin and Singing Silphides (Payn and ladies) *DuMaurier – Society Lady (Grenfell; music by Richard Addinsell; lyrics by Grenfell) *The Parting of the Ways – Lenora and Michael (Elliott and Ritchard) *Mother and Daughter – The Mother and the Daughter (Gwen Bateman and Joy O'Neill) *I Wonder What Happened to Him? – Indian Army Officer (Ritchard) *Music Hath Charms – Miss Lawson and others (Elliott and others; music & lyrics by Norman Hackforth) *Never Again – The Singer and Extras (Payn and ensemble) *That Is the End of the News – (Grenfell) *

Loch Lomond Loch Lomond (; gd, Loch Laomainn - 'Lake of the Elms'Richens, R. J. (1984) ''Elm'', Cambridge University Press.) is a freshwater Scottish loch which crosses the Highland Boundary Fault, often considered the boundary between the lowlands of Ce ...

– (Gail Kendal; arrangement by Hackforth) *Pageant – Company ;Part 2 *Willy – Willy, Good Angel and Bad Angel (Tom Linden, Elliott and Ritchard) *Wait a Bit, Joe – Payn *Travelling Broadens the Mind – Grenfell (written by her) *Nina (from Argentina) (parodying "

Begin the Beguine "Begin the Beguine" is a popular song written by Cole Porter. Porter composed the song between Kalabahi, Indonesia, and Fiji during a 1935 Pacific cruise aboard Cunard's ocean liner ''Franconia''. In October 1935, it was introduced by June Kni ...

") – Gigolo, Nina and Singer (Linden, Kendal and Ritchard) *The Merry Wives of Windsor – Mrs. Macadoo, Ladies and Private Niven (Elliott, Ladies and Ritchard) *Matelot – Payn *Blithe Spirit Ballet – Linden and others *The Burchells of Battersea Rise – Ritchard, Elliott, Grenfell and Payn *Japanese spies – Elliott and Ritchard (cut from the show in tryouts; was not performed in London) *Finale, Sigh No More – Entire Company

Reception

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'' singled out for praise the songs "Nina", about a South American beauty who hates Latin American dancing and falls in love with a sailor with a wooden leg; "I Wonder What Happened to Him?", in which army officers reminisce about colleagues in India; "The Burchells of Battersea Rise", about suburban life; and "That is the End of the News". In the last, Grenfell was "the insanely cheerful schoolgirl greeting each fresh family misfortune with an ecstatic grin".''The Times'', 23 August 1945, p. 6 ''

The Manchester Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' also praised Coward's song "Matelot", sung by Graham Payn; the title song, "Sigh No More", sung by Ritchard; "Old Soldiers Never Die" sung by Cliff Gordon; "Willy", in which troupes of good and bad angels strive vigorously for the direction of a small boy’s future life; and a '' Blithe Spirit'' ballet.

Ivor Brown Ivor John Carnegie Brown CBE (25 April 1891 – 22 April 1974) was a British journalist and man of letters. Biography Born in Penang, Malaya, Brown was the younger of two sons of Dr. William Carnegie Brown, a specialist in tropical diseases ...

in ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the w ...

'' thought that the ballet could have been dropped, but praised the rest of the show. The musical director was

Mantovani Annunzio Paolo Mantovani (; 15 November 1905 – 29 March 1980) was an Anglo-Italian conductor, composer and light orchestra-styled entertainer with a cascading strings musical signature. The book ''British Hit Singles & Albums'' stat ...

, of whom ''

'' said that he and his orchestra "might be presented as the biggest and most successful 'star turn' of the whole production".

Notes

External links

Cover of programme for ''Sigh No More''
{{Authority control Musicals by Noël Coward 1945 musicals