The Boy Friend - A Musical Play

by Sandy Wilson

Madame Dubonnet's finishing school, near Nice, could exist only in musical comedy. The charming young pupils burst into song at the least provocation, and forbidden boy friends are forever popping through the french windows to make up the numbers. Polly Browne is too rich to be allowed a boy friend. Tony, for whom she falls, turns out to be the Hon. Tony Brockhurst, which is very lucky, because Polly thought he was just a delivery boy. Written in the fifties as "a new musical of the twenties" this is still the most successful, tuneful and witty of the send-up musicals, which ape the style of earlier, lighter-hearted and more disarming days.8 women, 7 men

Genres: Plays, Theatre

56 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 200

Reviews

[Loretta Riach]

This is a musical play set in 1920s French Riviera at a finishing school for girls. Twiggy once starred in a film adaptation and the details of the plot are neither here nor there. During some sort of post election induced hysteria our flat of six ended up doing an ad hoc readthrough from beginning to end. It took us three hours. Max had a conversation with himself for fifteen minutes between two French women. Tharushi gave her character a cockney accent and Erin made her schoolgirl a smoker with advanced emphysema. There is a character named Marcel, reworked in this version as a startling Marcel The Shell With Shoes On cameo. Musical accompaniment null aside from Amber’s Jamaican dub CD at full volume. Would recommend using these techniques for any future productions. Would not recommend reading.

[Igenlode Wordsmith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was apparently reissued to tie in with the film version of the 1960s (from which I remember nothing save Tommy Tune's truly astonishing legs), and contains an affectionate preface and some charming pen and ink illustrations by the author.
It's hard to review a musical script in the absence of dancing and score - although just as I was thinking that, I discovered the tune to one of the numbers I'd been reading written out over the page! There is of course very little plot, but it's sweet and very good-natured, and we end up wishing all the various love affairs well. The only song I actively recognised was "It's never too late to have a fling", which I hadn't associated specifically with this show at all - so it was quite a surprise.

It's a script. It's bright, artificial and charming. The illustrations are a treat. What more can you say? I think I may have a piano score of this show on the shelf; I shall have to go and have a look now....