Maggie May is a musical with a book by Alun Owen

Alun Owen

Alun Owen was a British screenwriter, predominantly active in television, but best remembered by a wider audience for writing the screenplay of The Beatles' debut feature film A Hard Day's Night ....

 and music and lyrics by Lionel Bart

Lionel Bart

Lionel Bart was a writer and composer of British pop music and musicals, best known for creating the book, music and lyrics for Oliver!-Early life:...

.

Based on "Maggie May"

Maggie May (traditional song)

"Maggie May" is a traditional Liverpool folk song about a prostitute who robbed a sailor. It has been the informal anthem of the city of Liverpool for about 180 years....

, a traditional ballad

Ballad

A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many...

 about a Liverpool

Liverpool

Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

 prostitute, it deals with trade union

Trade union

A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...

 ethics and disputes and the life of streetwalker Margaret Mary Duffy after her sweetheart dies.

The show includes bittersweet ballads, robust chorus numbers, and even some rock 'n' roll, making it one of the most musically diverse British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 scores of the 1960s. Steven Suskin, in reviewing a newly-released CD, wrote: the show begins with a "rather weird folk-ballad", and has "a couple of gentle lullaby-like ballads...raucous production numbers...which mixes a sailor's chanty with — what, Dixieland?"

The West End

West End theatre

West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...

 production opened on September 22, 1964 at London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

's Adelphi Theatre

Adelphi Theatre

The Adelphi Theatre is a 1500-seat West End theatre, located on the Strand in the City of Westminster. The present building is the fourth on the site. The theatre has specialised in comedy and musical theatre, and today it is a receiving house for a variety of productions, including many musicals...

, where it ran for 501 performances. The cast included Rachel Roberts, Kenneth Haigh

Kenneth Haigh

Kenneth Haigh is a British actor. He played the central role of Jimmy Porter in the very first production of John Osborne's seminal play Look Back in Anger in 1956. His performance in a 1958 Broadway theatre production of that play so moved one young woman in the audience that she mounted the...

, Barry Humphries

Barry Humphries

John Barry Humphries, AO, CBE is an Australian comedian, satirist, dadaist, artist, author and character actor, best known for his on-stage and television alter egos Dame Edna Everage, a Melbourne housewife and "gigastar", and Sir Les Patterson, Australia's foul-mouthed cultural attaché to the...

, Andrew Keir

Andrew Keir

Andrew Keir was a Scottish actor, who rose to prominence featuring in a number of films from Hammer Film Productions in the 1960s. He was also active in television, and particularly in the theatre, in a professional career that lasted from the 1940s to the 1990s...

, and John Junkin

John Junkin

John Francis Junkin was an English radio, television and film performer and scriptwriter.In 1960 Junkin joined Joan Littlewood's Stratford East Theatre Workshop, and played the lead in the original production of Sparrows Can't Sing...

.

The musical won the Novello Award for outstanding score of the year and the Critics' Poll as best new British musical.

Song list

• Overture/The Ballad Of The "Liver" Bird
• Lullaby/I Love A Man
• Casey
• Shine You Swine
• Day Don’t Do Dat T’Day
• I Told You So
• Right Of Way
• Stroll On
• Away from Home
• Maggie, Maggie May
• D'Land of Promises
• Carrying On
• Union Cha-Cha
• It’s Yourself
• The World’s a Lovely Place
• I'm Me
• (We Don't All Wear) D’Same Size Boots
• It's Yourself (Reprise)
• Finale/The Ballad of the 'Liver' Bird (Reprise)

"Maggie, Maggie May", "The Land of Promises", "It's Yourself" and "There's Only One Union" were later recorded by American singer, Judy Garland. Garland was friends with Lionel Bart, who was also rumored to be Judy's manager at the time. The songs were recorded in London and released on the Capitol Records Label in September 1964. Garland subsequently recorded several of the songs again while performing with her daughter, Liza Minnelli at the London Palladium in November, 1964. Shirley Bassey

Shirley Bassey

Dame Shirley Bassey, DBE , is a Welsh singer. She found fame in the late 1950s and was "one of the most popular female vocalists in Britain during the last half of the 20th century"...

released "It's Yourself" as her penultimate Columbia single in 1965.