Pacific 1860 is a musical

Musical theatre

Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

 written by Noël Coward

Noël Coward

Sir Noël Peirce Coward 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 chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...

. The story is set in a fictional Pacific British Colony during the reign of Queen Victoria. It involves a visiting Prima Donna

Prima donna

Originally used in opera or Commedia dell'arte companies, "prima donna" is Italian for "first lady." The term was used to designate the leading female singer in the opera company, the person to whom the prime roles would be given. The prima donna was normally, but not necessarily, a soprano...

 and her conflict between love and career. There is also the problem of snobbishness from the island's establishment.

The original London production opened in 1946, starring Mary Martin

Mary Martin

Mary Virginia Martin was an American actress and singer. She originated many roles over her career including Nellie Forbush in South Pacific and Maria in The Sound of Music. She was named a Kennedy Center Honoree in 1989...

, and played for four months.

History

The musical premiered at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane

Theatre Royal, Drury Lane

The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a West End theatre in Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, a borough of London. The building faces Catherine Street and backs onto Drury Lane. The building standing today is the most recent in a line of four theatres at the same location dating back to 1663,...

 in London on 19 December 1946 and was the first post-war production by Coward. The show was not a success and ran for only four months, closing on 12 April 1947 The lead was taken by Mary Martin

Mary Martin

Mary Virginia Martin was an American actress and singer. She originated many roles over her career including Nellie Forbush in South Pacific and Maria in The Sound of Music. She was named a Kennedy Center Honoree in 1989...

, and the other principal actors included Graham Payn

Graham Payn

Graham Payn 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 actor in the works of Coward and others...

, Maidie Andrews, Sylvia Cecil

Sylvia Cecil

Sylvia Cecil was an English singer and actress. She began her career in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. She soon moved on to musical comedy, including the musicals of Ivor Novello and Noël Coward, as well as variety and radio. Her career spanned at least...

 and Winifred Ingram. Sets and costumes were designed by Coward's friend and regular designer, Gladys Calthrop

Gladys Calthrop

Gladys E. Calthrop was an artist and leading British stage designer. She is best known as the set and costume designer for many of Noël Coward's plays and musicals.-Life and career:...

.

The Times

The Times

The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

said of the piece that the island on which it was set was equable in temperature, adding "This mild romance with its abundance of easy theatrical sentiment so gracefully expressed has precisely the same climate, and there are moments, as one pretty song succeeds another, when we rather hanker after a tropical storm." Of the cast, the paper said, "Miss Mary Martin sings the heroine with much assurance and charm, and Mr Graham Payn is fully equal to the demands made on her 'opposite number'." The Manchester Guardian thought the first act fell "entirely flat" and judged the whole show old-fashioned, but praised the cast and the production. The Observer

The Observer

The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...

was still less favourable: "This operetta is an orgy of good taste, and people who are nervous of that quality may be comforted by knowing that there is plenty of honest dullness in the very conventional plot."

Songs

(In the order listed in The Lyrics of Noël Coward, pp. 232-63):

• Family Grace
• If I were a Man
• Dear Madame Salvador
• Hy Horse Has Cast a Shoe
• I Wish I Wasn't Quite Such a Big Girl
• Samolan Song (Ka Tahua)
• Bright was the Day
• Invitation to the Waltz
• His Excellency Regrets
• The Party's Going with a Swing
• Birthday Toast
• Make Way for Their Excellencies
• Fumfumbolo

• One Two Three
• This is a Night for Lovers
• I Never Knew
• This is a Changing World
• Come Back to the Island
• Gipsy Melody
• This is the Night
• Mother's Lament
• Pretty Little Bridesmaids
• I Saw No Shadow
• Wedding Toast
• Uncle Harry