The Great Big Radio Show! is a musical comedy, with music and lyrics by Philip Glassborow

Philip Glassborow

Philip Glassborow is a playwright, lyricist and composer who writes for theater, radio and television. His best-known theater musical is the cult hit The Great Big Radio Show! with book in collaboration with Nick McIvor, which won a special prize in the Vivian Ellis Awards and was premiered by the...

. Piano arrangements and dance music are by David Rhind-Tutt. Book is by Philip Glassborow with Nick McIvor.

Synopsis

"Radio Show takes place in 1933, in the Radio Building, New York, and the big Saturday night broadcast is just about to go on the air, live. It’s the Great Big Radio Show, a weekly variety program starring Gloria Pilbeam. The only trouble is—she can’t be found. Bandleader Blue Woodward has to find a replacement while the show is actually on the air... without letting the sponsor know what’s going on... and in spite of some desperate hoodlums in the studio."

Production history

In 1989, the show won a special prize in the Vivian Ellis

Vivian Ellis

Vivian Ellis was an English musical comedy composer best known for the song "Spread a Little Happiness" and the theme "Coronation Scot".-Life and work:...

 Awards, a contest established by the UK Performing Right Society

Performing Right Society

PRS for Music is a UK copyright collection society undertaking collective rights management for musical works. PRS for Music was formed in 1997 as the MCPS-PRS Alliance, bringing together two collection societies: the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society and Performing Right Society...

 to promote achievement in British musical theater, and to honor the composer of West End hits such as Mr Cinders and Bless The Bride. The Awards panel included Tim Rice

Tim Rice

Sir Timothy Miles Bindon "Tim" Rice is an British lyricist and author.An Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, Tony Award and Grammy Award-winning lyricist, Rice is best known for his collaborations with Andrew Lloyd Webber, with whom he wrote Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus...

, Don Black, Cameron Mackintosh

Cameron Mackintosh

Sir Cameron Anthony Mackintosh is a British theatrical producer notable for his association with many commercially successful musicals. At the height of his success in 1990, he was described as being "the most successful, influential and powerful theatrical producer in the world" by the New York...

, Petula Clark

Petula Clark

Petula Clark, CBE is an English singer, actress, and composer whose career has spanned seven decades.Clark's professional career began as an entertainer on BBC Radio during World War II...

 and Sheridan Morley

Sheridan Morley

Sheridan Morley was an English author, biographer, critic, director, actor and broadcaster. He was the eldest son of actor Robert Morley and grandson of actress Dame Gladys Cooper, and wrote biographies of both...

. Veteran songwriter Vivian Ellis himself publicly declared it “a musical to fall in love with"

After the Ellis Awards, Radio Show was one of seven musicals selected from a field of 491 for a workshop as part of the inaugural season of the UK Quest for New Musicals. Andrew Lloyd Webber

Andrew Lloyd Webber

Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber is an English composer of musical theatre.Lloyd Webber has achieved great popular success in musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 13 musicals, a song cycle, a set of...

 was Patron of the Quest and Richard Stilgoe

Richard Stilgoe

Richard Henry Simpson Stilgoe OBE is a British songwriter, lyricist and musician. He is noted for clever wordplay as much as for his music....

 was its director. The workshop culminated in a staged reading at Buxton Opera House directed and choreographed by Angela Hardcastle, starring Paul Jones

Paul Jones

Paul Jones may refer to:*Paul Jones , Australian politician*Paul Jones , American Episcopal Bishop*Paul Jones , British former professional boxer...

, Elizabeth Counsell and Peter Goodwright.

At that point, the musical came to the attention of Jill Fraser

Jill Fraser

Jill Fraser, MBE was a British theatre owner and director.The daughter of the actor Alec Fraser, who played the Vagabond King in New York, and the West End actress Guinevere Fraser, she co-owned , and was artistic director of, the Watermill Theatre from 1981 until her death.The Watermill Theatre...

, Artistic and Executive Director of the Watermill Theatre

Watermill Theatre

The Watermill Theatre is an award -winning, professional repertory theatre with charitable status. It is a converted watermill with gardens beside the River Lambourn, in Bagnor, near Newbury, Berkshire, England...

 in Newbury, Berkshire

Newbury, Berkshire

Newbury is a civil parish and the principal town in the west of the county of Berkshire in England. It is situated on the River Kennet and the Kennet and Avon Canal, and has a town centre containing many 17th century buildings. Newbury is best known for its racecourse and the adjoining former USAF...

. Although small, the Watermill is one of the UK’s most prominent regional stages. The company nurtured several new musicals before mounting a renowned series of revivals under director/designer John Doyle. For her 1993 Fall Season, Fraser produced the professional premiere of Radio Show, again directed by Hardcastle and featuring many of the Buxton cast. 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...

 and The Independent

The Independent

The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...

 acclaimed the show and critic Sheridan Morley

Sheridan Morley

Sheridan Morley was an English author, biographer, critic, director, actor and broadcaster. He was the eldest son of actor Robert Morley and grandson of actress Dame Gladys Cooper, and wrote biographies of both...

 (one of the Ellis Awards judges) reviewed it for the International Herald Tribune

International Herald Tribune

The International Herald Tribune is a widely read English language international newspaper. It combines the resources of its own correspondents with those of The New York Times and is printed at 38 sites throughout the world, for sale in more than 160 countries and territories...

. He praised the musical as “an immensely loving and knowledgeable parody of the big-band shows of American airwaves”.

The sold-out run of Radio Show at the Watermill raised expectations of a West End transfer, and veteran producer Harold Fielding optioned the rights. Fielding, whose successes included Half a Sixpence

Half a Sixpence

Half a Sixpence is a musical comedy written as a vehicle for British pop star Tommy Steele.It is based on H.G. Wells's novel Kipps: The Story of a Simple Soul...

 on Broadway and in the West End, was in his seventies at the time; sadly, soon after acquiring the rights, he became ill and production plans were suspended. For a number of years, Radio Show lay fallow as Fielding, though in decline, continued exercising his options.

In Fall 2005, the musical was presented off-Broadway by the York Theatre Company in their Musicals in Mufti series, produced by James Morgan. The director was David Glenn Armstrong and the stellar cast included Nancy Anderson, Ed Dixon

Ed Dixon

Ed Dixon is an American character actor, playwright and composer, who has appeared in numerous Broadway shows, including No, No, Nanette, King of Schnorrers, The Three Musketeers, Les Misérables, Cyrano, The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Iceman Cometh, The Best Man, How the Grinch Stole Christmas ,...

, Tyler Maynard

Tyler Maynard

Tyler Maynard is an American stage and film actor. He is best known for playing Mark in the 2005 musical Altar Boyz, for which he won a Theatre World Award and received a nomination for a Drama Desk Award.-Biography:...

, Seth Rudetsky

Seth Rudetsky

Seth Rudetsky is an American musician, actor, writer, and radio host. He currently is the host of "Seth's Big Fat Broadway" on Sirius/XM Satellite Radio's...

, David Staller and Lynne Wintersteller

Lynne Wintersteller

Lynne Wintersteller is an American actress best known for her work in the theatre. A gifted soprano, she has appeared in several musicals including starring in the original production of Maltby and Shire's hit Off-Broadway musical Closer Than Ever in 1989 at the Cherry Lane Theatre...

.

“Manhattan, of course, is the native turf of the musical comedies that Radio Show is spoofing. It’s tempting to reach for a wisecrack about carrying coals to Newcastle; but audiences are likely to find that this heartfelt musical comedy feels right at home in the hometown of Rodgers and Hart.”

Musical Numbers

• Overture
• Unmistakably
• She Ain't Here Yet
• Surprises
• Nourishvite Jingle
• No Matter What
• Where Have I Seen You Before?
• Pretty As A Picture
• Suddenly I'm Singing
• You Came By
• I Felt Myself Falling
• Then I Bumped into You
• You Take My Breath Away
• Your Turn For A Rainbow
• The Balalaika
• Tomorrow Is Another Day
• Me And My Stradivarius