In Town

In Town is a musical comedy written by Adrian Ross and James T. Tanner, with music by F. Osmond Carr and lyrics by Ross. It was produced by George Edwardes at the Prince of Wales Theatre and opened on 15 October 1892, running for a successful 292 performances. It starred Arthur Roberts, together with Edmund Payne as Shrimp, the Call Boy and Eric Lewis as the duke, as well as singing star Florence St John. In Town was one of the first musical come... more

In Town is a musical comedy written by Adrian Ross and James T. Tanner, with music by F. Osmond Carr and lyrics by Ross. It was produced by George Edwardes at the Prince of Wales Theatre and opened on 15 October 1892, running for a successful 292 performances. It starred Arthur Roberts, together with Edmund Payne as Shrimp, the Call Boy and Eric Lewis as the duke, as well as singing star Florence St John. In Town was one of the first musical comedies on the London stage. It was lighter than a Gilbert and Sullivan style comic opera, but more coherent in construction than a burlesque. The piece initiated Tanner's and Edwardes's famous series of modern-dress musical shows and helped set the new fashion for the series of Gaiety Theatre musical hits that followed. Many of the best-known London couturiers began to design costumes for stage productions by the 1880s. The illustrated periodicals were eager to publish photographs of the actresses in the latest stage hits, and so the theatre... less