Daly's Theatre - The Edwardes Years

The Edwardes Years

In 1894, Edwardes took over management of the theatre himself. He hired Sidney Jones as the resident composer and music director, and the theatre became well known for a string of highly successful Edwardian musical comedy productions composed mostly by Jones, many with additional songs by Lionel Monckton.

The shows represented a step forward in the evolution of musical theatre. They had coherent plots and music specifically composed for the plot of each piece. After the first few of these pieces, they became more like what musical comedy was to become at maturity than their Gaiety Theatre siblings, the more revue-like "Girl" musicals. The early Daly's Theatre shows, mostly with books by critic-turned-playwright Owen Hall and lyrics by Harry Greenbank and the prolific Adrian Ross, included the breakout hit, A Gaiety Girl (1894), An Artist's Model (1895), and the three most successful musical comedies of the era: The Geisha (1896), A Greek Slave (1898) and San Toy (1899). The shows starred actors such as leading lady Marie Tempest, dancer-soubrette Letty Lind, leading men C. Hayden Coffin and Scott Russell, and comics Huntley Wright and Rutland Barrington.

These were followed by A Country Girl (1902) and The Cingalee (1904), with books by James T. Tanner. Edwardes was clever at gauging the changing tastes of his audiences. For a time, he successfully presented English adaptations of continental European operettas, like The Little Michus (1905), The Merveilleuses (1906), the highly successful The Merry Widow (1907), The Dollar Princess (1909), The Count of Luxembourg (1911), and Betty (1915). In this series, Percy Greenbank replaced his brother Harry, who had died at the age of 33, songwriter Paul Rubens joined the team, and new actors joined or replaced the older ones, including leading men Bertram Wallis, Courtice Pounds and Robert Evett, and leading ladies Gertie Millar, Lily Elsie, Gabrielle Ray, Isabel Jay, Louie Pounds and Evie Greene.