{"title":"Adrian Wright","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"west-end-broadway-book-adrian-wright-9781843837916","title":"West End Broadway","description":"A history and re-evaluation of the American musical in London between 1945 and 1972, a unique panoramic essay on British theatre of the Golden Age.  West End Broadway is the first book to deal specifically with the 'Golden Age' of American musicals in London. Here is a history and a re-evaluation not only of the British productions of Broadway's most popular product butof the works themselves, beginning with a brief account of the origins of the genre and of the shows seen during World War II. The difficult conditions of war-torn Britain prepared the ground for changes that would come with peace. While Britain clung to tried formulas, a refreshing breeze was blowing in from the Atlantic, altering the nature of British theatre by sending New York's commercially successful musicals to the West End. The wider relevance ofthis history is underscored, as is the fact that these works effectively imported American social history into the culture of a Britain coping with the aftermath of conflict. In London, critical reaction to Broadway musicals was often strikingly different from that awarded in New York, and Broadway success could result in West End failure, while off-Broadway shows struggled to gain hold in Britain.   West End Broadway discusses every American musical seen in London between 1945 and 1972. As the final works of Cole Porter and Irving Berlin made way for a new wave of writers and composers, the arrival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! was celebrated as a breakthrough,heralding a period that included important works by Jule Styne, Leonard Bernstein, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, Robert Wright and George Forrest, Harold Rome, Frank Loesser, Alan Jay Lerner, Frederick Loewe, and the first stirrings of the next generation in Stephen Sondheim.   Offering a unique panoramic essay on British theatre of the Golden Age, West End Broadway is an authoritative, challenging and diverting contribution to an understanding of aforgotten aspect of the Broadway musical.    ADRIAN WRIGHT is the author of Foreign Country: The Life of L.P. Hartley (1996), John Lehmann: A Pagan Adventure (1998), The Innumerable Dance: The Life and Work of William Alwyn (2008) and the novel Maroon (2010). His previous book, A Tanner's Worth of Tune (Boydell \u0026amp; Brewer, 2010), told the story of the post-war British musical. He lives in Norfolk, where he runs MustClose Saturday Records, a company dedicated to British musical theatre.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49514485612817,"sku":"GOR006226495","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51421105455377,"sku":"GOR014266883","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1843837919.jpg?v=1751092171"},{"product_id":"tanner-s-worth-of-tune-book-adrian-wright-9781843835424","title":"A Tanner's Worth of Tune","description":"This book examines the progress of the British musical in the twentieth century as it struggled to find an identity, stepping out of the shadow of its American counterpart. With a wealth of contemporary photographs and memorabilia, it looks at the contribution of key figures - from Ivor Novello to Lionel - in lively and engaging prose.  A Tanner's Worth of Tune is the first book to be written on the post-war British musical, and the first major assessment of the British musical for a quarter of a century, reviving interest in a vast archive of musicals that have been dismissed to the footnotes of theatrical history. This timely reappraisal of the genre and its social background, before the \"international\" British musicals began appearing in the 1970s, argues for a radical understanding of the shows and their writers, and a rethinking of our attitude towards them.   The musical plays of Ivor Novello and Noel Coward - both pre- and post-war - are discussed in detail, as are the two composers who came todominate the 1950s, Sandy Wilson and Julian Slade, and the little school of plein air musicals that threaded through that decade. The book brings together 'adopted' British musicals, discusses the rise and fall of the British \"verismo\" and the biomusical, whether of Dr Crippen or the Rector of Stiffkey, finally charting the collapse of the British musical's nationalism in the 1960s as witnessed by John Osborne and Lionel Bart. The book draws on Adrian Wright's lifelong passion for British theatre music, its writers, composers, performers and craftsmen. Provocative, idiosyncratic and unfailingly entertaining, A Tanner's Worth of Tune makes a compelling plea for a rediscovery of an era of pleasures which have too long been forgotten.    ADRIAN WRIGHT is the author of Foreign Country: The Life of L.P. Hartley [(1996),  John Lehmann: A Pagan Adventure (1998), The Innumerable Dance: The Life and Work of William Alwyn [2008] and the novel Maroon (2010). 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Wright had access to a mass of Hartley's private papers, many of which were later destroyed.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49526449930513,"sku":"GOR003402179","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49604253974801,"sku":"GOR005666610","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1860646794.jpg?v=1751430935"},{"product_id":"foreign-country-book-adrian-wright-9780233989761","title":"Foreign Country","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49557278720273,"sku":"GOR003937931","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49657927270673,"sku":"GOR002164084","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52397259817233,"sku":"GOR004885556","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0233989765.jpg?v=1751258634"},{"product_id":"kevin-costner-book-adrian-wright-9780751506198","title":"Kevin Costner","description":"A chance meeting with Richard Burton inspired the young Kevin Costner to turn to the silver screen, but his early forays into cinema ended up - time and again - on the cutting-room floor. His first major break came with \"Silverado\", in which he appeared with stars such as Kevin Kline, Jeff Goldblum, Danny Glover and John Cleese. Since then he has risen to the top rank of Hollywood actors with astonishing speed. Though a very private actor, this biography reveals many facts about the off-screen life of Costner - as well as providing a comprehensive discussion of all the actor\/director's work to date. Read about the first \"do good\" role in \"The Untouchables\" with Sean Connery, and the troubles of \"Robin Hood Prince of Thieves\". His determination to film all aspects of the American myth, the groundswell of critical opposition to his recent work and the personal difficulties of living up to his own standards are all features of this account of a far from ordinary life.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49575905100049,"sku":"GOR004251288","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49663938101521,"sku":"GOR007406365","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52108682101009,"sku":"GOR003289427","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0751506192.jpg?v=1718402718"},{"product_id":"john-lehmann-book-adrian-wright-9780715628713","title":"John Lehmann","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49579889557777,"sku":"GOR002029943","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50003620462865,"sku":"GOR010711104","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0715628712.jpg?v=1751137444"},{"product_id":"kevin-costner-book-adrian-wright-9780709047001","title":"Kevin Costner","description":"This biography looks at the off-screen life of the actor Kevin Costner and his tenacious climb to the top of the Hollywood tree. The book also includes a discussion of all Costner's work to date, including hit films such as \"The Untouchables\", \"Robin Hood\" and \"Dances with Wolves\". Adrian Wright is the author of \"Sylvester Stallone: a Life on Film\" and is a member of the Norwich Players.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49595372175633,"sku":"GOR003747350","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0709047002.jpg?v=1751263000"},{"product_id":"forget-me-not-book-adrian-wright-9781838593131","title":"Forget Me Not","description":"‘Where do they go, the forgotten people? Where do they go?’     London, 1910:  A mystery is begun in Lyons Corner House when innocent Ethel Braund meets blowsy singer Belle Elmore and mistakenly leaves with Belle’s handbag.      Fifty years later, a company of pensionable music-hall artistes are brought together on Cromer Pier for a last hurrah. Among them are the ageing duettists Grenville and Elsie, soubrette Dorothy Driscoll (known as ’The Doll With The Dimple’), Parliamentary Pete (who has recently had one leg amputated), an out-of-practice conjuror and his assistant Len and murderous Heron Makepeace. Topping the Bill is the formidable Hattie Prince, ‘England’s Greatest Male Impersonator’.      In a novel inhabited by a host of colourful characters, against a background of echoing music hall songs, the boy detectives Francis and Gordon Jones unravel a story of illusion, death and remembrance.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49610236690705,"sku":"GOR011812911","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1838593136.jpg?v=1751026864"},{"product_id":"maroon-book-adrian-wright-9781846244360","title":"Maroon","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49621892006161,"sku":"GOR005625968","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1846244366.jpg?v=1750833772"},{"product_id":"innumerable-dance-book-adrian-wright-9781843834120","title":"The Innumerable Dance","description":"This first extended biography of William Alwyn sets his works in full context and uses hitherto unpublished material to give a vivid account of his marriages, his operas and his relationship with Britten.  This book is the first full-scale biography of William Alwyn since his death in 1985. Alwyn's early life as a flautist was altered when he became a leading composer of the Documentary Film Movement in the 1930s, going on to a prolific career in writing for feature films, including commissions for Walt Disney and Carol Reed. By the mid 1950s his reputation was established by the beginning of his four-symphony cycle, his many tone poems, concertos, chamber and piano pieces. An habitué of the London film studios and concert halls, and a prominent professor at the Royal Academy of Music, a major crisis in Alwyn's life precipitated an escape to the Suffolk coast in 1960, where he turnedhis back on film music and immersed himself in the writing of operas [including Miss Julie], poetry, essays, fiction and painting.    Adrian Wright's book balances detailed analysis of Alwyn's work with a vivid account of his marriages to the musician Olive Pull and the composer Doreen Carwithen, relationships that profoundly affected the course of his career. Using a mass of hitherto unpublished material [including an unexpurgated version of his noted Ariel to Miranda] and interviews with prominent figures in Alwyn's life, the volume places his achievements in the musical context of his time, along the way dealing with his relationship with Benjamin Britten,and such hitherto almost unknown works as Don Juan, The Fairy Fiddler and the radio opera Farewell, Companions.    ADRIAN WRIGHT is the author of the acclaimed Foreign Country: The Life of L.P. Hartley (1996) and John Lehmann: A Pagan Adventure (1998), and is a contributor to The New Dictionary of National Biography.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49626016448785,"sku":"GOR006307667","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50411657822481,"sku":"GOR013940128","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51894665412881,"sku":"GOR010564839","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/184383412X.jpg?v=1750995607"},{"product_id":"sylvester-stallone-book-adrian-wright-9780709044284","title":"Sylvester Stallone","description":"A biography of Sylvester Stallone. It traces his life through the early years of poverty and desperation, critical lambasting and deep humiliation to his position today as an extremely successful actor and director.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49644823118097,"sku":"GOR013613672","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49965916619025,"sku":"GOR003413188","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50754977693969,"sku":"GOR002342139","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0709044283.jpg?v=1751168728"},{"product_id":"melody-in-the-dark-book-adrian-wright-9781783277490","title":"Melody in the Dark","description":"A comprehensive reassessment of British musical films 1946-1972 including King's Rhapsody, Beat Girl, The Tommy Steele Story, Rock You Sinners, The Golden Disc, and Oliver!   Acting as a sequel to Adrian Wright's Cheer Up! British Musical Films, 1929-1945 (Boydell, 2020), Melody in the Dark offers the first major reassessment of the British musical film from the end of Second World War up to the beginning of the 1970s. In the immediate post-war world, British studios sought to reflect fast-changing social attitudes as they struggled to create inventive diversions in an effort to rival American competition. Hollywood stars Errol Flynn, Vera-Ellen, Jayne Mansfield and Judy Garland were among those brought in to provide Hollywood glamour.  Embedded in the British consciousness, the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan were represented in three productions. Studios occasionally attempted adaptations of British stage musicals, among them King's Rhapsody and Expresso Bongo, and sexploitation movies turned musical via Secrets of a Windmill Girl and Beat Girl. It was left to minor studios to acknowledge the impact of rock'n'roll on social change in three early films, The Tommy Steele Story, Rock You Sinners and the iconic The Golden Disc. Through the sixties, British cinema seemed intent on flooding the market with entertainments promoting pop singers and rock groups such as Cliff Richard, Billy Fury and The Beatles. Towards the end of the period, it aspired to more grandiose projects such as Oliver! and Oh! What a Lovely War.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49744741204241,"sku":"NGR9781783277490","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52754715017489,"sku":"NIN9781783277490","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1783277491.jpg?v=1751184813"},{"product_id":"must-close-saturday-book-adrian-wright-9781783272358","title":"Must Close Saturday","description":"The first book to deal exclusively with British musical flops, Must Close Saturday presents a rolling panorama of the good, the bad and the ugly, reassessing their place in theatrical history.  The ominous announcement \"Must Close Saturday\" too often heralded the demise of British musicals. Looking forward from the vantage point of Lionel Bart's spectacularly successful Oliver! in 1960, Adrian Wright's authoritative chronicle of the commercially unsuccessful British musical of the last half a century uncovers a wealth of fascinating material. In the wake of the resurgence that briefly blew through the British musical at the end of the 1950s with verismo works such as Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be and Expresso Bongo, the British musical was shaken by Bart's adaptation of Dickens, but was quickly left floundering in the face of constant critical complaint and financial failure.   The first book to deal exclusively with British musical flops, Must Close Saturday presents a rolling panorama of the good, the bad and the ugly, reassessing their place in theatrical history.Wright reveals a consistent striving at invention, with subjects including the electric chair, the Holocaust, the Virgin Mary, social inequality and Trade Unionism, sexual problems and murder, as well as biographical treatments of Hollywood stars, French painters, tragic novelists, royalty, and the Rector of Stiffkey. Discursive and provoking, Must Close Saturday at last prises open the neglected history of the British musical flop up to 2016.     ADRIAN WRIGHT is the author of Foreign Country: The Life of L. P. Hartley (1996), John Lehmann: A Pagan Adventure (1998), The Innumerable Dance: The Life and Work of William Alwyn (Boydell \u0026amp; Brewer, 2008), the novel Maroon (2010) and The Voice of Doom (2016). His previous books on British musical theatre are A Tanner's Worth of Tune: Rediscovering the Post-War British Musical  (Boydell \u0026amp; Brewer, 2010) and West End Broadway: The Golden Age of the American Musical in London (Boydell \u0026amp; Brewer, 2012). 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This biography also looks at Schwarzenegger's private life - his business dealings and political life.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":50478387495185,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50478388412689,"sku":"GOR004367862","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0709050534.jpg?v=1751199833"},{"product_id":"for-one-week-only-the-norfolk-and-norwich-operatic-society-19252025-book-adrian-wright-9781837652150","title":"For One Week Only!: The Norfolk and Norwich Operatic Society, 19252025","description":"Explores the 100 year history of the Norfolk and Norwich Operatic Society and celebrates the company's relationship with the Theatre Royal Norwich, one of the most successful major provincial theatres in the country.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51055353692433,"sku":"NIN9781837652150","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":51216251388177,"sku":"NGR9781837652150","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52530220826897,"sku":"NLS9781837652150","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1837652155.jpg?v=1751060638"},{"product_id":"cheer-up-book-adrian-wright-9781783274994","title":"Cheer Up!","description":"The first book to deal exclusively with the British musical film from the very beginning of talking pictures in the late 1920s through the Depression of the 1930s up to the end of World War II.  Cheer Up! is the first book to deal exclusively with the British musical film from the very beginning of talking pictures in the late 1920s through the Depression of the 1930s up to the end of World War II. The upsurge in production at British studios from 1929 onwards marked the real birth of a genre whose principal purpose was to entertain the British public. This endeavour was deeply affected by the very many emigres escaping Nazi Germany, who flooded into the British film industry during this decade, as the genre tried to establish itself.   The British musical film in the 1930s reflects a richness of interest. Studios initially flirted with filming what were essentially stage productions plucked from the West End theatre but soon learned that importing a foreign star was a box-office boost. Major musical stars including Jessie Matthews, Richard Tauber and George Formby established themselves during this period. From its beginning, the British musical film captured some of the most notable music-hall performers on screen, and its obsession with music-hall persisted throughout the war years. Other films married popular and classical music with social issues of poverty and unemployment, a message of social integration that long preceded the efforts of the Ealing studios to encourage a sense of social cohesion in post-war Britain. The treatmentof the films discussed is linear, each film dealt with in order of its release date, and allowing for an engaging narrative packed with encyclopaedic information.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52100066607377,"sku":"GOR014461019","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781783274994.jpg?v=1757088266"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-adrian-wright.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}