Poppy (musical)

Infobox Musical
name= Poppy


caption= Original Recording
music= Monty Norman
lyrics= Peter Nichols
book= Peter Nichols
basis= The Opium Wars
productions= 1982 Royal Shakespeare Company
1983 West End
1998 West End Revival
2005 West End Revival
awards= Olivier Award for Best New Musical

"Poppy" is a musical comedy play about the Opium Wars. The play takes the form of a pantomime, complete with Dick Whittington, a pantomime dame, and two pantomime horses. The book and lyrics were written by Peter Nichols, and "the composer was Monty Norman.

Plot

The year is 1840. The Emperor of China warns the young Queen Victoria to know her place - "The Emperor's Greeting". The scene is set, panto-style, in a quaint, cardboard English village, "Dunroamin-on-the-Down", ancestral home of Dick Whittington and his widowed mother Lady Dodo.

Dick sets off with his manservant Jack Idle and the men of the village to seek their fortune in London or in the new towns of the industrial revolution. Jack is sad to leave his girlfriend, Sally. His horse, Randy, and her mare Cherry also fancy each other and have to be rebuked for their friskiness - "Whoa, Boy". Lady Dodo pines for the good old days but Dick believes the age of gold is yet to come.

Sally, left with her mare, sings of her confusion. She likes Jack but pines for Sir Richard, who is also her guardian. Secretly she and Dodo take off on their own for London.

In the City, Dick encounters Obadiah Upward, a up and coming merchant, who explains how they fortunes can be made in distant China from the sale of poppies. Dodo and Sally arrive and they agree to make the journey.

They sail to India and in the poppy fields Dodo tells Upward why she loves him - "Nostalgie de la Boue". Dick and Jack reflect on British India, the East India Company and the Battle of Plassey in a Kipling-esque ballad. "John Companee"

En route for China, aboard one of Upward's opium clippers, Dick persuades Jack and Sally to sample their wares and they savour a pipe-dream of paradise.

The Emperor of China tells Victoria to stop the cultivation of poppies, but she replies that the "Bounty of the Earth" is to be shared by every nation. She leaves him alone to lament his son's addiction to the drug. He sends Commissioner Lin to Canton to stamp out the trade. Here Lin meets Viceroy Teng and his daughter Yoyo who is confused by Europeans "They All Look the Same To Us". Obadiah refuses to be intimidated by Lin's threats and send Dick up the coast to seek fresh markets. Victoria joins his crew as an interpreter and Christian missionary and is questioned on her religious scruples. She explains there is a blessed trinity that justifies trade. Before they leave Dodo guesses that Sally loves Dick and tells her he is not only her guardian but also her half-brother.

The Chinese lay siege to the European compound and the animals have to be slaughtered for food. Jack sings Randy a last lullaby before killing him. "Rock-A-Bye Randy"

In the war that follows, the Chinese are defeated and surrender Hong Kong. Dodo and Upward sing of how the British and French soldiers sacked the Imperial Summer Palace in Peking - "Rat-Tat-Tat-Tat". Though there are dark and savage undertones to this fairy tale, in the end most of the British live happily ever after and it is the Chinese who learn to know their place.

Musical numbers

Act One
* "The Emperor's Greeting"
* "Dunroamin-on-the-Down"
* "Whoa, Boy"
* "The Good Old Days"
* "Why Must I?"
* "In These Chambers"
* "If You Want to Make a Killing"
* "Nostalgie de la Boue"
* "John Companee"
* "Poppy"Act Two
* "China Clipper"
* "The Bounty of the Earth"
* "The Emperor's Lament"
* "China Sequence"
* "They All Look the Same To Us"
* "The Blessed Trinity"
* "Sir Richard's Song"
* "Rock-A-Bye Randy"
* "The Dragon Dance"
* "Rat-Tat-Tat-Tat"
* "Finale"

Production history

"Poppy" premiered on 25 September 1982 at the Barbican Centre performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company. That year, it won the Laurence Olivier Award for best new musical. On 14 November 1983, the play was moved to the Adelphi Theatre and ran until 18 February 1984. The show was revived in December 1988 at the now-closed Half Moon Theatre, in 1998 by the Chelsea Players, and again in March 2005 by the Italia Conti Academy at the Landor Theatre.

Original cast

External links

* [http://www.nodanw.com/shows_p/poppy.htm "Poppy"] at The Guide to Musical Theatre
* [http://www.chelsea-players.org.uk/shows/poppy.html "Poppy" production notes] from the Chelsea Players
* [http://members.tripod.com/~warlight/christiney.html Pantomimic Conventions in the plays of Peter Nichols] by Christine Youssef
* [http://www.dswebhosting.info/Shakespeare/dserve.exe?&dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Site11&dsqDb=Performance&dsqSearch=PerfCode='PPY198210'&dsqCmd=Show.tcl Data record of "Poppy" at the Barbican] from the Royal Shakespeare Company Performance Database
* [http://www.dswebhosting.info/Shakespeare/dserve.exe?&dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Site11&dsqDb=Performance&dsqSearch=PerfCode='PPY198311'&dsqCmd=Show.tcl Data record of "Poppy" at the Adelphi] from the Royal Shakespeare Company Performance Database
* Nightingale, Benedict, [http://theater2.nytimes.com/mem/theater/treview.html?_r=1&res=9905E1DE153BF937A15753C1A964948260&oref=slogin "A Colonial Spoof on the London Stage"] , "The New York Times", October 24, 1982