The Boy Friend,
Sandy Wilson's 1950s musical that pretended to be a 1920s musical, pretty much succeeded at that pretense, enjoying a five-year run in London and nearly 500 performances on Broadway the first time around, leading to other international productions and frequent revivals. The first Broadway revival occurred on April 14, 1970, and proved disappointing, with a run of only 111 performances. The top-lined star was
Judy Carne, a comedienne known for her tenure on the popular TV series Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In and her tag line, "Sock it to me!" Second-billed was
Sandy Duncan, who actually went on to a more prominent stage career in periodic revivals of Peter Pan. The production was closer to the British original than the first Broadway version, adding back the song "It's Nicer in Nice," which had been cut for the previous New York run. That helped make this cast recording longer than either the London one (originally released as a 10" LP) or the original Broadway one. Nevertheless, that earlier Broadway recording gets the nod over this one for a simple reason: it features a young
Julie Andrews in her New York debut, and there's no way
Carne can top her. Still, this is an efficient reading of the pastiche score, which was at first intended to send up the sound and style of the 1920s, although by 1970 even the real thing would have seemed campy (and did in the Broadway revival of an actual '20s show, No, No, Nanette, that appeared the following season). ~ William Ruhlmann