Patricia Routledge performs the

[lvpblues]

Posted: 2/3/10 at 3:44pm

I've seen folks talk about this particular number as a fond memory from the otherwise troubled musical "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue." I thought I'd share this with those curious about her performance.

Best,
~K

"Duet for One (The First Lady of the Land)" Updated On: 11/4/10 at 03:44 PM

[Scripps2]

Posted: 2/3/10 at 4:51pm

Thank you for sharing this. I love what I've heard of this score on the "A White House Cantata" recording and it is fascinating to hear this excerpt from the original cast.

Having said that, and although it's probably as blasphemous to criticise Patricia Routledge as it is Angela Lansbury, her accent as Julia Grant is more-or-less the same as that she uses for her north-of-England TV roles.


Updated On: 2/3/10 at 04:51 PM

[lvpblues]

Posted: 2/3/10 at 6:10pm

Clive Barnes noted her accent in his review for the NY Times.

She was basically the only one involved who escaped the musical with positive notices, some of which I've rounded up here (as well as some of the ecstatic raves for her Tony-winning turn in "Darling of the Day"):
Critical Round-Up on Patricia Routledge

[Scripps2]

Posted: 2/4/10 at 1:21pm

Thank you for the reviews as well. I'm not sure whether to be pleased that I'm in agreement with Clive Barnes or not!

[peerrjb]

Posted: 2/4/10 at 2:16pm

Thanks for sharing this. I saw Ms. Routledge in a pretty dreeeadddful show called "Love Match" in its Los Angeles try-out... (c.1967 or so...?) in which she was Queen Victoria (as I recall, Laurence Guittard was Albert, and Hal Linden - before "Rothschilds" had a pretty scene-stealing supporting role)... but she was such a delight. I'd forgotten just how wacky she can be....regardless of the material.

[best12bars]

Posted: 2/4/10 at 2:20pm

Great to hear this. Thanks for sharing it!

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 2/4/10 at 2:34pm

"Ms. Routledge would have stopped the show, if there had been one to stop."

Ouch. (And good for her.)

[lvpblues]

Posted: 2/4/10 at 5:53pm

I think it's one of the greater enigmas that Routledge didn't have a more successful career in American musicals. She never had a hit on Broadway; though she scored a great success with Pirates of Penzance in Central in 1980 (but for whatever reason didn't transfer).

"Love Match" and "Say Hello to Harvey" were the two musicals she did that folded out of town. In the latter (which was an unnecessary adaptation) she had a great showstopper (yet again) called "A Lousy Life" where she, as Veta, had a big, belty one-woman pity parade. It was a great song in an otherwise negligible score. Leslie Bricusse later recycled it in "Sherlock Holmes" for Julia Sutton as the landlady.

On the opening night of "Darling of the Day" in NY, she stopped the show with three of her numbers: "It's Enough to Make a Lady Fall in Love," "That Something Extra Special," and "Not on Your Nellie." The latter received an ovation so lengthy she asked "Is this for me" then in a beat pleaded the audience to let the show continue with utmost Anglo humility: "Ladies and gentlemen, if you please."

I recently received an email from a gentleman who was at the final Broadway performance of "1600" and said that her standing ovation for "Duet for One" went on for three and a half minutes.

What a talent.

Best,
~K

[twinbelters]

Posted: 2/4/10 at 6:08pm

LOVE Patricia! Thanks for this! BTW, her Love Match was Maltby and Shire's first attempt at a Broadway musical.

[best12bars]

Posted: 2/4/10 at 7:19pm

I always thought she would have made one hell of a good Mrs. Lovett.

[lvpblues]

Posted: 2/4/10 at 8:00pm

From "Balancing Act: The Authorized Biography of Angela Lansbury" by Martin Gottfried (pg 229):

Despite Sondheim's preference for Angela, Patricia Routledge remained Harold Prince's actress of choice to co star with Len Cariou in Sweeney Todd. The director even arranged for Cariou and Routledge to confer by telephone, while he was in Vienna making the movie version of A Little Night Music. In fact, that was the one reason why Sweeney Todd wasn't being produced in 1976.

Routledge, a splendid actress and a good singer, was not entirely sold on the show, and in fact, had the creeps just thinking about it. "You don't know what it's like," she told Cariou on the phone. "I was raised on that story. I'm not kidding you, it's scary having anything to do with it. For us that 'penny dreadful' is like Grimm's Fairy Tales. When we were kids, it was always something to be afraid of. Even my parents would say to me, 'You'd better be careful or we'll get Sweeney Todd after you.'"

I've also heard she turned down the London production, too. That said, she would have been phenomenal! Judy Kaye's Lovett reminded me a bit of her (PS, Routledge was the first choice for - and turned down - "Souvenir").
Updated On: 2/4/10 at 08:00 PM

[LindaTNo1]

Posted: 2/5/10 at 3:54pm

I have the boxed sets for Keeping Up Appearances and I love this amazing actress. She is Hyacinth all over! Just simply a great actress!

[Scripps2]

Posted: 2/5/10 at 3:54pm

I can never understand why writers (not once but twice) thought there was a musical in the life of Queen Victoria.

Having said that Routledge and Laurence Guittard do strike me as being very good casting. I wonder which of the Prime Ministers Hal Linden would have been?

I couldn't imagine her as Mrs Lovett though - she's too much of a jolly school maam get the deviousness and desperation of the character.

[peerrjb]

Posted: 2/5/10 at 10:45pm

Scripps, having just found my "souvenir program" from the 1968 "Love Match", I noted that Hal Linden played "Ernest", and as I sort-of recall, he was one of Albert's friends. And he was wonderful. Routledge and Guittard were pretty fine as well. (And the Danny Daniels choreography was particularly fun, especially in the big Act One number which had to do with a coronation.)