When the Yankees came

From the London opening of Oklahoma in 1947 until the age of Andrew Lloyd Webber in the 1970s, stage musicals were regarded as an almost exclusively American art-form. Sometime after their opening on Broadway, the best of them transferred to London’s West End. Over half the musicals you have ever heard of and continue to see revived and performed in local operatic societies originated during this period — Annie Get Your Gun, Carousel, Guys and Dolls, Kiss Me Kate, South Pacific, The Pajama Game, My Fair Lady, West Side Story, The Music Man, The King and I, The Sound of Music and Cabaret to name some of the more famous. But there were many others, such as Wonderful Town, Bye, Bye Birdie, Damn Yankees, Bells Are Ringing, and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, that are less well known and were not quite so successful but all American and almost as good.