There's a Girl in My Soup (play)

There's A Girl In My Soup is a stage comedy written by Terence Frisby.

It opened in 1966 at the Globe Theatre and ran for six and half years until 1973 - over a thousand performances - to become the longest-running comedy in the history of the West End. After three and a half years at the Globe, the show transferred to the Comedy Theatre. It was unprecedented for a comedy to run for such a long time. This record was later broken by No Sex Please, We're British and then Run for Your Wife.

The show was directed by Bob Chetwyn and featured Donald Sinden, Barbara Ferris, Jon Pertwee and Clive Francis. The producer was Michael Codron. The record-breaking success of the show put Codron on the map as a producer.

Set in the glamorous world of the 1960s, it tells the story of a smooth-talking TV chef (based on "The Galloping Gourmet", Graham Kerr) Robert Danvers (Sinden), who falls for a girl, Marion (Ferris), who is half his age. It was in this play that the catchphrase, "My God, but you're lovely" was born.

The show transferred to Broadway with Gig Young in the main role, where it also enjoyed success, but not on the same level as in the West End.

In 1991, Marc Sinden (Donald Sinden's son) played his father's part (Robert Danvers) in the 25th anniversary production at the Mill at Sonning Theatre with Louise English as Marion and John Challis as Andrew and co-directed by the author Terence Frisby.

It was later made into a film (There's a Girl in My Soup) with Goldie Hawn and Peter Sellers, directed by Roy Boulting, for which Frisby won The Writers' Guild Of Great Britain Award for Best Screenplay in 1970. The film was also a financial success, but there are some who felt the magic of the play was lost by the charmless performance of Sellers.

See also

• There's a Girl in My Soup, the film adaptation of the play.

External links

• Playbill of original New York production

References