Poppy (1982 musical)

This article is about the Peter Nichols musical. For other uses, see Poppy (disambiguation).

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.

It 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 at the Landor Theatre.

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"

Original cast

Tao-Kuan, Emperor of China	Tony Church
Queen Victoria	Jane Carr
Jack Idle, a manservant	Stephen Moore
Randy, his horse	Christopher Hurst and Andrew Thomas James
Sally Forth, a schoolmistress	Julia Hills
Cherry, her mare	Noelyn George and Sara Finch
Lady Dodo, the dowager Lady Whittington	Geoffrey Hutchings
Dick Whittington, the squire	Geraldine Gardner
Obadiah Upward, a London merchant	Bernard Lloyd
Lin Tse-Tsii, Commissioner to Canton	Roger Allam
Teng T'ing Chen, Viceroy of Kwuantung	Brian Poyser
Lord Palmerston	David Whitaker

External links

• Poppy at The Guide to Musical Theatre
• Poppy production notes from the Chelsea Players
• Pantomimic Conventions in the plays of Peter Nichols by Christine Youssef
• Data record of Poppy at the Barbican from the Royal Shakespeare Company Performance Database
• Data record of Poppy at the Adelphi from the Royal Shakespeare Company Performance Database
• Nightingale, Benedict, "A Colonial Spoof on the London Stage", The New York Times, October 24, 1982