The Pajama Game

The 1954 American musical The Pajama Game was still going strong on Broadway on October 13, 1955, when a successful London production opened for an eventual run of 588 performances. As demonstrated on the London cast album, the production succeeded by providing a near-copy of the Broadway version. A frequent problem with British productions of American shows is that the accents aren't very good, but that is not the case here. Of the principals, Max Wall and Frank Lawless sound somewhat British, but even their voices are not way off, and the rest of the cast sounds convincingly American. They also handle the score well, from the hit novelty tunes like "Hernando's Hideaway" and "Steam Heat" to the hit ballad "Hey There." Canadian Edmund Hockridge, in the leading male role played by John Raitt on Broadway, is equally big-voiced on such songs as "A New Town Is a Blue Town," and Australian Joy Nichols is just as good as the female lead. There's not much reason for an American who owns the original Broadway cast album to buy this very similar recording, but it's almost as good.