Stephen Crocker

In a few weeks’ time we will be sharing with Norwich audiences our first ever co-production of a large-scale new musical, The Land of Might-Have-Been.

Based around the early life of feminist icon, writer, and campaigner, Vera Brittain, it uses the songs of Ivor Novello (1893-1951) as a kind of ‘jukebox’, not wholly dissimilar to what a show like Mamma Mia! does with ABBA’s greatest hits. 

Novello’s name is possibly most associated nowadays with the Ivor Novello Awards, which recognise the very best songwriters and composers.

However, during the peak of his career as a composer in the 1930s, the commercial success and audience popularity of his musical shows and songs was unparalleled.

It was without a doubt equal to that of Andrew Lloyd Webber 50 years later: an incredible popularity which thrives today and is set to endure well into the future.  So why is Novello’s work and popular success during his life not better known today?

The first answer is obvious in that Novello died suddenly aged 58 in 1951 and this meant he fell on rough terrain with historians.

Having been gay all his life and leaving no children, just his partner of 35 years, Bobbie Andrews, his place in history would need to be vehemently reclaimed as society changed in the decades that followed.

Without this, his ‘socially unacceptable’ life that was unfortunately cut short could easily be used to over-shadow his work and keep him in a kind of historical box.

Novello’s approach to his sexuality during his life made him neither prominent in queer history for being part of the camp-coterie famed for entertaining the Royal Family (such as Noel Coward and Cecil Beaton) nor did it make him truly notorious (like Oscar Wilde); though I love the epithet that he ‘gathered lovers like lilacs’ (a reference to one of his famous songs!).

It has been glorious to see the lives of great LGBTQ+ artists – lives lived in the shadows while they were alive – brought into the light over the past 20 years.

Sadly, he has slipped through history’s net once again in this process.

Novello died with no formal honour or recognition, even though perhaps his most famous song Keep the Home Fires Burning was credited with being a major morale booster during the First World War. (Incidentally, by the age of 58 Lloyd Webber had not only been knighted but given a seat in the House of Lords.) 

We are exposed to this ‘popularity problem’ when we’re at school.

Most of us can remember who the popular kids were and some of us (though not me I hasten to add) might have been one of them.

They were always surrounded by other kids and led what we’d now call ‘groupthink.’ But the truly popular kids were also the ones liked by the teachers and they knew how to play this dynamic for mutual benefit.

They were cheeky but not naughty, so they got noticed; they challenged but always eventually acquiesced, so were loyal. It meant they were powerful allies for the teachers and that strengthened their popular power base.

They not only had mass appeal, but they aligned this with being accepted by the establishment.

It’s simple when you think about it.

Novello’s mass appeal during his life cannot be denied and why his work got over-looked we can only speculate upon.

However, I believe it’s time to put right that historical wrong and The Land of Might-Have-Been seeks to do exactly that. 

The Land of Might-Have-Been is on at Norwich Theatre Royal, from July 25-30.

Tickets via the box office, on 01603 630000 or norwichtheatre.org

Watch the latest episode of Norwich Theatre Talks out now: Stephen talks with Iain Farrington who arranged Ivor’s music and the lead, Audrey Brisson who plays Vera Brittain.

Stephen Crocker is chief executive and creative director of Norwich Theatre