Wartime hit in the West End
QUESTION What is known of Chu Chin Chow, a very long-running show in the 1900s? The late-Victorian era saw great public interest in the mysteries of the Orient. The Arabian Nights adaptation Kismet, a 1911 play by edward Knoblock, was a roaring success.
This inspired Australian director and theatre manager Oscar Asche (1871-1936) to write and produce Chu Chin Chow, a musical based on the story of Ali Baba And The 40 Thieves.
it premiered at his Majesty’s Theatre, london on August 3, 1916, and ran for 2,238 performances over five years, a record that stood until The Mousetrap exceeded it in 1958.
Asche directed and played the lead role of Abu hasan, leader of the 40 thieves (Chu Chin Chow refers to hasan when impersonating one of his victims). The production also starred Asche’s wife lily Brayton and the former D’Oyly Carte opera company star Courtice Pounds.
Asche’s script was strewn with fauxArabian speech, aphorisms and foodstuffs, and the lyrics followed suit.
Frederick Norton’s score was hardly distinguished, filled with neo-Arabesque flourish — yet the public loved it. The spectacular sets and eastern costumes by designer Percy Anderson were just the thing required in wartime Britain. it was de rigueur for every soldier to see Chu Chin Chow before going overseas.
The play grossed more than £3 million, but it flopped in America. it spawned two film versions, in 1925 and 1934, now largely forgotten. Asche tried to emulate the success with Cairo, ‘a mosaic in music and mime’, but it seemed that interest in grandiose celebrations of the Orient had long-since diminished.
Emma Bright, London, N11. QUESTION How did a suburb in Zimbabwe’s capital Harare come to be called Borrowdale? While many former colonies bear the mark of British occupation through place names, such as harare’s former name Salisbury, Borrowdale was named after a person — British pioneer henry Borrow.
Born in lanivet, Cornwall on March 17, 1865, he was the eldest son of Rev henry John Borrow, the Rector of lanivet.
he left Sherborne School in 1881 to seek his fortune in South Africa. in 1882, he was working on an ostrich farm near Cradock in the Cape Colony.
in 1884, he joined the 2nd Mounted Rifles (Carrington’s horse) and travelled to Bechuanaland (now Botswana) on the Warren expedition to assert British sovereignty in the face of encroachments from Germany and local Boer settlers.
he joined the Bechuanaland police a year later, where met his friends and future business partners, Frank Johnson and American Maurice heany.
in 1890, he joined the Pioneer Column Corps and travelled to Mashonaland ( northern Zimbabwe). Going into business in Fort Salisbury (later harare) with heany and Johnson, he bought up farm land and mining claims. he created his estate, which he named Borrowdale, where he constructed the first man-made dam in the country for irrigation.
lord Randolph Churchill described it as ‘the most important and conspicuous in the settlement ’.
Borrow took part in the Matebele War (1893) commanding ‘B’ troop of the Salisbury Column. he fought at the first battle of the Shangani and Mbembesi. he was killed with his patrol in action at the Shangani River on December 4, 1893.
Borrow, only 28 at the time of his death, was described as a good all-round athlete and shot, and thoroughly kind-hearted, with many friends .
in Borrow’s time his estates extended over 2,000 hectares. Today, Borrowdale is a residential suburb in the north of harare, home to the famous Borrowdale racecourse. L.T Smith, Oxford. QUESTION In the Sixties TV cigarette advert with a voiceover saying, ‘You are never alone with a Strand’, who was the actor in a white mac and what else did he appear in? FuRTheR to the earlier answer, following the collapse of the Strand, W.D. & h. O. Wills turned it around by rebranding their product embassy.
in stark contrast to the ‘lonely man’ advert, the new commercials showed a man at a social gathering, ignored by everyone. he produces a pack of embassy, starts offering them around and becomes the life and soul of the party.
embassy became the biggest- selling cigarette of the Sixties.
Ian Cross, Walsall, West Mids.
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