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The Boy Friend

Shows · The Boy Friend

The Boy Friend is a musical by Sandy Wilson. Its original 1953 London production ran for 2,078 performances, briefly making it the third-longest running musical in West End or Broadway history until they were all surpassed by Salad Days.

Opened
1954
Performances
485
Type
Musical
Era
Golden Age
Music: Sandy Wilson

Productions3 on Broadway

1932 Morosco Theatre Original. June 7, 1932 · predates this show 15 performances
1954 Royale Theatre Revival. September 30, 1954 · Vida Hope 485 performances
1970 Ambassador Theatre Revival. April 14, 1970 · Gus Schirmer 111 performances

Every Broadway staging held in broadway-data, sourced to IBDB. 1 of these predate the show itself and are almost certainly a different work of the same name. Shown, marked, not merged. West End runs are not yet held.

Licensing 2 entries

UK Concord Theatricals Concord Theatricals available
US Music Theatre International Sandy Wilson's The Boy Friend matched on title alone — a lead, not a confirmed licensor Another house is also recorded for this work.

Read from the licensor's own pages and catalogues. Rights move, and an empty row means we have not confirmed a publisher, not that the show cannot be licensed.

In the literature37 passages

Thanks to its worldwide reception, No, No, Nanette was probably the most popular musical of the Twenties. It was also the quintessential example of the kind of song-and-dance show of that period that was affectionately satirized in Sandy Wilson’s spoof, The Boy Friend. book:broadway-musicals-show-by-show-seventh-edition-stanley-green-cary-ginell#p54

Divorce Me, Darling! was Sandy Wilson’s sequel to The Boy Friend , and it viewed the characters from a decade later. book:complete-book-of-1950s-broadway-musicals-the-dan-dietz#p407

Clockwise from above: Julie Andrews (center) and flappers in Sandy Wilson's spoof of the 1920s musicals, The Boy Friend (1954). book:at-this-theatre-100-years-of-broadway-shows-stories-and-botto-louis-viagas-rober#p253

A British musical, The Boy Friend, by Sandy Wilson, opened at the Royale on September 30, 1954, and ran for 236 performances. book:at-this-theatre-100-years-of-broadway-shows-stories-and-botto-louis-viagas-rober#p254

Described by Andrews herself as a “piece of lace,” The Boy Friend provided her with a prime opportunity for stardom. book:broadway-musicals-the-101-greatest-shows-of-all-time-bloom-ken-1949-vlastnik-fra#p227

Pal Joey in 1952 and 1954's On Your Toes, but aside from a brief Broadway transfer of the Lincoln Center production of Innie Get Your Gun, there were no more Broadway revivals of note until The Boy Friend in 1970. book:broadway-musicals-the-101-greatest-shows-of-all-time-bloom-ken-1949-vlastnik-fra#p262

Passages naming this show, found by keyword across 178 books. Where this show turns up in the literature, not curated trivia about it.

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