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Poppy (musical)

Poppy
Poppy album cover.jpg
Original Recording
Music Monty Norman
Lyrics Peter Nichols
Book Peter Nichols
Basis The First Opium War
Productions 1982 Royal Shakespeare Company
1983 West End
1988 West End Revival
1998 West End Revival
2005 West End Revival
Awards Olivier Award for Best New Musical

Poppy is a musical comedy play set during the First Opium War. The play takes the form of a pantomime, complete with Dick Whittington (played as a principal boy), a pantomime dame, and two pantomime horses. The book and lyrics were written by Peter Nichols; the composer was Monty Norman.

The year is 1840. The Emperor of China warns the young Queen Victoria to know her place - "The Emperor's Greeting". The scene is set, panto-style, in a quaint, cardboard English village, "Dunroamin-on-the-Down", ancestral home of Sir Richard (Dick) Whittington and his widowed mother Lady Dodo.

Dick sets off with his manservant Jack Idle and the men of the village to seek their fortune in London or in the new towns of the Industrial Revolution. Jack is sad to leave his girlfriend, Sally. His horse Randy and her mare Cherry also fancy each other and have to be rebuked for their friskiness - "Whoa, Boy". Lady Dodo pines for the good old days, but Dick believes the age of gold is yet to come.

Sally, left with her mare, sings of her confusion. She likes Jack but pines for Sir Richard, who is also her legal guardian. Secretly, she and Dodo take off on their own for London.

In the City, Dick encounters Obadiah Upward, an up-and-coming merchant, who explains how their fortunes can be made in distant China from the sale of poppies. Dodo and Sally arrive and they agree to make the journey.

They sail to India, and, in the poppy fields, Dodo tells Upward why she loves him - "Nostalgie de la Boue". Dick and Jack reflect on British India, the East India Company and the Battle of Plassey in a Kipling-esque ballad - "John Companee"


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