Me and My Girl

Me and My Girl
1986 Broadway Cast Recording
Music	Noel Gay
Lyrics	Douglas Furber L. Arthur Rose
Book	Douglas Furber L. Arthur Rose
Productions	1937 West End 1939 U.K. Television 1952 West End revival 1985 West End revival 1986 Broadway 2006 UK tour
Awards	1985 Olivier Award Musical of the Year

Me and My Girl is a musical with music by Noel Gay and its original book and lyrics by Douglas Furber and L. Arthur Rose. The musical is set in the late 1930s and tells the story of an unapologetically unrefined cockney gentleman named Bill Snibson, who learns that he is the 14th heir to the Earl of Hareford. The action is set in Hampshire, Mayfair and Lambeth.

The musical had a successful original run in the West End in 1937, and was turned into a film in 1939, titled The Lambeth Walk, named after one of the show's songs. "The Lambeth Walk" was also the subject of a news story in The Times of October 1938: "While dictators rage and statesmen talk, all Europe dances – to The Lambeth Walk." The show also included the song "The Sun Has Got His Hat On".

After returning to the West End briefly in 1952, the musical's book received a revision by Stephen Fry with Mike Ockrent in the 1980s. This revised version of Me and My Girl also included the song "Leaning on a Lamp-post". The show was revised again and revived in the West End in 1984, where it received two Laurence Olivier Awards and ran for eight years. The same production was revived on Broadway in 1986 for a three-year run. The show won three of 11 Tony Award nominations.

Me and My Girl originally opened on the West End at the Victoria Palace Theatre on 16 December 1937 and starred Lupino Lane. Lane had previously played Bill Snibson in a horseracing comedy play, Twenty to One, that opened in 1935. Me and My Girl was conceived as a fresh vehicle for the character. At first attracting little notice, the production gained immediate success after a matinee performance was broadcast live on BBC radio, following the cancellation of a sporting event. On 1 May 1939 a performance was televised from the theatre, one of the first times such was done. The original West End production ran for 1,646 performances.