The Cherry Girl was an Edwardian musical comedy in two acts based on a book by Seymour Hicks with lyrics by Aubrey Hopwood and music by Ivan Caryll. It opened at the Vaudeville Theatre in London's West End on 21 December 1903. The original cast included Hicks, Constance Hyem, Courtice Pounds and Hicks's wife, Ellaline Terriss. From August 1904, the play went on tour to the Theatre Royal in Glasgow and other British provincial theatres. The play was described as a "children's fairy play", and its story involves a prize to be given by a Fairy Queen for the creation of a statue.
The original London cast was as follows:
Act 1
Act 2
The scenes for both acts are as follows:
Act 1 – Once Upon a Time
Act 2 – 100 Years Ago
Reviewing the first performance, The Manchester Guardian gave this summary of the plot:
The first act passes in a fairy kingdom "once upon a time," and the first scenes of act 2 in England a hundred years ago, and the last takes us back again to the fairy kingdom. The Fairy Queen is young and has enthusiasms for art, and determines to give a prize for a statue. A White Pierrot hopes to win it with a statue of Pansy, a girl whom he loves, and he tries to become famous and rich enough to make Pansy his wife. Now, Pansy is very like the Queen, and the two change places. The Queen, disguised, comes to the studio and learns that a Black Pierrot also loves Pansy, and in a fit of jealousy destroys the statue. To save the White Pierrot the agony of knowing that his work is ruined, she personates the statue, and determines that he shall have the prize after all. The White Pierrot, who thinks she is Pansy, tells her that his luck depends on the recovery of a ruby ring which Happy Joe, a highwayman, Black Pierrot's ancestor centuries back, stole from the Squire of Homewood, his own ancestor, and as he tells the story both fall asleep. In her dreams the Queen is transported to England, and finds the ring in a cake after a cake-walk, and, waking, reveals herself as the Queen, and promises the Prize to the White Pierrot.