Morocco Bound: History and Key Facts

Morocco Bound is a farcical Edwardian musical comedy in two acts by Arthur Branscombe, with music by F. Osmond Carr and lyrics by Adrian Ross. It opened at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London, on 13 April 1893, under the management of Fred J. Harris, and transferred to the Trafalgar Square Theatre on 8 January 1894, running for a total of 295 performances. A young George Grossmith, Jr. was in the cast (where he made the most of the small role of Sir Percy Pimpleton by adding ad-libs), as was Letty Lind. Harry Grattan and Richard Temple later joined the cast.

This musical opened in the same year as Gilbert and Sullivan's Utopia, Limited and shared a number of features with that opera, including a distant, exotic locale, and both presented British archetypes as exemplars. Morocco Bound crystallized the music-hall influenced "variety musical" form and was more representative than Utopia of the prevailing taste of London theatre audiences, which was turning away from comic opera.

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