Cavalcade is a musical spectacle written and composed by Noel Coward

Noël Coward

Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...

. It opened at the Theatre Royal

Theatre Royal, Drury Lane

The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a West End theatre in Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, a borough of London. The building faces Catherine Street and backs onto Drury Lane. The building standing today is the most recent in a line of four theatres at the same location dating back to 1663,...

 Drury Lane

Drury Lane

Drury Lane is a street on the eastern boundary of the Covent Garden area of London, running between Aldwych and High Holborn. The northern part is in the borough of Camden and the southern part in the City of Westminster....

 in the London West End on 13 October 1931, running for 405 performances. A film of it, with the same title, was produced in 1933. The TV series of the 1970s, Upstairs, Downstairs

Upstairs, Downstairs

Upstairs, Downstairs is a British drama television series originally produced by London Weekend Television and revived by the BBC. It ran on ITV in 68 episodes divided into five series from 1971 to 1975, and a sixth series shown on the BBC on three consecutive nights, 26–28 December 2010.Set in a...

, was based on Cavalcade.

Production

The plot followed the experiences of British family living in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, and was set against the major events of the period 1900-1930. The popular songs of at the time of each event were interwoven into the score. The large stage of the Drury Lane Theatre with its hydraulics and moving components made it exciting to watch. Events highlighted included; The Relief of Mafeking; the death of Queen Victoria; the sinking of the Titanic; and World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

.

The Cast of 200 included

• Mary Clare
  Mary Clare
  Mary Clare was a British actress who performed in films, on the stage, and later on television.-Biography:...
  
  
• Edward Sinclair
• John Mills
  John Mills
  Sir John Mills CBE , born Lewis Ernest Watts Mills, was an English actor who made more than 120 films in a career spanning seven decades.-Life and career:...
  
  
• Irene Brown
• Binnie Barnes
  Binnie Barnes
  Gertrude Maud "Binnie" Barnes was an English-American actress. She was born in Islington to a Jewish father and an Italian mother and was brought up Jewish, although she converted to Catholicism later in life....
  
  
• Una O'Connor
  Una O'Connor
  Una O'Connor was an Irish actress who worked extensively in theatre before becoming a notable character actress in film.-Life and work:...
  
  
• Arthur McCrae
• Moyra Nugent

Other composers' songs used

• "Soldiers of the Queen"
• "Goodbye Dolly Grey"
• "If you were the only Girl in the World"
• "Take Me Back to Dear Old Blighty
  Take Me Back to Dear Old Blighty
  "Take Me Back to Dear Old Blighty" is a music hall song written by Arthur J. Mills, Fred Godfrey and Bennett Scott in 1916. It was popular during the First World War and tells a story of three fictional soldiers on the Western Front suffering from homesickness and their longing to return to...
  
  "
• "Keep the Home Fires Burning"