Australian Women's Weekly (1933 - 1982), Wednesday 4 July 1951, page 16


TINY PATRICIA MORISON, star of the London production of Cole Porter's snappy musical "Kiss Me Kate," brushes her hair in her dressing-room at the Coliseum, London, after the show. Hollywood never gave ex-movie player Patricia a chance to use her singing voice, cast her mainly in dramatic roles.

Cole Porter's "Kiss Me Kate" is the latest Broadway musical to be a smash hit in Lon-don. Australians will have the chance to see it when it opens with a yet unpicked cast at His majesty's, Melbourne, late this year. Cole Porter has a modern actor and actress (played in the London production by Patricia Morison and Bill Johnson ) who are divorced but still in love appearing as the brawling couple Katharina and Petruchio in Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew." The result is that Shakespeare is handled irreverently, Porter displays his brilliance as tunesmith and writer of modern, witty lyrics, and the audience has wonderful time.

DANCERS led by Pamela Bromley, who comes from Neutral Bay, New South Wales, wait in the wings.

AFTER INTERVAL the curtain rises on one of the catchiest num-bers in the production, "Too Damn Hot," sung by Archie Savage, who plays Paul, the colored dresser to

Bill Johnson (above).

JULIE WILSON and DANIEL WHERRY, who also impersonate a pair of modern lovers, are married in their Shakespearian roles of Bianca and Lucentio in the play

within a play (below).

BILL JOHNSON (as Fred Graham, playing Petruchio) and Patricia Morison (as Lilli Vanessi, playing Katharina) have a first-class family row in between their lines from "The Taming of the Shrew." To keep Lilli in the play, which she has threatened to leave, Fred hires two gangsters, Danny Green (left) and Sydney James (right),

who nave "dese," "dem," and "dose" accents, and gives them parts as Shakespearian characters.

M HELPED by her dresser, Julie Wilson adjusts the fabuI wu flowered hat she wears when she sings "Tom, M Dick, and Harry," a slickly rhymed and sophisticated

number that almost stops the show (above).

FINALE cornes when Lilli Vanessi and Fred Graham are reconciled in "real life" after their performances as Katharina and Petruchio in Fred's production of

"The Taming of the Shrew" fright).

"BRUSH UP YOUR SHAKESPEARE" is another hilarious number in the Cole Porter manner, sung by Danny Green (left, in yellow

waistcoat) and Sydney James, with the chorus (above).