Recordings from the “The King And I” which ran for 946 performances from October 1953 starring Valerie Hobson, Herbert Lom and Muriel Smith. This Cd also features selections from the musical “Golden City” plus 5 bonus tracks by Muriel Smith.

"The King And I" arrived at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in October 1953 where it remained for over two years chalking up 946 performances. With music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein 2nd, it was based on Margaret Landon's "Anna and the King of Siam". The large cast was headed by two British stars of stage and screen - Valerie Hobson and Herbert Lom, who both scored personal triumphs in their first venture into musical theatre. American import Muriel Smith, fresh from portraying Bloody Mary in "South Pacific" in London, also had the critics praising her performance as Lady Thiang.

"Golden City" was set in South Africa and showed the friction between farmers and gold prospectors. The love interest was between an American engineer named Danny and the lovely white South African Sarie, played by Norman Lawrence and Julia Shelley. Opera star Muriel Brunskill played the girls' guardian but the star of the show was Eleanor Summerfield as Mabel Page, a music hall artist who moves north on news of the gold strike to open a saloon. "Golden City" had spectacle, vitality and a black dance team that was praised in most of the reviews but sadly it closed after 140 performances.

Our bonus tracks are popular recordings made by Muriel Smith - two songs from the English musical "Bet Your Life" - 'I Love Him As He Is' and 'All On Account Of A Guy', and in the same year she opened in "The King and I" she had a hit with 'Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me' which in its seventeen weeks in the English charts reached the third position - it was her only British hit. During this pop period she also recorded 'I'd Love To Fall Asleep' and 'Love', all included here.