Review of She Shall Have Music

With the advent of 'Sound' at the end of the 1920s studios on both sides of the Atlantic saw 'musicals' as a licence to print money and inevitably the public soon had their fill and Hollywood got the message and turned to other genres until 42nd Street reversed the trend. For once the UK failed to follow Hollywood and throughout the thirties it seemed that anyone who had ever blown into paper wrapped around a comb was wheeled out and placed in front of a camera. In some cases - Gracie Fields, Jack Hulbert, Cicely Courtnidge, George Formby - the performers made a half-decent fist of it, whilst others, like Jesse Matthews, the Crazy Gang, etc, had already established themselves in the theatre. Another group ripe for exploitation was top orchestras and it wasn't too long before listeners were able to put faces to names like Jack Jackson, Harry Roy, and, as here, Jack Hylton. If you ignore the script - we are, for example, asked to believe that the entire Hylton orchestra would embark on an international cruise aboard a vessel that would struggle to cross the Serpentine - there are a couple of catchy tunes to beguile a moment or two, otherwise it's pretty ho hum.