DIVORCE ME DARLING! Book, Music and Lyrics by Sandy Wilson First produced at the Players Theatre, London in 1964, subsequently transferring to the Globe Theatre in 1965 This revised version was performed in 1979 by the Tavistock Repertory Company at the Tower Theatre, London Synopsis Divorce Me, Darling! is a nostalgic and amusing take-off of the musical comedies of the 1930s and a sequel to the technique used in The Boy Friend for the 1920s. The charming young pupils of Mme Dubonnet's finishing school who married their respective "boy friends" now come together again after ten years of marriage at the Hotel du Paradis in Nice. But the initial euphoria of married life has worn off and as they sing and dance their way through some catchy numbers events are misconstrued and partners change until everyone wants a divorce. The situation is finally taken in hand by Mme Dubonnet, alias Madame K the cabaret singer, and her long-lost husband Percy. Having saved the President's life, Percy is reunited with Mme Dubonnet and this sets the trend, nature doing the rest. As the "girls" return to their husbands each makes the startling announcement that there are several more happy events pending! STORY Prologue The action takes place over two days in the summer of 1936 on the French Riviera. The characters are older versions of the same characters introduced in The Boy Friend. Act I In Nice on the French Riviera in the foyer of the Hotel du Paradis greeted by the hotel manager Gaston with an assortment of hotel guests. The three naughty wives (Dulcie, Fay and Nancy) confess to Hortense, the hotel receptionist, they are on a spree having told their French husbands they were off to England to visit their families there. Polly, our heroine, arrives but without her husband, Sir Tony, busy at home handling their estate. The three naughty wives reappear with giddy greetings all around. Reflecting on their dreary mates who seem more concerned with matters of business than with matters of the heart. Hortense, hotel receptionist/confidante consoles the frustrated wives and cheers them up with the news that tomorrow night an international star, the mysterious Madame K, will appear in un Grand Cabaret. The American, Bobby van Husen, a bit tipsy, enters from the bar and offers to waltz, fox-trot, tango, or rumba if only he could find a partner. Hardly recognizing one another, Bobby and Polly meet and ask about each other's mate. He reports on his wife Maisie who is supposedly in London trying to round up a husband for his older sister Hannah. Bobby and Polly plan to have dinner together. Meanwhile, Mme Dubonnet confides in Hortense that she is the mysterious entertainer Madame K; she also admits she is Polly's stepmother, married to Percy who fled to South America after losing his fortune in the stock market crash of 1929. With the loss of their fortune and his escape to the New World, she was forced to pursue a lowly career in cabaret. She wants to keep the awful truth from Polly; she's changed her hair to blond and her name to Mme K (that ought to do it!) and expresses her hard, heart-breaking life behind the "glittering facade" of her theatrical calling. Cheering off stage heralds the arrival of the President of the South American nation of Monomania. Pierre, Marcel and Alphonse, the errant husbands of Nancy, Fay and Dulcie show up in Nice feeling like bachelors
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