AMG Review of Baker Street [Original Broadway Cast] [Bonus Tracks]

William Ruhlmann
All Music Guide

The 1965 Broadway musical Baker Street was based on the Sherlock Holmes stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, but it reminded many viewers of a very different, if contemporary three-named British writer, George Bernard Shaw, and his creation, Henry Higgins, in the play Pygmalion, adapted to the musical theater as My Fair Lady. As in My Fair Lady, the setting was Victorian London and an intelligent, upper-class bachelor with a misogynistic attitude was confronted with a vibrant woman, in this case an actress. The score, credited to Broadway newcomers Marian Grudeff and Raymond Jessel, but with last-minute interpolations by the veteran team of Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick (fresh from their biggest hit, Fiddler on the Roof), reinforced the similarities to the earlier show, mixing sprightly Cockney numbers with songs of self-assertion by the lead female character and depictions of both the lead male character's smarts ("It's So Simple") and his disinclination toward romantic entanglement (Bock and Harnick's "Cold Clear World"). The score was adequate, but, even with the outside additions, not distinctive enough to produce a memorable song that would live outside the show or do anything to buck up a production that suffered from too much plot and a lack of clear direction. (Was it a mystery? Was it a romance?) Although noted more for their non-musical performances, Fritz Weaver as Holmes and Inga Swenson as the actress also were adequate, but again, there wasn't a bravura acting performance to make the show compelling. The result was a relatively long-running (313 performances) failure that became a theatrical footnote.