The Theater: New Show on Broadway, Oct. 19, 1959

At the Drop of a Hat is the two-man "afterdinner farrago" that ran in London for 759 performances. The two men are Michael Flanders, who is vivacious and bearded and sails about in a wheelchair, and Donald Swann, who is mousy and bespectacled and stays put at the piano. Flanders wrote the words for the songs they sing, Swann the music. Flanders also does the talking between songs, which is now and then at Swann's expense. The two of them are notably British yet notably themselves—casual and informal, yet with the timing of the...

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