Theater: Threepenny Operetta

Half a Sixpence, a musical adapted from H. G. Wells's novel Kipps, comes from that nostalgic era that Kenneth Tynan once called "timeless Edwardia" ?a period now thought to have been simple, stalwart, gracious, leisurely, and completely immune to the fretful complexities of modern life.

The setting is the English resort town of Folkestone. Kipps (Tommy Steele) is an 'umble cockney draper's clerk who comes into a hunexpected inheritance, takes up wif a girl (Carrie Nye) from the local haristocracy and proceeds to get engaged. After a heady spell of high life, Kipps is disillusioned and marries a non-U charmer of...

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