He once offended Queen Victoria and was exiled to the South Pacific (shades of Gauguin), but Edward VII has succeeded to the throne, and Farll has been recalled to London to receive a knighthood.
Appalled by "society's" expectations of its "darling of the day" (a common Victorian/Edwardian term meaning something like "fashionable celebrity") Farll seizes the chance to "get out of the world alive" when his faithful butler Henry Leek suddenly dies, and their identities are confused by an official.
Instead of correcting the error, Farll quietly assumes the identity of the deceased, and Leek's corpse is officially buried in Westminster Abbey as the famous artist.
He soon finds himself married to Alice Challice, a bright, well-to-do widow who had been corresponding with the real Henry Leek – and settles down to a happy "upper working class" existence.
Just as it looks as if he will be compelled to resume his real identity, a piece of truly Gilbertian nonsense brings all to a satisfactory conclusion, and he is allowed to stay plain Henry Leek after all.
The book was first written by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall, with Peter Wood to direct and Geraldine Page to star, from lyrics by E.Y.
Choreography was by Lee Theodore, staging by Noel Willman, scenic design by Oliver Smith, costumes by Raoul Pene Du Bois, and lighting by Peggy Clark.
[11] In 2010, the London Discovering Lost Musicals series presented the show in concert at the Oondatje Wing Theatre – National Portrait Gallery, starring Nicholas Jones as Priam and Louise Gold as Alice.
[12] The show received its first full production in England at the Union Theatre in March 2013, with James Dinsmore as Priam, Katy Secombe as Alice and Rebecca Caine as Lady Vale.
"The high point of 'Darling of the Day' is a thumping good production number in the local pub ("Not on Your Nellie") in which Miss Routledge, somewhat sozzled, kicks up her heels with a bunch of the boys."
"[5] Walter Kerr wrote that "the score is one of the very best Jule Styne has ever composed for the theater", that Harburg's "lyrics are much more fun than the cloddish rhyming we're accustomed to" and the book "is full of pleasant surprises."
He praised Routledge:"the most spectacular, most scrumptious, most embraceable musical comedy debut since Beatrice Lillie and Gertrude Lawrence came to this country as a package.
The book is criticized as having a "hopelessly silly plot and an endlessly chatty libretto ..." but "the score is a lost musical gem that is well worth hearing".
The biggest problem was not the book or score, but simply that Darling of the Day played like a flop, lacking in energy and stodgy in the extreme.
But the fundamental story is sound, and, using most of the score and revising the book a bit, a talented director might be able to make Darling of the Day into a decent evening.