The original production of the show was mounted by Charles B. Cochran at London's new St Martin's Theatre, opening on 23 November 1916 and starring Gertie Millar, George Graves, Nat Ayer and Ida Adams.

How She Could Yacki Hacki Wicki Wacki Woo", an interpolated "Hawaiian" number by Albert von Tilzer, was sung in the 1916–1917 London production by Ida Adams.

[6] With a female choir and the St. Martin's Theatre Orchestra conducted by James Sale, Adams recorded the song for the His Master's Voice at the Gramophone Company studios in Hayes on 11 January 1917.

in The Secrets of a Showman (1925): "I had engaged Gertie Millar, George Graves, Ida Adams, Nat D. Ayer, Hugh E. Wright, a French actress new to London, Madeline Choiseuille – and perhaps the prettiest collection of girls ever seen on any stage in the world.

Miss Gertie Millar seemed to wake up to give us a delicious piece of nonsense, the very comic song and dance called "The Fool of the Family".

Mr. George Graves, as funny old Bunn, seemed to be feeling his way; Mr. Hugh E. Wright was too unrelieved in melancholy, and Mr. Nat D. Ayer had to sing so many songs about girls, cuddling, kissing and so forth that he must have been as sick of the subject as we were.

"[10] Almost sixty years later, in 1975, a critic noted that "Houp La ... did a lot towards elevating the chorus girl to something more than a grinning background to the stars.