The songs from Act 1

The musical opens at 4 a.m. on a cold winter morning. One by one the below-stairs staff wake up and start to sing Below stairs, sleepily at first but then with spirit when Mr Town, the butler, arrives. Ladies maid Lucy is clearly not keen on being ordered about and to herself sings Nobody is better than me.

Now we’re in the park, where some suffragettes put over their views with the rousing Votes for women. The same day, PC Tom Snodgrasse serenades an apparently resistant Lucy with My girl.

As second-in-command to Mr Town, cook Doris Lovegrove displays her self-assurance with I am a very fine cook, a song shared by the chorus. Next, at a dance, we hear a waltz in the background.

Back below stairs, butler Mr Town explains his view of the social set-up by singing Order in our lives, aided by the chorus.

Masquerading as an American lady of means, Lucy has an assignation with an equally misleading character, Edward, and they sing the duet Would you like to take a little walk with me. As Edward leaves, Lucy’s other suitor Tom arrives and tells how in his youth he had a narrow escape when he met the girl’s mother for High tea.

Meanwhile, still determined to rise above her station, Lucy applies for a job as a chanteuse at the music hall, auditioning with My name is Arlette.

The songs from Act 2

Act 2 starts with a rousing chorus song at the seaside – High days and holidays. And very soon we hear about the unpredictability of love with One brief moment.

Back to the park scene, Lucy and Edward fall out when he refuses to help her after she was dismissed from service. But the tone lightens when Tom, Bert and Fred give vent to their ideas about women’s logic with Ridiculogical.

Having landed a job at the music hall, Lucy begins her career with the cheeky ditty A parlour maid, perhaps drawing on her real-life experiences.

The battlefield at Ypres is the next setting for a song, with Tom on sentry duty reflecting on his feelings for Lucy with the moving When I’m alone at night, sung to a backdrop of WW1 newsreel footage.

Back in Blighty, Lucy goes back to the house to recruit Emily as her maid and naturally crosses swords with the opinionated Mr Town: a defiant duet is the result. The show ends with Lucy singing When our boys come marching home before the rousing Finale.