rope walker and with Mr. Welles, himself, as the magician." Life magazine called the show "the most overstuffed conglomeration of circus, magic, movies, old-fashioned spectacle and penny peep shows that Broadway has seen since the days of Barnum's Museum. … For part of the time Around the World is wonderful, noisy fun. But, handicapped by Cole Porter's disappointing music and a slapdash production, it ends up like a Victorian whatnot more cluttered with junk than gems." After New York drama critic Robert Garland wrote disdainfully that the show had "everything but the kitchen sink", Welles had a kitchen sink brought to him onstage during his curtain speech. During the show's run, Bertolt Brecht went to see it, and went to congratulate Welles backstage after the show, declaring it to be "the greatest American theatre he had ever seen". After Welles's death in 1985, critic Stanley Kaufmann recalled seeing Around the World, "his exuberant 1945 Broadway production … The show flopped, but sometimes I meet someone who saw it. Immediately we start to bore everyone else in the room by reminiscing about it." Adaptations During the show's run, Welles was also producing, directing, writing, presenting and co-starring in the anthology radio series The Mercury Summer Theatre of the Air. The show's first episode, broadcast on 7 June 1946, was a heavily abridged version of the musical, truncated to meet the radio programme's half-hour format. All of the principal cast participated, and the radio broadcast remains the only recording of any portion of Cole Porter's Around the World score. Songs include "Look What I Found" (Larry Laurence, Julie Warren), "There He Goes, Mr. Phileas Fogg" (Arthur Margetson) and "Should I Tell You I Love You?" (Mary Healy). After Welles's elaborate musical stage version of this Jules Verne novel, encompassing 38 different sets, went live in 1946, Welles shot some test footage in Morocco in 1947 for a film version. The footage was never edited, funding never came through, and Welles abandoned the project. Nine years later, the stage show's producer Mike Todd made his own award-winning film version of the book. The "Lost Musicals" series presented a concert version at the Lilian Baylis Theatre, Sadler's Wells, London, in June–July 2007. References External links Around the World production, songs, and plot at sondheimguide.com 1946 musicals Broadway musicals Musicals based on novels musical Plays by Orson Welles Lost American films 1940s lost films Musicals