Alexander Galbraith "Sandy" Wilson (19 May 1924 – 27 August 2014) was an English composer and lyricist, best known for his musical The Boy Friend (1953).

Biography

Wilson was born in Sale, Cheshire, England, and was educated at Harrow School. In 1942 he won a State Scholarship for a wartime course at SOAS and was assigned to study Japanese. He was thus one of the so-called 'Dulwich Boys' who studied at SOAS and boarded at Dulwich College. While there he put together a satirical review titled 'A Matter of Course' based on his experiences on the Japanese course. He was one of the few not to complete the course and he subsequently served in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps in Great Britain, Egypt and Iraq. After the war he went to Oriel College, Oxford and while a student wrote revues for the Oxford University Experimental Theatre Club and then attended the Old Vic Theatre School on a production course.

His autobiography, published in 1975, is titled I Could Be Happy.

Sandy Wilson died in Taunton, England in 2014, aged 90. His longtime partner was Chak Yui. The papers include produced and unproduced plays, mostly musicals but also plays for stage and TV, as well as drafts of Wilson's published and unpublished works including an autobiography, illustrated book, novels, articles, and short stories, along with correspondence.

Musicals

  • Caprice (1950)
  • The Boy Friend (1953)
  • The Buccaneer (1955)
  • Valmouth (1958)
  • Pieces of Eight (1959)
  • Divorce Me, Darling! (1964)
  • As Dorothy Parker Once Said (1969)
  • His Monkey Wife (1971)
  • The Clapham Wonder (1978, based on the novel The Vet's Daughter by Barbara Comyns)
  • Aladdin (1979)

Notes

References

  • Gale, Steven. Encyclopedia of British Humorists: Geoffrey Chaucer to John Cleese, Volume 2, Taylor & Francis, 1996, , p. 1216.
  • Sandy Wilson Papers at the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin
  • Sandy Wilson Neglected master of the British musical [Cached page retrieved from Archive.org]
  • Sandy Wilson at The Playwrights Database