Top Banana had become an enormous hit. . . . . . . . . a sort of "audience show". . . . . . . . . and yet it still had huge admirers in the world of the top theatre critics!!
"Mr Silvers is that tall, lean, toothy mountebank with a bald head and horn-rimmed glasses. After learning his trade the hard way, he took centre of the stage in High Button Shoes in 1947. That was funny enough for most purposes. But in Top Banana Mr Silvers is completely hilarious, throwing gags helter-skelter at high speed and running through some uproarious burlesque routines. . . . . . . . . This column hopes he will husband his strength as frugally as possible. For this is a very funny show, and things being as they are at the moment, the country needs it sorely." Brookes Atkinson (famed New York Times drama critic)
"The one man among the newer comics who seems worthy of the company of such surviving masters as Bobby Clark and Bert Lahr is Phil Silvers, and he has never been in better form than he is in Top Banana. . . . . . . . .It has some of the funniest scenes in the recent history of the theater . . . . . . . . When Mr Silvers and his colleagues get their hands madly entangled in an elopement, I found myself recognizably close to hysterics." Richard Watts of the New York Post.
Top Banana played at the Winter Garden Theatre, Broadway from November 1, 1951 until October 4, 1952. 350 performances of the show had been expertly turned out. Then it went on for a further two more years on a tour of America that would end in Los Angeles.
At the March, 1952 Tony Awards® the Best Actor in a Musical went to Phil for Top Banana. Nobody could deny him the win after all of his tremendous performances.
Indeed, the role of Jerry Biffle won Phil every possible award that "treading the boards" could offer: As well as the Tony he was given accolades from Variety, Billboard, the New York Drama Critics Circle, Donaldson and Sylvania......phew!
This was Phil Silvers at his peak or was it?
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