The King and I (Original Broadway Cast 1951) / Original London Cast (1954)

Irony is not always the first quality that comes to mind when discussing a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, but it certainly rests at the heart of the creation of The King And I.

Even though the work was originally conceived and written as a vehicle for its starring lady, the show has come to linger in the public consciousness as a triumphant showcase for its leading man.

It all began in 1950, when Fanny Holtzmann, the super-agent behind musical comedy legend Gertrude Lawrence, set out to find a vehicle for her client.

Although once the toast of Broadway and London, it had been nine years since the opening of Lawrence's last solid-gold hit, Lady in the Dark.

In the intervening time there had been some less-than-winning plays (September Tide) and a disastrous film version of The Glass Menagerie. Ethel Merman had Annie Get Your Gun; Mary Martin had South Pacific. Gertie needed a hit musical of her own.

Holtzmann was sent a copy of Margaret Landon's 1944 best-seller Anna and the King of Siam, which had been turned into a successful 1946 movie starring Rex Harrison and Irene Dunne, and instantly saw it as a vehicle for her client.

But at first, no one else agreed. Both Cole Porter and Noel Coward declined writing the score, finding nothing to entice them in the story of the woman who came to Siam in the 1860s as the governess to the multitudinous children of the Siamese monarch.

A chance meeting with Dorothy Hammerstein, on the way to the delicatessen to get a sandwich for her husband, Oscar, started another set of wheels in motion and before long Broadway was surprised to hear that the unstoppable team of Rodgers and Hammerstein, fresh from their Pulitzer Prize for South Pacific, were about to start writing a vehicle for Gertrude Lawrence.

Rodgers, to be honest, had his doubts, both about Lawrence's tyrannical personality and her uncertain pitch, but Hammerstein's passion for the story won him over.

They had trouble initially finding someone willing to share the stage with their diva, however. Rex Harrison refused the opportunity to recreate his film role, saying 'I never bathe in the same water twice'.

Alfred Drake wanted an unheard of $5,000 a week and an out after six months, neither of which were acceptable. And Noel Coward, having declined to write the show, now turned down the male lead as well.

They were at a loss until a Russian-born actor of mixed Roumanian-Mongolian heritage sat squat-legged on the stage and accompanied himself on the guitar with a wild gypsy folk song. His name was Yul Brynner and although he had only appeared in one Broadway show, the 1946 Lute Song, his leading lady from that production told Rodgers and Hammerstein to 'grab him'.