Wonderful Town, The Lowry, Salford
Showbiz legend has it that Leonard Bernstein knocked out the music for Wonderful Town (the second of his three New York shows) in only five weeks. With Betty Comden and Adolph Green, who wrote the lyrics, he locked himself in a room with daylight shut out and walls painted grey. According to Bernstein's biographer Humphrey Burton, the air was so blue with cigarette smoke that they could barely see each other across t…