"premiered in the West End at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on December 2, 1965 and ran for 794 performances.Champion directed and choreographed, and the cast starred Mary Martin as Dolly (after she, as well as Merman, had turned down the role for the original run of the show), Loring Smith as Horace Vandergelder (Smith had created the Horace role in the original Broadway production of "The Matchmaker", Johnny Beecher as Barnaby, Garrett Lewis as Cornelius, Mark Alden as Ambrose Kemper, and Marilynn Lovell as Irene Molloy.