 The play ran until Christmas 1956, a total of 276 performances.Samolo, a British possession in the south Pacific, was invented by Coward for his post-war musical "Pacific 1860", and reused not only in "South Sea Bubble", but in the author's only novel, "Pomp and Circumstance" (1960) in which the Shotters reappear, and in the play "Volcano", written in 1956 but not staged until 2012.The governor of the south seas island of Samolo, Sir George Shotter, is a liberal-minded Englishman from a modest family background.