The change of career from critic to librettist came after he expressed a harsh view of a George Edwardes production, "In Town" (1892); the producer challenged Hall to do better. The result was the hit of the West End theatre season, "A Gaiety Girl" (1893), with music by Sidney Jones and lyrics by Harry Greenbank. Hall's satirical book included lines that jabbed in the style of an upmarket gossip columnist. The smart society back-chat was very popular with audiences, and "A Gaiety Girl" has a claim to being the first true musical comedy. Hall's next libretto was for "An Artist's Model" (1895), another success for the same writing team. He repeated the snappy dialogue style of the previous work, but joined it with a romantic plot, which Hall added at the last minute after Edwardes hired the star Marie Tempest, for whom Hall quickly wrote a new role. The result established the formula for two further extraordinary successes by Hall and his collaborators at Daly's Theatre.