- The Crooked Mile - Part 4
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- About the gramophone recordings of The Crooked Mile -
 THE
CROOKED MILE [LP]
Original London cast: Elisabeth Welch, Millicent Martin, Jack
MacGowran, John Larsen, Alan Thomas, Elwyn Brook-Jones
Songs: Prologue; Lolly-Bye; Going Up; If I Ever Fall In Love
Again; Horticulture; Cousin Country; Free; Street Scene; Meet
The Family; Spare A Penny; I'll Wait; Other People's Sins; The
Strike; Down To Earth; Luigi
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- [EP] Peter Greenwell at the piano with the Theatre
Orchestra plays: Crooked Mile; Someone Else's Baby [not heard
on the original cast LP]; If I Ever Fall In Love Again; Lollybye;
Down To Earth; Meet The Family; Luigi
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The cover of the orchestral
selection EP
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A real feeling of anticipation surrounded the premiere of The
Crooked Mile. On its opening night, Marion Grimaldi (not in the
stage production) sang a song from it - in fact, a cut number
called 'The Heart of London' - on BBC's Tonight programme. Several
critics hailed the arrival of a masterpiece, but in the event
The Crooked Mile, handsomely mounted in an expensive production,
could not find enough audience to keep it going. |
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- Greenwell's muscular score for this portrait of romance and
derring-do in 1950s Soho was a significant development after
his mildly successful attempt at the quaint English musical that
was Twenty Minutes South. One of the main assets of this unjustly
forgotten score is Gordon Langford's exemplary orchestration.
It is impossible to imagine Greenwell's music being better dressed
than this, and Langford's achievement is to elevate the work
to a sphere on which The Crooked Mile has possibly no rival.
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- The score was speedily recorded immediately before the show
opened at the Cambridge Theatre. The Overture as heard here promises
a vibrant and thrilling experience that the subsequent tracks
do not quite provide. The chorus diction is deplorable, and a
handicap as it has so much to do. Millicent Martin shows why
she won good notices for her performance as the street-walker
Cora, especially when she joins co-star Elisabeth Welch in the
memorable 'Meet The Family', (Greenwell at his best). For Welch,
Greenwell wrote numbers with a considerable emotional undertow,
as in her main song 'If I Ever Fall In Love Again' (an appealing
avowal of future intention) and the lovely testament to devotion
'I'll Wait'. John Larsen as second male lead has a magnificent
if rambling second act solo, 'Down To Earth', with one of the
biggest orchestral finishes ever awarded any song in a 1950s
British musical. Jack MacGowran's affecting portrayal of the
hapless little no-gooder Jug Ears is less vocally secure (he
was an actor, not a singer) but his performance of 'Free' tugs
at the heart. The Crooked Mile might have been the beginning
of something really meaningful in British musicals; it is certainly
the best score of the 1950s 'Soho' shows, that include Make Me
An Offer, Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be and Expresso Bongo.
The music sounds as if it has been composed with intelligence
- but Greenwell never followed it with another success (his final
collaboration with Wildeblood, House Of Cards, had only 27 West
End performances in 1963, and wasn't recorded). Unrefined as
much of this recording is, it is nevertheless an accurate evocation
of a piece whose attractions are again revealed in Greenwell's
wonderfully rich piano selection given against a full orchestral
background in a very rare EP.
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- The original cast recording omits the following numbers listed
in the theatre programme:
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- Requiem For Joe (Jug Ears and Gang)
Someone Else's Baby (Sweet Ginger, Jug Ears)
Buy A Ticket (The Company)
The Crooked Mile (The Carver, Weed and Weed's Girl)
The War On Saturday Night (The Gang)
The Simple Life (Weed's Girl and Girls)
Monday Morning March (The Girls)
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- The working script of The Crooked Mile also includes a number
'Rhyming Slang' sung by Mortiss and Ensemble, which is not listed
in the theatre programme. An effective reprise of 'Free (sung
by Jug Ears at the close of Act One Scene 5) is also unlisted
in the programme. 'The Heart of London', cut before the West
End opening, is not included in the working script.
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- Roy Plomley's highly succinct review of The Crooked
Mile original cast recording in Theatre World
'… a disappointment. Peter Greenwell's music is only occasionally
memorable, and Peter Wildeblood's lyrics lack bite. However,
it is always a pleasure to listen to the warm rich voice of Elisabeth
Welch. Throughout the disc, I did not hear one single word that
the chorus sang.'
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