|
|
- REVIEWING THE REVUES
Some favourite revues on record …
- Revue has had mixed fortunes when it comes to the recording
studio, but here are reviews of several almost forgotten gems
…
- Airs On A Shoestring
Alec Wilder - Clues To A Life
(more a collection of songs than a revue proper
- and the only American show in the list)
Cranks
4 To The Bar
Living For Pleasure
Look Whose Here!
The Lord Chamberlain Regrets
One Over The Eight
Pieces Of Eight
-
-
- AIRS ON A SHOESTRING
Written by Michael Flanders and Donald Swann
Studio Recording (1974) cast: Michael Flanders, Donald Swann,
Julian Orchard, Pat Lancaster, Anne Rogers, Charlotte Mitchell
Tracks: There's A Hole In My Budget; The Seven Ages Of Women;
Guide To Britten; Excelsior; Last Of The Line
-
- One of the most celebrated of English intimate revues, Laurier
Lister's Airs On A Shoestring ran at the Royal Court Theatre
from April 1953 for 772 performances. The starry cast was headed
by Max Adrian and Moyra Fraser, but the original company didn't
get to record either songs or sketches. Twenty years later, the
writers Michael Flanders and Donald Swann met for a radio broadcast
of some of their revue numbers, written before they leapt to
fame as a double act and sent those boring 'animal' songs (what
person of a certain generation does not know 'The Hippopotamus
Song'?) into the atmosphere. They were responsible for only some
of the Air's items, but the five given here show their skill
in the genre. As with so much revue stuff, time has not been
particularly kind to it, but there is still pleasure to be had
from 'The Seven Ages Of Women', an ingenious idea for a company
number, doing for the distaff side what Shakespeare had failed
to do in his 'Seven Ages Of Man'. The 'Guide To Britten', a witty
tour of Benjamin Britten's works, wears well too. Fortunately,
the modest company gathered for the occasion is another reason
to take an interest, but they can't disguise the way this material
has aged.
-
- ALEC WILDER -
CLUES TO A LIFE
Music and lyrics by Alec Wilder.
Conceived by Barbara Finn and Elliot Weiss
Original American cast: Christine Andreas, Keith David, Craig
Lucas, D'Jamin Bartlett
Tracks: The Echoes Of My Life; Photographs; That's My Girl; Unbelievable;
Give Me Time; It's So Peaceful In The Country; Where Is The One?;
Don't Deny; Moon And Sand; I'd Do It Again; I'll Be Around; While
We're Young; Night Talk; A Long Night; Blackberry Winter; Trouble
Is A Man; You Wrong Me; The Worm Has Turned; Ellen; Did You Ever
Cross Over To Snedens?; Mimosa And Me; I See It Now
-
- This four-hander revue, presented off-Broadway in October
1981 following the death in the previous year of its composer-subject,
Alec Wilder, has translated into a gem of a recording, one of
the very finest compilations of a composer's work ever committed
to disc. Wilder was one of the least known, but certainly one
of the most talented and individually-voiced, of American composers,
perhaps best known as the author of the definitive history of
American Popular Song. He had a natural eccentricity. For 50
years he lived in a room at the Algonquin Hotel in New York,
eschewing possessions and living out of three suitcases which
he never unpacked. He would take train journeys anywhere at a
moment's notice. An avid reader, he gave away every book he bought.
The only things he kept were his letters, and he named his autobiography
Letters I Never Mailed - Clues To A Life. His songs reflect a
deep sadness at the loss of love and the understanding that comes
only through deep experience, and it was necessary, if this tribute
was to work, for those creating it to have a complete empathy
with Wilder's attitude. That this was gloriously so is confirmed
here, in a programme of songs that includes snatches of Wilder's
writing. These are in many cases as touching as the songs, and
it is all wonderfully done by the committed young cast. Not for
Wilder the tough, wise lyric, for his work is testament to his
doubt of what happiness is, and how it might be found. There
is the melancholy of 'Where Is The One?, the Thurber-like catalogue
of little disasters that are 'Unbelievable', and the need to
escape from the pressures of city life in 'It's So Peaceful In
The Country'. But so many echoes of Wilder's existence are suggested
here, most movingly for me by Craig Lucas trying to recall a
lost enchantment in 'Did You Ever Cross Over To Snedens?' and
in the almost unbearably lovely 'I See It Now', in which Wilder,
older and wiser, understands what he could not in his youth.
This is remarkable material, shaped with real understanding.
Elliot Weiss's arrangements for piano, drums and double bass
know what these songs are all about. It may be that Wilder only
wrote one complete musical play score (Kittiwake Island), but
the quality of his work puts most composers in the musical theatre
to shame.
-
- CRANKS
Written and devised by John Cranko
Music by John Addison
Original London cast: Hugh Bryant, Anthony Newley, Annie Ross,
Gilbert Vernon
Tracks: Who's Who/ Adrift; Where Has Tom Gone?; Cold Comfort;
Passacaglia; Who Is It Always There; Chiromancy; New Blue; Valse
Anglaise; Don't Let Him Know You; Sea Song; Telephone Tango;
I'm The Boy You Should Say 'Yes' To; Metamorphosis; Would You
Let Me Know?; Dirge; Arthur, Son Of Martha; Goodnight
-
- Lauded by critics when it appeared at the St Martins in March
1956 for 223 performances, Cranks created a little world of its
own, endearing, cheeky, innocent, yearning; a rare attempt to
establish a new surrealism in British theatre. It seemed to reach
things never reached by revues before, but having got there,
no other writers followed on. The piece was the work of the Sadlers'
Wells' choreographer, John Cranko, and marked the musical theatre
debuts of its four appealing stars. The mood is distinct, absolutely
rooted in the young man's world of the mid-1950s, and John Addison's
music establishes a sound world of its own, with its small orchestra
of harpsichord, piano, harp, double bass and woodwind. The combination
spins a magic over the proceedings from the start, when the company
introduce themselves in 'Who's Who', one of the best openings
to any revue ever. So much that is good follows. Black American
Hugh Bryant has three brilliant solos, including the haunting
'Where Has Tom Gone?' and 'Sea Song', in which a sailor recalls
a woman he has lost: 'She was young, so young, But her eyes were
old.' Anthony Newley excels (and how refreshing to have the voice
before it took on the unattractive edge of later years), as does
Annie Ross, especially good in 'Blue', a sort of directory of
pornographic suggestion, with Ross insisting sinuously that 'I
think it's awfully silly, To say that if you're blue you're chilly
… I do the thing best left unsaid, And I can do it on my
head.' Her duet with Newley 'Who Is It Always There?' has that
other-worldy quality that breaks out everywhere in this show,
and does for all those lovey-double 'charm' duets that used to
popup in the second half of revues: there is something of the
night here, something not quite understood, and the effect is
wonderful. Addison's music can really take flight when necessary,
as in 'Valse Anglaise', evoking the summer of London parks with
the most charming abandon. Cranko and Addison went on to collaborate
on the 1958 musical Keep Your Hair On which collapsed (unrecorded)
after 20 performances. An attempt to recreate the success of
Cranks had music by David Lee, but New Cranks didn't even get
into the West End (it was recorded, but I have never seen a copy).
And Cranks, after a 40 performance visit to Broadway following
the London run, was forgotten.
- 4 TO THE BAR
Devised by Charles Ross, and including material by Vivian Ellis,
Madeleine Dring, Bryan Blackburn, Rose Hill and Geoffrey Rand
Original London cast: Ian Wallace, Rose Hill, Peter Reeves, Bryan
Blackburn
Tracks: Uproarious Devon; Stock Exchange Art; She Moved Through
The Fair; Deidre; Strike; Li-Chee Fair; Blocking The Bun; Rich
Clifford And His Shudders
-
- Sometimes it's not enough to be harmless, but this littlest
of revues managed to follow Beyond The Fringe into London, running
at the Criterion Theatre for 144 performances from February 1962.
A friendly four-hander evening built around the avuncular but
somehow uninteresting bass-baritone, Ian Wallace (in his own
words here 'a genial, fat-faced fellow') Charles Ross's concoction
mixed Wallace's after-dinner stories of operatic exploits with
satire (of sorts) from the new comedy writing and performing
team Bryan Blackburn and Peter Reeves, and old fashioned revue
numbers from Rose Hill. On record, captured during a live performance,
it's uneven. Some of the comedy is very stretched, as in the
parody 'Rich Clifford and His Shudders', and the topicality of
the material hasn't helped it to survive over 40 years. There
is the opportunity to hear our host sing two little known numbers
by Vivian Ellis, 'Stock Exchange Art' and 'Uproarious Devon'
but Wallace has an uncanny knack of making everything sound like
Gilbert and Sullivan. There are high hopes for Madeleine Dring's
rarely heard revue song 'Deirdre' but Rose Hill's performance
doesn't quite come off as well as it might have in the studio.
But it's a marvellous number. Hill also gives us her lesson on
how to play the recorder 'Blocking The Bung', apparently hilarious
on stage, but robbed of the visual element, too much is lost.
As Wallace tells the audience, in an age of the sick joke, 4
To The Bar is probably 'the last of the "well" shows'.
We certainly are unlikely to see its like again. And the record
has the magical sound of the curtain at the Fortune going up:
twice!
-
- LIVING FOR
PLEASURE
By Arthur Macrae
Music by Richard Addinsell
Original London cast: Dora Bryan, Daniel Massey, George Rose,
Patience Collier, Janie Marden, Susan Beaumont
Tracks: Living For Pleasure; Bookends; Alone With A Love Song;
The Lady; Mr Wrong; No Ball; Dustbin Follies; Sloane Street Ladies;
Pretty Miss Brown; Shepherding Sheep; Lost Without Your Love;
Friends; Love You Good, Love You Right; No Better Than I Should
Be
-
- My desert island choice of revue recording would be this
fascinating echo of a now dead art form that opened at the Garrick
Theatre in July1958. Living For Pleasure was written by Arthur
Macrae, a name seldom heard today, but a master of revue, sharp
and intensely witty without ever approaching mockery or satire.
There is no doubt that the show's success was in large part due
to the excellent cast, but mostly to its star, Dora Bryan. She
is probably the greatest revue artist this country has ever had;
there is something about the short spurt of the revue item that
suits her admirably. She does what the best revue artists should
do: make you laugh, make you think, make you weep. Living For
Pleasure is unusual, too, in that its musical content is not
only prominent but in the front league of theatre writing. Richard
Addinsell, the prolific and brilliant writer of so much film
music, set Macrae's lyrics with an assurance and swagger that
gives this show wings. It has at least two numbers that are certainly
revue classics. Dora Bryan's 'No Better Than I Should Be' in
which she tells of her life as a streetwalker, is a beautifully
written, sensitive and poignant item, and Bryan's recording of
it should be in every theatre collection. Then there is 'The
Pretty Miss Brown', the sort of charm number, with the company
in period dress against a picturesque backcloth, that vanished
long ago. In that, too, Miss Brown is stunningly effective in
Macrae's simple but sting-in-the-tail lyric. Listening to Addinsell's
music, here, one knows that he totally understands the genre
he is writing for. On the record, Bryan's co-stars, George Rose
and Patience Collier don't get much of a chance, though Collier
has a funny song about 'The lady who sits in the loo at the Ritz'.
Daniel Massey is a striking male ingenue, especially good in
'Shepherding Sheep' when Macrae and Addinsell once more turn
the mood from sly laughter to a sense of regret at passing time.
This leaves Janie Marden carrying a torch through the show with
several appealing songs, not least 'Lost Without Your Love',
a song that grows in stature as it develops. She, too, is excellent
in all she does. There are two sketches, in both of which Bryan
is almost as hilarious as she must have been on stage. In 'No
Ball' Cinderella (Bryan) is told by the Fairy Godmother to 'Fetch
me a pumpkin. I'm going to turn it into a fairy coach.' 'And
what's he going to teach me?' asks Bryan. The Garrick's pit orchestra,
small and with a prominent piano, is faultless in evoking this
world of charm. It's a show that belongs in a London of Derry
and Tom's Roof Garden, of teas at Fuller's and shopping at Pontings.
By the end of the 1950s, the genre had gone forever, but in Living
For Pleasure we have a chance to relive it.
-
- LOOK WHO'S HERE!
By Ted Dicks, with Julian Slade, Neville McGrah, Tony Tanner,
Charlotte Mitchell, Charles Ross, Dick Vosburgh, Robin Miller
and Myles Rudge
Original London cast: Barbara Young, Nyree Dawn Porter, Sonia
Graham, Anna Quayle, Donald Hewlett, Dennis Wood, Tony Tanner,
Geoffrey Wright
Tracks: Let's Talk About Me; Gooseberry Tart; Mischief Makers;
Damsel In Distress; In Between; The Champion; Send Off; Numbers;
Sentimental Attachment; Father's Tired; Christmas Madrigal; The
Flowers; Dish Rag
-
- We have to take the audience's laughter - heard on this live
recording during a performance at the Fortune Theatre - as proof
that Look Who's Here! was an evening of fun. It is fun, yes,
moderate fun, well put over by a nice cast. There's the opportunity
to hear some performers who didn't reach the prominence in musical
theatre they may have deserved, among them Anna Quayle, Tony
Tanner (whose most famous, and most disastrous, chance came with
the film version of Stop The World - I Want To Get Off) and Sonia
Graham, whose only lead in a musical play, Meet Me By Moonlight
(it was really a play laced with Victorian songs). The material
in Look Who's Here! is laid-back, neither sharply satirical nor,
with one or two exceptions, especially witty. Julian Slade's
'Christmas Madrigal' is passably amusing, as is a duet for two
girls 'Gooseberry Tart', although here (as so often on this recording)
one really can't understand what the audience is laughing at.
Quayle as the 'Damsel In Distress' (by Charles Ross) describes
the problems of the chastity belt in what is undoubtedly the
best number of the show, but Look Who's Here! is really a dinosaur
of a show. It opened in January 1960 for 148 performances. Just
over a year later, Beyond The Fringe did for such pleasantly
inconsequential evenings as Ted Dicks' little bit of fun. The
record sleeve shows a hopeful cast displaying a cutting edge
range of 1960 knitwear.
-
- THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN
REGRETS
 Revue
devised by Ronald Cass and Peter Myers
Music by Ronald Cass and John Pritchett
Original London cast: Joan Sims, Millicent Martin, Ronnie Stevens,
Aubrey Woods, David Morton, Gordon Clyde, Aubrey Woods, Barrie
Gosney, Josephine Gordon
Tracks: Great Little World; Kid Stuff; Lac Des Scenes; Mother
Of Invention; Lest We Forget; The Oldest Established; Christmas
Present; The Ballad Of Basher Green; Trial By Jury; I Love A
Comedian; Where The Heart Is; Red Sky At Night; Jacqueline; Spanish
Fly
-
- It may be surprising that this, one of the last gasps of
old-fashioned revues that were outmoded overnight by Beyond The
Fringe, lasted for 220 performances at the inhospitable Saville
Theatre from August 1961. Its cast was strong, its title magnificent,
its content less so. Theatre World found 'a lively but conventional
intimate revue, in which the elaborate item satirizing the Lord
Chamberlain's activities as censor did not really come off'.
Peter Myers was a prolific and often successful writer of revues
(there was also a musical or two, alas unrecorded) that relied
on a mixture of fast-changing comedy sketches, point and charm
numbers. His efficiency in this genre has been all but forgotten
today. How interesting it would be to have recordings from his
own Golden Age, pressings of such shows as the hugely successful
Intimacy At 8.30, For Amusement Only and For Adults Only; there
is a sense that by 1961 the best was over. But this souvenir
of one of the very last of its kind is well worth exploring.
Its little orchestra sounds exactly right for the circumstances,
finely picked out in a sparkling recording that does justice
to the musical numbers. One can almost see the company gathered
for the opener, in which they point darts (hardly barbed) at
various idiosyncrasies of our 'Great Little World'. We know from
the beginning that any shocks meant for the Lord Chamberlain
will be of the mildest, but there is pleasure in a finely extended
ensemble number after the horrors of the festive season, 'Christmas
Present'. The other highlight finds Myers at the peak of his
form, stretching a good idea to its extremity, as Millicent Martin
slowly explains the origins of flamenco dancing in 'Spanish Fly'.
Old fashioned it may now seem, but the number has a slightly
devastating effect that still works; it is also very funny. Elsewhere,
Ronnie Stevens does a Myers-Cass speciality (putting new words
to a well-known classical piece) in the amusing 'Lac Des Scenes'
(from Tchaikovsky), in which an East Ender relates his experience
of the ballet world, and there is a sombre mood in 'Lest We Forget'
in which a group of old soldiers reflect how they have been unable
to adjust to a peaceful world. The sketches reproduced here come
off less well, although I have always had a fondness for some
of the lines in 'Kid Stuff', a snook cast at the 'Noddy' books,
with Joan Sims going nicely over the top as their author 'Miss
Flyton', incensed that her publishers have asked her to 'sex
Noddy up a bit'. Like everything here, it's harmless enough.
Peter Myers died alone and forgotten, his money and furniture
all gone. A few days before his death, I visited him at his almost
empty London flat. He had even sold the rare record collection
he had accumulated for years. He took down his trousers and injected
himself in the leg as we spoke. He seemed an old, old man, aged
before his time. He died in 1978 aged 55.
-
- ONE OVER THE
EIGHT
By Peter Cook. Additional material by Lionel Bart, John Bird,
Stanley Daniels, Carl Davis, John Mortimer, N. F. Simpson and
Stevan Vinaver
Lyrics by John Law
Music by Lance Mulcahy
Original London cast: Kenneth Williams, Sheila Hancock, Kance
Percival, Lynda Baron, Toni Eden, Robin Hawdon, John Howard,
Sheila O'Neill md Frank Horrox
Tracks: Hand Up Your Sticks; This Must Be The Place; Take-Over
Bid; Night Life; Please Stop Following Me Around; Lost Art; Evils
Of The Weed; Perfect Host; Critics'Choice; I Like It; Peace;
Interesting Facts; I'm Beautiful; One Leg Too Few; Vacancy; Sex;
Send Me; Bird Watching
-
- This rarely found recording commemorates the follow-up to
the more auspicious Kenneth Williams vehicle Pieces Of Eight.
Williams seems to have been no happier in this than anything
else he appeared in on stage. This time round, Sheila Hancock
was his long-suffering leading lady, but despite the notable
names still perhaps surprisingly cropping up among the writers
is N. F. Simpson, the surrealist playwright of A Resounding Tinkle,
and John Mortimer. Peter Cook is the main contributor, with somewhat
less effective material than he brought to the earlier show.
One Over The Eight (its very title suggesting that revue had
gone over some sort of edge) hadn't, according to Williams, a
single decent actor in its cast, and morale couldn't have been
lower when the company opened at the Duke of York's Theatre in
April 1961. Despite cool notices, it lasted 415 performances,
with its gnomish star as a draw. Listening to this material,
one suspects that Williams - not for the first time - was a poor
judge of the stuff he had been given. 'Hand Up Your Sticks',
a sketch of a very silly robbery, has subsequently become a minor
classic, while 'Bird-Watching' is another ideally pointed piece
tailored to his talents. Musically, this revue is less interesting
than Pieces of Eight, but there is enough going on to make us
think revue still had life in it just at the time when it was
about to be snuffed out forever.
-
- PIECES OF EIGHT
 Sketches
by Peter Cook, with additional material by Harold Pinter, Sandy
Wilson, John Law, Lance Mulcahy, Laurie Johnson, Dolores Claman,
Robert Gould, Edward Scott and Lenny Addelson
Original London cast: Kenneth Williams, Fenella Fielding, Myra
de Groot, Peter Reeves, Josephine Blake, Terence Theobald, Valerie
Walsh, Peter Brett. Musical director: Frank Horrox
Tracks: Revive Your Spirits; True Blue Love Song; Not An Asp;
The Beast In Me; If Only; The Power Of Love; Onu Beeby Frisky;
We're Going To The Moon; The Last To Go; Outdoor Girl; Buy British;
A Man Is; The Laughing Grains; Goodnight
-
- Kenneth Williams's most substantial stage successes were
in revue, and Pieces Of Eight was the best of them, opening at
the Apollo Theatre in September 1959 and lasting 429 performances.
It has consistently interesting material, sketches deftly translated
into recordings and a handful of decent songs. The 'singing'
songs are dealt with by Myra de Groot, whose three numbers evoke
a particular atmosphere, poised between cabaret and vaudeville.
Such performers were apparently essential for revues of this
period (compare Janie Marden's numbers in the charming Living
For Pleasure); when revue turned into television's That Was The
Week That Was, the singing girl was kept on in the form of Millicent
Martin and - subsequently - Josephine Blake and Barbara Evans.
Fenella Fielding's rendition of Sandy Wilson's 'Outdoor Girl',
for a streetwalker whose business must now be conducted behind
closed doors, is also surprisingly old-fashioned for a piece
that has items by Harold Pinter and (mostly) Peter Cook. Here
are writers that intrinsically understand the medium. Pinter's
sketch 'The Last To Go' is a marvel of confined writing, with
Williams giving a master class in comic timing as the decrepit
newspaper-seller describing the progress of his sales; it's wonderfully
funny and enormously touching in a way that only the best of
revue material can be. Cook, of course, concentrates on being
funny in a series of witty items. I have always liked 'The Laughing
Grains', with Williams and Fielding as a broken down music-hall
act. It marries some terrific dialogue with a neat musical close.
There is also a fabulous piece with the two stars wailing on
about what life might have been like 'If Only', throughout which
the characters are dogged by pessimism. 'This hot weather will
be the death of fat old people who live at the top of hills'
moans Fielding. This, and much else here, deserves to be celebrated.
RETURN TO RECORD CABINET
|
|
