Felines, Nothing More Than Felines

A wee comment left at Chris Caggiano's blog. In a post about overrated musicals he asks his students to burrow down and figure out what's "wrong" with some well-known shows. It seems that Cats proves to be one of the trickier assignments:

"I've only ever had one student who came close to capturing what is really wrong with Cats. She focused on the fact that Andrew Lloyd Webber stuck too close to the original T.S. Eliot poems, which are mostly written in the third person. As a result, we rarely hear any of the cats singing about themselves, rather we hear about them from a third party. So, we never develop a bond with anyone on-stage, with the exception of Grizabella, who sings one of the few songs in the show that wasn't based directly on one of Eliot's poems. Pretty savvy, huh?"

This is not im-paws-able. But allow me to throw my penny into the kitty.

I'm not sure that this third person thing is the problem. Cats is a series of character portraits, not characters. As such we're not being asked to develop a bond with the characters so much as delight in the imagination that's portraying them. We're not bonding with the kitties; we're bonding with the whimsical mind of TS Eliot.

If Cats has a problem then it's more to do with the straight-jacketing effect of the light verse which sometimes forces the music into a predictable tum-ti-tum-ti-tum pattern. Sometimes Lord Andy can overcome this problem with inventive little bits of rhythm (as in the phrase: "The Rum Tum Tugger is a curious cat"). But the verse still doesn't quite offer the flexibility of an original lyric.

Even so, it's still a very entertaining miaow-sical.

Desert Island Discs in the South Pacific

Old interview with Lord Andy from Radio 4's archive of Desert Island Discs.

The Lord's (at that time merely Sir's) music selections are typically diverse - from rock 'n' roller Shostakovich to Bollywood composer AR Rahman - as well as typically populist - Elvis Presley and The Beatles. Only one pick was a musical theatre number but it was a goody: Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Some Enchanted Evening".

Hard to argue with that. But what makes the melody so enchanting? For me, the secret of the song is in one little semi-tone. Let's take the first six notes:

"Some En-chan-ted Eve-ning"

The second of those notes is an F sharp. If you are of a certain musical disposition and knowing that we are in the key of C, you may give a small shudder. F sharp, you see, is foreign to the key of C. It should be an F natural. Play a C chord and stick an F sharp on top of it and it sounds dissonant, wonky, wrong.

So how come this wrongness sounds so right? Well, firstly the F sharp falls on an off-beat - the "en" of "enchanted" - so there isn't a direct clash with the chord underneath. Place that F sharp on an on-beat like the "eve" of "eve-ning" and the whole thing sounds wonky again.

Secondly, try substituting the foreign-sounding F sharp for a "proper" F natural. Go on, I dare you. With just that tiny change the melody feels so different; it's lighter and brighter but, at the same time, a whole lot less enchanting.

The song is from South Pacific. The character singing is Emile de Becque, a romantic (he's French) and exotic (he has half-Polynesian kids) plantation owner with a dark past (he killed a man). In short, he is a man who would definitely sing an F sharp.

Sometimes a semi-tone makes all the difference.

Prom Talk: Four Questions Every Lyricist Should Ask

Interesting pre-Prom discussion on lyrics with Don Black and Barb Jungr, during which the host Matthew Sweet raised some pertinent lyrical questions. Thusly:

Is there something inherently funny about rhyming? 

At this point Don Black had his please/chimpanzees rhyme quoted at him from his title song from Tell Me on a Sunday which was a little unfair, being the only really cringe-making rhyme in that whole show.

But the proper answer to the question is, I think, not quite. Rhymes aren’t inherently funny. Rhymes make us smile but the funniness of a lyric usually comes from the idea. This, for example, from A Little Night Music's "You Must Meet My Wife" by Big Steve:

FREDRIK:
She loves my voice, my walk, my moustache,
The cigar, in fact, that I'm smoking.
She'll watch me puff until it's just ash,
Then she'll save the cigar butt.
DESIREE
Bizarre, but you're joking.

"Moustache/Just ash" is about as fun a rhyme as you can think of. But it's not funny. The funniness is from the idea of Fredrik extolling the virtues of his wife to old flame, Desiree, who's simultaneously trying to seduce him. Rhymes can be elegant and witty and an aural delight. But I don't think they're inherently funny.

“Yubby dibby dibby dibby dibby dibby dibby dum.”. Is this cheating?

Certainly not. The lyric is, of course, by Sheldon Harnick and comes from Fiddler on the Roof’s “If I Were a Rich Man” and far from cheating is, in fact, quite brilliant. Why? Well, it's such a natural characterisation. Tevye is daydreaming about being a rich:

If I were a rich man
Yubby dibby dibby dibby dibby dibby dibby dum

He even loses the lyrical train of thought mid-sentence the way people singing to themselves do:

All day long I'd biddy biddy bum
If I were a wealthy man.

In this case the nonsense of the lyric tells us something essential about Tevye. One, that he is poor. Two, that he will never be rich. This is not an ambitious ten-point plan of how to succeed in Anatevka without really trying. All that dibby dum-ing is telling us that this is an unfocussed flight of fancy, a plea to God that will forever remain unanswered. We know it and Tevye knows it. The song (and the show) is not about Tevye getting what he wants but whether he can keep his faith (and "Tradition") when he mostly gets what he doesn't want.

Is lyrics grammatical?

Hey, that was my question. Don Black pointed to his own example in a line from "Take That Look Off Your Face":

"I bet you didn't sleep good last night"

Now this may not pass grammatical muster but "sleep well" wouldn't sing half as good due to the adjacent "L" syllables - "well last" is not easy to get your singing tongue around. And in using "good" the meaning is still plain so nothing is really lost.

Lyrics are not prose or poetry. You don't need a literary degree or a Shakespearean-sized vocabulary to be a successful lyricist or even English as your first language (the lyrics of ABBA were discussed). It always stuns me to think how such well-known phrases such as "I'm dreaming of a White Christmas" could have been put into the American culture by an immigrant of limited education like Irving Berlin. Successful lyric writing is, to an exceptional degree, open to all-comers.

Is Dolly Parton the greatest lyricist in the world?

OK, they didn’t ask this question exactly. But they did end by quoting one of her lyrics which demonstrates all the strengths of the form. The song is about a simple poor girl who falls pregnant by a man who then leaves her. As time passes and against all the evidence, she clings to the naive belief that the child’s father will return “Down from Dover”. The last lines are heart-breaking ("it's too still") in a way that only a lyric can be:

"My body aches the time is here it's lonely in this place where I'm lying
Our baby has been born, but something's wrong, it's too still, I hear no crying
I guess in some strange way she knew she'd never have a father's arms to hold her
So dying was her way of tellin' me he wasn't coming down from Dover"

Music Television - Prom 59: The Broadway Sound

And no Sondheim. Gosh.

This was John Wilson and his orchestra who has found an enthusiastic audience by reviving old Hollywood and Broadway scores and giving them the full orchestral CPR. The result is to hear the music as if for the first time. Loosed from their prison of wheezy old mono recordings, these scores once again sound energetic and alive. He's proving to be a regular hit at the Proms and returned this year with Prom 59: The Broadway Sound.

The important thing about John Wilson is that he's from Gateshead and has a sensible haircut. Most conductors don't. I think that this, as well as the popularity of Broadway tunes, accounts for the fact this particular Prom was not only televised but also bumped up to BBC2 rather than being squirrelled away on BBC4.

In general classical musicians don't look good on television. String players tend to loll and jerk in their chairs like drunken puppets; percussionists look like they'd rather not be there; the brass are all puffed-out cheeks and sweaty faces; and the wind look as if that's what they've got.

This is not simply to be rude about classical musicians. These are exquisitely trained and talented professionals. The problem is that the physical effort it takes to play so exquisitely and talented-ly can often lead to some odd-looking contortions. Generally speaking classical musicians are better heard than seen.

The same is true for singers. The kind of stamina, diaphragm and facial muscle it takes to sing like Domingo is Olympian. In contrast it's easier to look good whilst singing a showtune. Musical theatre performers tend to be better at some basics of a visual performance: how to gesture with your arms, how to smile when you sing, how to act with your eyes. And they tend to have better haircuts.

So the Broadway Prom made for decent television as well as a lovely concert with Sierra Boggess (ever-glorious) and Seth MacFarlane (a fine crooner - new name to me but, apparently, famous as a cartoon dog) putting in t'rrific turns. Elizabeth Llewellyn also did a stunning version of "Come Home" from Rodgers and Hammerstein's lesser-known Allegro. In fact much of the evening was not the usual playlist, with even the Frank Loesser songs being lesser-known ("Sue Me", "Joey, Joey, Joey"). Perhaps that was to highlight the work of the great Broadway arrangers - Robert Russell Bennett, Don Walker, Irwin Kostal, Hershy Kay, Hans Spialek - rather than just the composers.

There were some less successful elements. Personally I'm never convinced that using bits of scripted dialogue to lead into a song works in a concert setting. It always feels stilted. And the Albert Hall is just too grand for pure musical comedy ("Seven and a Half Cents", Another Openin', Another Show", "Don't Rain on My Parade"). Comedy is hard work and, funnily enough, the rehearsal footage with the orchestra decked in their working clothes felt a more appropriate look for these numbers.

But all was forgiven as they ended with a whizz-bang and the whizziest and bangiest of all Broadway composers. Yes, Jerry Herman finally took his place in the Proms pantheon:

"You coax the blues right out of the horn, Mame
You charm the husk right off of the corn, Mame" 

Roll over, Beethoven.

Interesting programme notes here.

Odds and Ends of a Beautiful Lyricist

And so farewell to one of the greats. Mister Steyn has been posting his appreciations here and here. Nothing to disagree with there.

For me, Hal David was as good a lyricist as any. With his writing partner, Burt Bacharach, they were the inheritors of the Great American Songbook tradition: smart, funny, carefully crafted songs.

“What do you get when you kiss a guy?
You get enough germs to catch pneumonia
After you do, he’ll never phone ya
I’ll Never Fall in Love Again" 

That’s from their one and only Broadway show, Promises Promises, and, for Broadway’s sake, it’s a shame they didn’t stick with musical theatre. Their songs seem closer in spirit to the Tin Pan Alley tradition than, say, rock ‘n’ roll. You’d never find that “pneumonia/phone ya” rhyme in a rock song.

 If Hal David was a lyricist from the old school then it wasn’t really from the sophisticated Cole Porter academy. In interviews he spoke about his love of the Irving Berlin waltzes: “Always”, “What’ll I do?”. The same simplicity and directness can be found in his own 3\4 number:

“What the world needs now
 Is love, sweet love
It’s the only thing
 That there’s just too little of” 

Aside from the Berlin influence, what else makes a Hal David lyric a Hal David lyric? Well, there’s the domesticity. Bacharach’s music is, in songwriting terms, ambitious and precise with unusual shifts in harmony and unexpected time signatures. Arty and poetic lyrics would draw too much attention to the arty nature of the music (as is the case with his Elvis Costello collaboration “Painted from Memory”. But with a Hal David lyric, the music is grounded in the everyday:

“The moment I wake up
Before I put on my make up
I Say a Little Prayer for You" 

That’s pretty typical. And those typical staccato, off-beat phrases require the easiest kind of lyric to be effective.

The final ingredient is the song titles. A title is vital, as Ira Gershwin said, and Hal David had some of the best: “Anyone Who Had a Heart”, “Always Something There to Remind Me”, “Don’t Make Me Over” and my personal favourite, “Odds and Ends of a Beautiful Love Affair”. These are the kind of titles that most lyricists would kill for. They encapsulate their songs in language that’s immediate and precise. They don’t look like much on the page but when they’re sung they come alive.

In twenty years time most of the 1960s chart music will sound as oddly old-fashioned as Victorian music hall does today. But somebody somewhere will still be discovering afresh the easy beauty of a Bacharach-David song.

Magic Moments indeed.

Killer Idea for a Musical?

Is Assassins a good idea for a musical?

In a review over at One in a Long Line of Good Girls, Helena Williams quite rightly points out one of the key features of this musical:

“It was always going to be a bit weird...”

I remember going to see a production of Assassins and bumping into an acquaintance on the way to the theatre. The conversation went something like this:

HE: Hey, where’re you headed?

ME: Actually I’m just off to the theatre

HE: Oh, really? What are going to see?

ME: It’s called “Assassins”

HE: “Assassins”? Sounds interesting. What’s it about?

ME: Actually it’s a musical about all the people who have tried to kill American presidents.

HE: Oh-kaaaaaaay [backing away slowly].

For normal people, Assassins is weird.

To be honest all musicals are weird; we just forget with the most popular ones. But Assassins has a real struggle to overcome its weirdness. The problem is neither the music nor the lyrics. It’s not even the book. The problem is the idea.

Let’s begin at the beguine and consider a simple fact: most people do not try to kill presidents. So those that do are inevitably somewhat beyond the pale of most people’s sympathies. To put it bluntly, the central characters in Assassins are nutjobs. So what do you do if you happen to be writing a musical about them?

1)  EITHER try to humanise these characters by presenting them sympathetically (“underneath they’re just like us”)

2) OR darkly mock the characters for their nuttiness (“isn’t it funny how dangerous these nutjobs can be?”)

The problem with (1) is that it’s patently untrue. The problem with (2) is that it’s patently nasty. For me Assassins tries to do a bit of both and splits the indifference.

So we have John Hinkley Jnr, the man who lodged a bullet in Ronald Reagan’s chest. Why’d he do it? Well he’s just another pitiful guy impossibly in love with a gal:

“I am unworthy of your love

Jodie, Jodie"

Our sympathies go with him. Until we realize that the object of his his achy-breaky heart is the actress Jodie Foster and he is, in fact, America’s most dangerous celebrity obsessive. The song is genuine but we know he’s nuts. So do we cry with him or do we laugh at him? I can’t help feeling that most people would do neither. The weirdness is too distancing for anyone to engage.

Successful musicals can be made out of the weirdest ideas, from singing cowboys to dancing cats. But there are limits. All-singing-and-all-dancing–and-all-assassinating nutjobs? That idea would kill any show.

Is Lyrics Grammatical Or Wot?

Not necessarily.

Very funnycolumn by Saptarshi Ray who has been getting folks to send in their pet grammatical hates in pop song lyrics. The list is long. My personal favourite is this comment from BrianC:

“’We don't need no education.’ Well... you've slightly undermined yourself there, haven't you?”

Now try and do the same for musical theatre songs and it seems to me to be a lot harder. There is, I think, a simple reason for this: musical theatre songs need to make sense.

If pop lyrics don’t need grammar it’s because there’s less need to ensure a clear expression of meaning. So this sort of Paul Simon thing would sound awful in a musical:

A man walks down the street
He says why am I soft in the middle now
Why am I soft in the middle
The rest of my life is so hard
I need a photo-opportunity
I want a shot at redemption
Don't want to end up a cartoon
In a cartoon graveyard
Bonedigger Bonedigger
Dogs in the moonlight
Far away my well-lit door
Mr. Beerbelly Beerbelly
Get these mutts away from me
You know I don't find this stuff amusing anymore

This is a wonderfully singable stream of consciousness, associations and wordplay. But it is also nonsense or, to put it more favourably, it’s meaning is allusive. 


That’s fine for Paul Simon but stick this in a musical and the audience would be scratching its collective head. There’s no way to express character, situation or drama in this kind of lyric. Musical lyrics need to mean something and that meaning needs to be clear. If grammar helps, then bring it on. Innit?

Making a Song and Dance of Australian Politics

An illuminating MusicalTalk discussion on the state of musicals down under between Nick "The Guv’nor" Hutson and two antipodeans, Luisa Lyons and Maryann Wright. Even more illumination from this excellent article.

During the discussion mention is made of the hit show Keating! the Musical based on the political career of the former Prime Minster, Paul Keating. This has played successfully all across Australia but raises the question: could this show work elsewhere?

Now I’m not normally a fan of exclamation mark musicals and, when it comes to Aussie politics, I’m as dumb as a galah. But I happened to catch this show a few years back in the beautiful city of Adelaide ("Go Crows") and had a heaps good time. So how could a politically-ignorant pom enjoy Keating! and could the show travel?

Well, much of it would. Really the aim is to be funny and, as always, funny songs need funny ideas. So re-staging Prime Minister’s Question Time as a rap contest is pretty funny in any language, even if you don’t know who John Hewson is or get all the references to General Services Tax:

Of course, this being Aussie politics, the punch lines are verbatim. Can’t imagine David Cameron dispatching that from the Dispatch Box.

There are more funnies from the rest of the show including that good ol’ standard: men dressing up as women (it’s an all-male cast). “Freaky” is a difficult song to describe but if you imagine William Haig in suspenders singing like a frustrated lush, you’ll get the drift. Even better is the romantic ballad “Heavens,Mr. Evans” about an affair between two members on the opposite sides of party politics: 


HE: 
My heart’s in peril, Cheryl
Loving you so much
SHE: 
Heavens, Mr. Evans
How I tingle at your touch
BOTH: 
We’re equally enamoured but differently aligned
HE: 
And also, aren’t you married?
SHE: 
Yes I am.
HE: 
As am I.
BOTH: 
Never mind!

As far as there is a political point to the show I’d say it was a more general one about political personalities. Arriving inbetween the instinctive populism of Bob Hawkes and the manufactured mateship of John Howard, Keating is presented as vain, elitist, mercurial and frankly downright un-Australian; the blip of an authentic radical to enliven the familiar political pulse. It’s a wonder he ever became Prime Minister. “Light on a Hill” has him mixing mockery with melancholy against a thoughtless kind of reactionism:

"Bring us back our comfy bloody country
Take us back to simple days of yore
Nothing alien or scary
La-de-da or airy fairy
Just put it back the way it was before"

So there’s a lot to love in this show and plenty that would translate:

1. The songs are very well crafted.

2.  It’s more funny than political.

3.  Men dressed as women.

On the other hand: 

4. Of course laughter is infectious and one clueless pom can happily enjoy the show amongst an audience who get all the jokes. A whole audience of poms would be a different thing.

5.  There would be no way to market the thing to a non-Aussie audience.

So I can’t see this show joining fine wine and Clive James on the list of great Australian exports. That's a shame. At least we can console ourselves with the shiraz.  

New Podcast: Voice of the Musical

Terrific new podcast from Tim Sutton: for musical writers, by musical writers. Really gets down to the nitty gritty.

Especially the Charles Hart interview in which he mentions George Orwell's rules of writing. Undoubted wisdom. But when it comes to lyrics, I think I'd modify rule number one:

"1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print."

Sometimes a familiar figure of speech works a treat and what seems banal in print comes alive in song:

"I'm Putting All My Eggs In One Basket"
"They Can't Take That Away From Me"
"I've Got You Under My Skin"
"Don't Cry For Me, Argentina" (erm...) 

More so than any other form, lyric-writing revels in ordinary, everyday language. In that sense, as a lyricist, there's nowhere to hide. It may not take more skill to be a poet or a novelist. But it takes more guts to be songwriter.

M is for Michael

And B is for Billington. The Guardian critic purviews the musical scene:

“But there's something unhealthy about a genre that persistently fails to generate exciting new work”

Unhealthy or just darn difficult?

"There seems little room any more for a musical that is not some form of cultural juggernaut or that trades on wit, lightness and charm…. But those happy days when the musical was a source of innocent pleasure seem far off." 

Musicals, even the witty, light and charming ones, are not about creating “innocent pleasure” but creating drama. Pleasure, innocent or otherwise, is a mere byproduct.

“Nowadays musicals have become so industrial in scale and expensive to produce that any form of risk has to be minimised from the start. Like the banks, musicals have become too big to fail."

The fiscal simile is misdeployed. The banks didn’t become too big to fail by minimising risk on their investments. Quite the opposite. Compared to the casino accounting some of the bankers were up to, it would have been far better if they'd sunk all their money into “Going for Gold - the new Tony Hadley musical”.

Their insurance policy turned out to be the increasingly-peeved taxpayer. As fun as it would be I doubt this will be the case if we do see more high-risk musicals. I can't imagine George Osborne announcing a special “Betty Blue Eyes” bailout.

If you’re looking for an expensive, unprofitable, taxpayer-dependent cultural juggernaut to compare to the banks, the Royal Opera House would much more on the money.

Guardian Hearts Big Steve

In an editorial, no less, and on the occasion of his lifetime achievement award from the Critic’s Circle:

“Sondheim's radicalism and lyrical ingenuity have often been appreciated more in Britain than at home” 

 That would be why they named a theatre after him.

“His work has been staged by the Royal Opera, ENO and the National Theatre; he's been the subject of a Prom; he's twice been Radio 3's Composer of the Week” 

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I think this is the significance of Sondheim (at least in this country): he’s taken musicals upmarket.

“If we have embraced Sondheim's work, it is because he experiments within a popular tradition…” 

Although his experiments wound up turning a popular tradition into a far less popular one. By the time of Assassins he couldn’t get produced on Broadway.

“…and accepts that the function of art is to challenge and stimulate, not soothe and reassure” 

Art isn’t easy. Especially for Americans. 

By the way, what's with the “composer-lyricist” designation? I always thought he was a songwriter.

It's like when those new-fangled choreographer fellas started appearing on the Broadway billboards. Irving Berlin, for one, wasn't impressed:

“Chicks that did kicks aren’t doing kicks any more
They’re doing choreography” 

So it seems:

“Johns who wrote songs aren’t writing songs any more
They’re composer-lyricists”

At least it'll keep the editorialists happy.

Simple Answers to Simple Questions

Could Jesus Christ Superstar be a woman?

No.

Does someone have a good publicist?

Yes.

The Rhythm of Life Sciences

Matthew Cain, enthusiastic presenter of the Channel 4 series What Makes a Masterpiece?, has been asking what makes music tick (episode 2). 

Good question.

So he spoke to some scientists: one who had designed a computer which could “recognise” a hit song and another who stuck wires on people’s heads to see how music affected their brains.

The first bit of science begs the question, can a computer write a hit song?

In theory, maybe. The computer identified common traits of hit songs and grouped them in “clusters”. A new song could be tested and, if necessary, tweaked so that it came closer to one of the clusters, thus increasing it's hit potential. But could the computer create a song from scratch? The question was never asked directly but I would have thought it theoretically possible. Although given the fact that computers still can’t hold a 5-minute conversation, "I'm Dreaming of a Megabyte Christmas" may be a way off yet.

(It’s also worth pointing out that this computer only analysed music and, really, a hit song is the successful pairing of a particular bit of music with particular words which, presumably, would multiply the variables around a zillion-fold. So good luck clustering that. Then again, computers are good with zillions in a way that we’re not.)

The second bit of science - the wires and the brain - begs the question, who needs music?

If music is essentially a neuro-chemical effect on the brain and if this could be replicated by some simpler method of brain stimulation, then why bother with the tediously traditional and messy method of composing music which, ultimately, may not have the desired effect for the listener? Again, the programme didn’t explore this issue but, it seems to me, the possibility is there (although still a million miles away given the current technology).

So what does the future hold?

OK, I find it difficult to imagine a time when music is replaced by wires attached to your head. On the other hand I can imagine computers playing an increasingly significant role. In such a future perhaps music will split between “computer-generated” and “natural” in the same way that food has, in recent times, split between genetically-modified and organic. That is, the computer stuff will be cheaper, shinier and more voluminous but a few purists will still pay twice as much for what they like to think of as the "real thing". Most likely, as with food, music will probably be a hybrid and it will be increasingly hard to tell the difference.

For some this will sound reductionist alarm bells. Can the beauty of a Mozart aria be reduced to a computer programme? Can the majestic power of Beethoven’s 9^th ever be explained in terms of bio-chemistry? What about Peter Andre?

The bells have a point but shouldn't be so alarmed; in the end, music is irreducible. When a composer composes they don’t experience the act of composing as a robot churning out data. When a music listener listens they don’t experience the emotions generated as mere neuro-chemistry. Part of the experience is the feeling that something more is going on. So, even if the we had a full scientific understanding of how music works, our experience of music would still point us towards something beyond that understanding. If it didn't, then it wouldn't be music.


"To feel The Rhythm of Life
To feel the powerful beat
To feel the tingle in your fingers
To feel the tingle in your feet..."

Now that's a masterpiece. Spread the religion, Daddy.

Notes Towards Swallows, Amazons and Hannon

Notes towards Swallows and Amazons at Chichester Festival Theatre:

Janitors as Stagehands. Since this is a story about children and their imaginations there was plenty of imaginative staging. This was mainly carried out by people in janitor's coats. So when one of the children looked through a telescope, a janitor appeared upstage holding a large circular frame, through which we, the audience, could "see" what the telescope holder was seeing. See? When the children went swimming in the lake a couple of janitors came on stage and undulated a long blue ribbon to indicate the water. Sea?

Some of these bits of staging worked a charm. In fact they got some of the biggest reactions from the audience. But I think there are limits to this kind of thing. I'm all for a theatre audience being asked to exercise its collective imagination but it's a two-way contract. An audience can accept that theatrical staging is physically limited. But in return there should at least be an attempt to minimise disruption to the story. The staging is not the story but only the means of telling it. At one point it took three janitors to carry a puppet bird across the stage. For me, that's high maintenance.

Janitors as Performers. As well as carrying puppet birds, the janitors were also acting, singing and playing musical instruments. The recent trend for actor musicians is an interesting one. It's impressive but it can also be distracting. On a practical level it means a lot of moving between stage and band area and picking up and putting down of musical instruments. As with the three-person puppet you begin to notice the staging over and above the story.

For the record, despite these mildly grumblesome remarks, the performance was very well received by the audience. So I could be completely wrong about everything.

Notes towards character and Neil Hannon songs:

Theatre Songs Sound Like Theatre Songs. This is the first musical by divine comedian and singer-songwriter, Neil Hannon. It's often said that the way forward for musicals is to embrace more modern song styles - pop, rock, hippity-hop - in order to widen its audience. This may be true but it doesn't take account of the fact that these song styles would have to be adapted to make them more like musical theatre songs. There's a reason that musical theatre songs sound the way they do.

Neil Hannon is a pop songwriter whose songs aren't a million miles from theatre songs. They're funny and literate with audible lyrics (often a crucial distinction between rock and theatre songs, now that I think of it). But when they are performed in a theatre they sound a little less like Neil Hannon songs. This is mainly because they are sung by musical theatre performers but also because of character.

Songs about character and character songs. Neil Hannon often writes songs about character but not all of them could be theatre songs. The distinction is between observed character and participatory character. Let’s take a couple of examples from his back catalogue.
First up his reflections on bus travel in “National Express”:

“On the National Express
There's a jolly hostess
Selling crisps and tea...
Mini skirts were in style
When she danced down the aisle
Back in ’63
But it’s hard to get by
When your arse is the size
Of a small country!”

Much of this would make for great musical comedy: the bouncy rhythm, the jokes, the economic writing style, the funny off-accented long note on “coun-treee!”. But this is not a theatre song for one simple reason: it is character observation, not character. There’s a world of difference.

In contrast here’s another one , “Everybody Knows That I Love You”:

“I told my Mum and Dad
They seemed to understand...
I told the passers-by
I made a small boy cry
And I’ll get through to you
If it’s the last thing that I do...
Ev’rybody Knows that I Love You
Ev’rybody knows I adore you
Ev’rybody knows that it’s true
Except you”

Here the song is not about a character, the song is the character, in this case a love-struck youth obsessively droning on about his heartache. It’s sort of a “Why oh why oh why must I be a teenager in love?” kind of a song. The tune is simple, naïve even, with the plaintive downbeat falling on the “love” of the title rather than the “you”. That’s the joke: the song is ostensibly about the object of this kid’s affections, whereas it’s really about him and his own lovesick afflictions.

In musical theatre the songs generally don’t serve to observe the drama; they are part of it. Fortunately for the score of Swallows and Amazons Neil Hannon has written more of the second type of song and less about buses. Let’s hope he continues to do so.

(I also happened to see him recently on BBC’s Celebrity Mastermind answering questions on the greatest sitcom in the world ever. This only goes to demonstrate further his divine taste in comedy.)

Making the Cut

I’m slow, I admit. This may be an old post from Big Hollywood’s John Nolte about West Side Story but eternal truth does it contain. In particular, this:

“Something else you can appreciate is how little the camera gets in the way of the musical performances. Today’s musicals are all editing — chop, chop, chop. “West Side Story” might cut here and there and move the camera a bit, but you are at least allowed to enjoy these remarkable performances without feeling manipulated or cheated. The actors, music, and choreography dazzle, not the post-production”

Spot on.

Over the yuletide there was a BBC special with former ballerina Darcy Bussell re-creating some famous Hollywood numbers by Fred, Ginge, Gene and Cyd. The programme concentrated on the differences between dance in ballet (all stiff backs, glum faces and pointy toes) and dance in musicals (hunched shoulders, loose limbs and comedy props).

Well, Darcy's a game gal and made a rum go of it. But the thing that you really noticed in the resultant dance films was the editing. No machine-gun editing and quick-fire cuts here, there and everywhere. Instead there were long lingering shots where the camera allowed us to watch the dance in full flow.

It’s been said that film editing and choreography are similar in as much as they are both essentially exercises in rhythm. This may be true but too much of one can spoil the other. Too many short, snappy cuts (“chop, chop, chop”) and what you end up with is not a dance but a series of poses. In dramatic terms, it’s like defining a character by a series of attitudes rather than a personality.

But more recent film musicals seem to have caught MTV-itis with their short little spans of attention. In fact, when it comes to editing a dance, the best music videos are of the old school. Just ask Beyonce.

(By the way, all of the above goes for modern action films too.)

A Bit of a Nellie

Forbush, that is. The heroine of South Pacific. Last year I caught the Lincoln Center version at the Barbican and ever since I’ve had Nellie’s song “Cock-Eyed Optimist”, well, let’s just say I can’t get it out of my head:

“I could say life is just a bowl of Jello
And appear more intelligent and smart
But I’m stuck like a dope with a thing called hope
And I can’t get it out of my heart
Not this heart”

Let’s take a look at the details here.

The rhyme scheme is tight: ABCB plus. The plus is the fact that the A rhyme links to the first lines of the other two verses (jello/yellow/bellow) and there’s also an internal rhyme (dope/hope). The rhymes themselves are simple. I imagine Lorenz Hart would have had Nellie playing a ritornello by Ivor Novello on a violincello at this point. But there’s nothing fancy schmancy with Hammerstein.

So what does this add up to? The neatness of the rhyme scheme and the simplicity of the rhymes speaks to Nellie’s neat and simple philosophy: cock-eyed optimism. It's heartfelt but, in truth, Hammerstein is telling us that it’s too neat and too simple; it’s naive.

As for Rodgers, well:

I could say life is just a bowl of Jello
And appear more intelligent and smart

The tune is basically a descending scale. There’s also a lovely triplet wobble on "je-ell-o" which makes light of the sentiment. Nellie ain’t one for pseudo-intellectualism and wouldn't even use the such a silly word. So she makes fun of the idea.

But I’m stuck like a dope

Now the contrast (“But...”), so the musical phrase starts heading upwards. Her optimism is coming through. Again, there are details: the “stuck” literally getting stuck with a shorter staccato note .

With a thing called hope

Rule of three: first phrase (“But I’m stuck”), repeat the phrase (“like a dope”) and then the third time it gets a little extra (“with a thing called hope”), those repeated notes (“thing called”) adding a bit more certainty and confidence. Optimism rising.

And I can’t get it out of my heart

Again, this musical line is basically three repeated phrases, intensified by the D+ chord underneath, as if this idea is going round and round her head.

Not this heart

The final line is more than just a way to end the song. Musically it’s soothing and dreamy. There’s another little wobble note on “he-a-rt”. Nellie’s corn-fed, homespun philosophy is honest but untested. The spine of the plot is how her cock-eyed optimism gets put on trial by the experiences of love and war.

So in four and a bit lines of song a fully-rounded character is revealed to us, moving from playful to hopeful to assertive to dreamy. All the while being lyrically precise, memorably tuneful and dramatically true. Remarkable.

Miss Forbush sets the standards for musical theatre (with a little help from R&H).

The Battle Continues

The Beeb’s recent look at the post-war British musical cast the history in terms of the battle between the West End and Broadway, from early reconnaissance missions (The Boyfriend, Oliver!) to all-conquering imperialism (Cats, Les Miz, Phantom, Miss Saigon).

As ever, it’s the jokes that really get to the nub. Michael Ball recalled standing atop the barricades of Les Miz, earnestly fighting off the anti-revolutionary forces below, when one of his fellow actors turned to him with the tarty remark:

“To be honest, dear, I’m more of a Hello Dolly! man myself”.

And that just about sums up the West End/Broadway musical relationship.

Criticising the Critics

It’s tempting to quote Lance-Corporal Jones: "They don’t like it up ‘em".

So Michael Billington writes a riposte to Big Steve’s assessment of professional critics. He does somewhat misinterpret (deliberately? who knows) Sondheim’s main point which is not that critics are unnecessary but that, for an artist, reading your own reviews – good, bad or indifferent – is never helpful.

Nevertheless the Billington defence is worth a gander. It is essentially this:

1. “Art doesn't exist in a social or economic vacuum”. In other words, if you ask people to pay for a public performance you can expect to get some public comment.

2. “What we all crave is a reaction to our work”. In other words, a bad review is better than no review.

3. In New York, at least, “the dearth of newspapers gives critics a disproportionate authority”. In other words, in Britain, nobody cares what critics say. (I may have misinterpreted this last one.)

Well, in order:

1) True. But do we need professional public comment? Perhaps “need” is too strong a word. Better to say that the variety and choice of professional theatre available creates a demand for a critical discernment of that choice, for which an appropriate remuneration and status can be maintained by one thought to hold such qualities of discernment.

2) True again. But giving in to cravings isn’t always a good idea. Just ask my waistline.

3) Don’t know about New York critics. I suspect, however, that for the fortunes of most musicals, word of mouth is the ultimate authority.

My own feeling is that 1) is the only real justification for a professional theatre critic. Critics are essentially Which? reviewers advising us on what washing machine to buy. Nothing wrong with that. It can be done well or done poorly. But its significance is mainly to washing machine buyers (i.e. the audience) rather than manufacturers (i.e. the artists).

Bowie, Rimes and Higgins

An unfounded story about a possible David Bowie musical (made up, apparently) has prompted this post by Tom Ewing on the Guardian website:

“Not all jukebox musicals succeed, but enough do that we're unlikely to see an end to them yet. What's the appeal? On one level, it's nostalgia, but more fun and creatively silly than the average tribute band. But there's also something compelling in the idea of turning songs we love into stories”

I’d agree with nostalgia. But what about the stories bit?

“The main problem is that narrative and pop don't always mix. Pop music is a thing of bottomless power when it comes to nailing a mood or a moment, but songs that fit into stories often have to move them along”

Is this true? Yes and no. Songs that fit into stories don’t always move the action along. But they should have some inherent movement. In My Fair Lady, when Professor Higgins realizes that he loves Eliza in “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face”, he’s not really moving along the action. Quite the opposite in fact, he’s “nailing the mood” (not, I’d guess, a phrase that Higgins himself would use. More likely “dawdling in a moment of self-awareness” or some such). But the mood has movement: it comes about as the result of particular characters and events and has implications for what's going to happen to those characters. The song is part of a story.

Mr. Ewing stumbles onto something else in his last paragraph:

“One of my most thrilling experiences this year was first hearing the hardcore band F***ed Up's Queen of Hearts – a song full of big dreams…But on repeat listens I paid more attention, and the dispiriting spectre of narrative crept in. Who were the "David" and "Veronica" in the song: why should I care?”

Now I've no idea who Fudged Up are or what a hardcore band sounds like but this observation does speak to one of the big differences between pop/rock and theatre songs, a difference highlighted by Jennifer Toksvig in what must be one of the most interesting things ever written about lyrics. One of her points, if I've understood it correctly, is that pop lyrics tend towards a universal emotion (like the “big dreams” of the Queen of Hearts song) so that we, the listener, have the opportunity to fill in the specifics from our own experience. Theatre lyrics, on the other hand, already have the specifics of the story and the experiences of the characters (like the “David and Veronica” of the Queen of Hearts song) and so must find the universal therein.

To put it another way, LeAnn Rimes can sing a song like this:

“How do I live without you? I want to know

How do I breathe without you if you ever go
How can I ever, ever survive

How do I, how do I, oh how do I live?"

All well and good. Big, generic emotions expressing how you feel about someone you love. Everyone can think of their own loves and sympathise with poor LeAnn. But sing it as a character in a story and you’d assume the woman is nuts.

A character requires more specific characterization. So Professor Higgins, being emotionally cold and stubborn and arrogant (and, well, English) is more likely to express the feeling thus:

“Her smiles, her frowns
Her ups, her downs
Are second nature to me now
Like breathing out and breathing in…
I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face”

No doubt David Bowie said it his way too.

Could Musicals Turn Young People On To Opera?

No.

I’m tempted to leave it there.

But the question is explored further by Laura Blumenthal. It’s not that young people dislike music theatre:

“In fact, there's a real appetite for lavish productions with a constant stream of music. They're called musicals”

The issue is our old friend that we know so well, “familiarity”:

“Familiar stars, from TV and pop. Familiar songs, in the form of the jukebox musicals that have proliferated in the wake of the success of Mamma Mia!. Familiar plots, either from shows that remake films – Ghost, Shrek, Legally Blonde – or get a second wind when they are turned into films themselves, such as Chicago.”

The problem with this line of thinking is that popularity breeds familiarity but the reverse ain't necessarily true. For every Mamma Mia, there's a Beach Boys-Billy Joel-Rod Stewart attempt at theatrical greatness that never made it. Familiarity isn’t sufficient to get down with the kidz.

Secondly, opera could play this game too, if it so wished. How about “Titanic - the Opera”? Complete with a playlist of opera favourites and Russell Watson and Kathryn Jenkins playing Leo and Kate (or the other way round). Would it work? Maybe, maybe not. But if you think that all ya need's a bit of "familiarity", it would be an option.

The fact that it’s unlikely to happen is down to the variant histories of the two forms. Opera has traditionally been at the patronage of Kings, Emporers and taxpayers. Musicals were forged in the cut-and-thrust commercialism of Broadway. If opera wants to attract a young audience it needs more than a plot about Facebook. It needs, fundamentally, to entertain (and not just the young).

In the meantime, musicals should not serve as opera’s appetiser.

The Second Greatest Idea for a Musical Ever?

Yeah, baby.

The Greatest Idea for a Musical Ever?

Surely this has to be it.