Advance publicity for Finding Fame, a documentary about David Bowie's early years, promises newly unearthed material; the enterprise has even been injected with an element of jeopardy by a question mark over whether a particularly fragile piece of videotape, not included in preview copies of the programme, will be restored in time for the scheduled UK broadcast on BBC 2 on the 9th of February.
It will undoubtedly be worth watching either way but I note that at least one reviewer has already mentioned that "the significant role played by ’60s manager-mentor Ken Pitt in Bowie’s development is largely overlooked", so I'm guessing that the answer to the question posed in the title of this piece is likely to be no.
Pitt is the obvious link between Bowie and Alan Klein, whose album Well At Least Its [sic] British was released on Decca in 1964, and there is a strong case to be made for Klein as an influence on David Bowie's approach to songwriting, particularly on his first album.
For those unaware of Alan Klein I will try to sum up his importance both to Bowie and to the development of British pop generally - but if you're already confused at this early stage perhaps I need to point out that the Beatles' sometime manager was Allen Klein.
In 1962 Alan Klein, then simply a songwriter, was invited to write a musical by Theatre Workshop's Gerry Raffles; the show, entitled What a Crazy World, mingled music hall and rock'n'roll in a gritty setting and was later made into a film.
Klein also essayed the role of the effete Tristram, Seventh Earl Of Cricklewood, in the New Vaudeville Band - apparently playing it to the hilt, which might have given Bowie a few pointers - but perhaps most importantly in relation to David Bowie's writing is Well At Least Its British, which brought a specifically English sensibility - what Damon Albarn has called "an embryo of cynicism" - to a form still largely in thrall to American-style positivity.
The songs on Well At Least Its British go from satire to straight(-ish) pop with a twist, which could equally apply as a summation of Bowie's first LP. The former David Jones has said that what appealed to him about Anthony Newley, whose singing voice he famously mimicked on that album, was the novelty of someone singing a sort-of rock'n'roll with an English accent, and his ears may have pricked likewise at the sound of Klein's Cockney singing on Well At Least Its British - not to mention What a Crazy World, which Bowie might well have seen on stage or screen.
Ken Pitt, Bowie's manager of the time, was also Klein's manager-cum-publicist, so there can be little doubt that Bowie would have been aware of Alan Klein's work. Kieron Tyler's sleevenotes for the CD reissue of Well At Least Its British go so far as to state:
Alan is certain that Well At Least Its British had an impact on Bowie, his style, musical direction and general approach. Anthony Newley was acknowledged as an influence but Alan was never mentioned. "Although I never met David Bowie, I knew about him because Ken was always saying, 'you've got to hear this.' I know my stuff was an influence on Bowie, of course he heard Well At Least Its British."
And it isn't only Pitt who links Bowie to Klein. Chris O'Leary's Bowie book Rebel Rebel makes generous acknowledgement of material about Klein on this blog but points out two further connections I hadn't been aware of:
Decca producer and A&R man Hugh Mendl (who signed Bowie) had signed Klein; Mike Vernon, who would produce Bowie's debut, had recorded British.Frustratingly, however, Bowie never made any public reference to Alan Klein so it remains to be seen whether others will do so in the BBC 2 documentary. But Alan Klein remains a figure of importance either way, and if the reader cares to stay with me now I've got all that Bowie come-on out of the way I'm going to be discussing his work in detail, looking first at the music which influenced him, and What a Crazy World; then his solo work and time with the New Vaudeville Band; and finally, Esther, his theatre and TV work in the seventies and eighties.
1) EARLY INFLUENCES AND WHAT A CRAZY WORLD
Alan Charles Klein was born in Clerkenwell, London, on 29th June 1940. At some point he was evacuated to Leicester, where his brother Eddie was born in 1943, but the family later returned to London. A 1962 press release by Ken Pitt, Klein's manager and publicist - "mainly a publicist", Klein says - picks up the story in his late teens:
After leaving Grammar School, and being interested in Commercial Art, he studied at St Martin's School of Art. He bought a ukele, learned to play, and started composing. His father then bought him a guitar, and Alan worked hard at it, playing in pubs, clubs and anywhere they would let him.Interviewing him for Radio Merseyside's On the Beat in 2008, Spencer Leigh began by asking:
Rock'n'roll came along in 1956, so is that what turned you on?As Harold Pinter's Lennie - the Herbie Shadbolt of his day - would say, "That's not equivocal; it's unequivocal." Alan Klein liked rock'n'roll. It's a point worth stressing because a widely circulated Allmusic review of his album Well At Least Its British asserts that he "had nothing but contempt" for the form.
Oh yeah, that was the moment. Listening to Radio Luxembourg and hearing Chuck Berry doing Roll Over Beethoven, it's - oh yeah, fantastic. Nobody can ever have those moments again because it's all been done, if you know what I mean. It's like an explosion: all of a sudden it just happened and it was great to be there at that time. Buddy holly was great and the Everly Brothers, Carl Perkins - Eddie Cochran as well, and again he wrote his own material.
Asked to choose a rock'n'roll track for the interview, Klein goes for a comparatively obscure Buddy Holly B side, Looking For Someone to Love, which was also on the Chirping Crickets album. This has the quirky line which was a saying of Buddy's mother, apparently suggested by brother Larry when Buddy was stuck:
Drunk man, street car, foot slipped, there you areLeigh quotes it, to Klein's delight:
Sure, that's the one! It's lovely, that line, weren't it?Other musical influences were also at work. I asked him:
Did that encourage you to want to be a songwriter yourself?
Oh I guess so, it must have done, yeah. I used to like writing compositions at school, essays and stuff, and I think this became a sort of way of being able to do it and maybe make some money out of it.
As a kid were you listening to anything other than the bland pop in the early 50s charts? Were you exposed to music hall, Formby etc? Did you go to variety theatres as a kid? I suppose what I'm really asking, to put it crudely, is whether the style of What a Crazy World was all down to seeing Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be or whether it was something in your blood anyway?For those who may not know, Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be, an earlier Theatre Workshop production, with book by Frank Norman and music and lyrics by Lionel Bart, is set in a Cockney underworld and had a very long and successful West End run; a bowdlerised version of the title song was a hit for Max Bygraves and would have been difficult to avoid. And in addition to reviving American folk and blues songs the British skiffle star Lonnie Donegan created or embellished what might be termed novelty songs such as My Old Man's a Dustman - a fuller account of whose origins can be found here.
The reason for Formby type chord sequences [in What a Crazy World] was that as a youngster I used to watch his films at Saturday morning pictures and when I could afford it bought a ukele and taught myself a few songs before moving on to guitar.
I was also a great admirer of Noel Coward's lyrics - think of Mad Dogs and Englishmen, London Pride etc etc. I regularly went to Variety theatres as a young lad - mainly the Finsbury Park Empire, and The Hackney Empire.
As for Crazy World down to me seeing Fings, well I've never seen Fings - the show - although of course I heard the song, which may have influenced me just as Lonnie Donegan did when the skiffle craze started.
Ken Pitt's press release continues:
With a friend he then went to the Continent, and (as they had no money) sang for food and lodging in cabaret and hotels from the Coast to Paris, Luxembourg and back home, where he worked as a cook, labourer, record salesman and accounts clerk to make ends meet. He appeared as a Carrol Levis discovery on stage and radio then formed his own group "THE AL KLINE FIVE." [sic]The Al Kline Five evolved out of the Art Daniels Five, which Alan joined in 1958; he took over leadership of the group when Arthur Daniels left. Towards the end of the year Alan recruited George Bellamy, later to find fame with the Tornados, as second lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist; the rest of the group was made up of George Rodda, drums, Pete West, lead guitar and Hank Hancock on bass.
In 1960 the group successfully auditioned for a season at Butlins Skegness where, Alan says, "You just had to do covers of what was the latest songs - you couldn't put anything new in, really. Pete West and Hank Hancock (decapitated above) "both had good daytime jobs" and decided not to go; they were replaced by Johnny Patto and Bill Quinsy respectively. (Pete's story can be found here.)
After Butlin's we formed George and Alan and was introduced to Ken Pitt who got us a regular job singing nightly at the Pink Elephant Club, a discreet - which it had to be - gay club in Soho formed by the Trotter Brothers, two Americans who did a puppet act. Both of us were straight but that's probably why the customers liked us. A BBC producer came in one evening and booked us for Saturday Club.Ken Pitt's press release:
Success seemed assured: appearances on the BBC's Saturday Club and billings with Alma Cogan and David Whitfield meant George and Alan were on their way.But Klein eventually "had enough of interpreting the transatlantic sound and split from George," Pitt says, and it would seem that the song What a Crazy World was the result of his disenchantment with playing rock'n'roll at Butlins and country music with George Bellamy - as well as a hefty dose of irritation with the charts:
Everything was so Americanised. All the hit records were covers of American songs.At some point after Butlins he had an epiphany:
I thought, we can't just go on singing about "Kansas City here I come" and stuff like that, which I'd never been to. I've got to start writing about what we know. And so I thought, well, I'll write songs of what I see around me.This wasn't a rejection of rock'n'roll so much as a realisation the form wouldn't suit a new kind of specifically English content:
I had to find a way of doing it, and I thought it won't work using twelve bar blues sequence which most of the rock songs were based on. So I thought well, the way to do an English song is maybe I should think in terms of ukele chords, George Formby-type chord sequences, and that's what I did with that one: tried to make it a bit more up to date."That one" - What a Crazy World - was born, a sleevenote states:
on a District Line tube train on the journey between Charing Cross and East Ham after another fruitless day of trudging around Tin Pan Alley trying to sell other songs. The next day the words and music were on tape.Klein had had "a spell as a bookies runner" (Pitt refers, perhaps euphemistically, to his having been an "accounts clerk") but was unemployed by this point (late 1961). In what seems like a scene from the film,
I took it to all the publishers and no one wanted to know until Pan Music. I went in all naive and played it like George Formby.Spencer Leigh:
It's a great lyric - I presume it's the type of song where you probably had about twenty verses and whittled them down?
That's right, yeah - you just went on and on and on, basically. I did a demo of it and I think Joe [Brown] just picked out what was on [his recording] from the demo.What a Crazy World was a self-contained number, not a means of drumming up business for a musical. But the publicity generated by the single extended far and wide, including an episode of The Archers where it was discussed "as a biting satire of living conditions as they exist today, with particular emphasis on the housing problem." More significantly for Klein's career, it was also performed on the BBC's early evening magazine programme Tonight, as he told Spencer Leigh:
The BBC got Joe to sing Crazy World because it was a current song that was different from the sort of songs that were going on at the time: there was a social content in it. Joe did it on the show and it was watched by Gerry Raffles who ran Theatre Royal, Stratford East in conjunction with Joan Littlewood. He liked it so much that he got in touch with the publishers and asked to meet me, to see if I was interested in writing a musical. So that's what I did. He commissioned me to write a rough draft: I wrote about ten pages of stuff and took it into him - [he] loved it and said "Go ahead and do it."
The stage production premiered on October 30th, 1962; it was not a hit with the critics. Kieron Tyler:
The Daily Express said it was "inept, clumsy, amateur, boring, and vulgar." According to the Evening News "it is very much an apprentice work by Alan Klein ... and its plot is sheer fantasy." The Daily Herald, The Daily Telegraph and [perhaps more surprisingly] The New Musical Express were just as sniffy. The Times said: " this musical appears a crude and amateurish echo of Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be and Sparrers Can't Sing." Obviously the press wanted something to fit their idea of what the Theatre Workshop ought to be doing.Alan Klein went on to work on quite a few shows in the 70s and 80s, often in collaboration with Ken Hill. I asked him about his stage work in general:
I suppose what I'm pushing towards, though it may be more than a tad pretentious, is whether you had or have a conscious underlying attitude about what theatre or music is for. Was it about producing a theatre for the people? I grew up in the seventies in Scotland and there was a lot of agitprop theatre around, 7:84 in particular. From the reviews, your work with Ken Hill wasn't overtly political, but was it done in reaction to the theatre in the West End etc - in other words was it a bit like what you've said about Well At Least It's British, that you were trying to present something more true to people's lives - or am I putting words in your mouth?Despite the critical onslaught, positive comments can be found in some of the reviews of What a Crazy World. But first it may be worth quoting a synopsis, as there are three separate versions of the musical: the original 1962 stage production, the 1963 film, and the 1975 stage revival.
I must say I did see this as writing theatre for the people and, pretentious or not, this is what I set about doing. I wrote it for the local audience and they loved it. [What a Crazy World] was very successful locally - but the national critics hated it. Ken Pitt, being the great publicist he was, got all the critics on the national papers interested, but when they saw it the reaction was one of derision and sheer hatred. I remember Bernard Levin's quote that " You didn't come out humming the tunes - You came out composing them" I still find that amusing although not at the time. So you are not putting words in my mouth: I was trying to write for people like myself.
The following account of the original stage production's plot comes, I think, from the Times:
The central character is Alf Hitchens, a 17-year-old boy who is tired of being on the dole and tired of his girl friend: he takes a job in a solicitor's office and has a brief affair with the boss's secretary, but on running foul of her middle-class values and on discovering that solicitors have nothing to do with soliciting, reverts to the life he knows. Supporting this narrative is a cross section of Alf's social background: endless quarreling at home, with mother and father making off to the bingo hall and the dog track every night; dance hall brawls and long, aimless street-corner meetings.That "soliciting" joke was seized on by critics, including Kenneth Tynan:
Mr Klein's protagonist is a charmless layabout who takes a job in a solicitor's office because he thinks it has something to do with soliciting. That constitutes the plot and also the principal joke, of which the author never tires.Alan Klein:
The main difference between the first stage version and the film was the fact that Alf writes a song rather than getting a job in an office. In the stage show he mistakes what a solicitor's is. I had two ideas. That one - making him extremely naive - or the more knowing one of him wanting the job so that he (in his mind) could somehow 'do' something for Herbie's family. We ended up using the first idea but looking back I'm not mad on it.Only one paper - the Stage - defended the joke at the time.
He thinks the term 'solicitor' means anything but the law, and particularly the new form of prostitution since our new regulations [following the recommendations of 1957's Wolfenden Report] drove the girls off the streets, but not off their work. This may sound a feeble joke. It is not. It works very well, and Alf, the fellow concerned, is, with all his know-how and toughness, the very type who would fall for such a notion.The review is worth quoting at length as it is the only one which seemed to view the show as a whole in a positive light:
The tale of Alf's work, romancing and 'finding his way' is simply told, with neat lyrics and catchy tunes. The simplicity and directness of the narrative gives the show its strength, the excellent dialogue and quick working out and sequence of situation adding vitality and colour. ... The characters are clearly and warmly drawn ... Mr Klein has a real gift for characterisation; not deep, but real and true enough, anyhow for a musical.In fact, there was only one aspect of the production the Stage critic didn't like, suggesting that it would need to be "largely re-cast" to have a chance in the West End.
I like the way in which his little lyrics are woven into the texture of the development. They seem to be completely natural expressions of character, their very briefness being a strong point of their effectiveness. They belong to the atmosphere of music hall in jauntiness and pitch. In this respect as in others, Mr Klein never attempts more than he can accomplish. The show is small-scale but so nicely wrought and round that it makes a considerable impact.
Ken Tynan also found something to praise in his review, though he considered the direction, by Gerry Raffles, to suffer from "flat feet", missing Joan Littlewood's "ribald sparkle" and "bawdy theatrical winks":
Mr Klein's strong point is his dialogue, laconic and disenchanted: Barry Bethell, the hero, shrugs it off rather too coolly, but the Workshop's best traditions are firmly applied by Avis Bunnage, Brian Murphy and Harry H Corbett.The paying punters certainly liked it, even if the critics didn't, and the month-long run was extended to February 1963. As early as November 1962 there were plans to make a film.
I had two offers [he told Spencer Leigh]. One from Robert Stigwood to put it on in the West End with Mike Sarne. He became popular with Come Outside, cause everyone now was starting doing Cockney songs. You had Bernard Cribbins doing Hole in the Ground, Mike Sarne doing Come Outside, that suddenly became the in thing.As mentioned, the solicitor business was dropped for the film: Alf, now played by Joe Brown, gets a job in a song publisher's office. Kieron Tyler sees the change as an indication of "How sensitive both the cinema audience and Brown's image must have been" - but I suspect it depends on how funny or plausible you find the stage Alf's misunderstanding. Klein told me:
[Then] Michael Carreras of Hammer Films came along and I thought "Oh, a film'd be great because a film's gonna be there forever," so I thought to myself, "Yeah, I'll go for the film."
[Michael Carreras had] written a film script and gave it to me and said change what you want. I just copied the sort of thing he did.
There were also some new songs written for the films and some dropped - most of which I agreed with except for one - He's Not A Bad Boy Really - sung by Avis Bunnage as Alf's mother.There were a total of five new numbers written for the film: Independence, Just You Wait and See, I Feel the Same Way Too, Things We Never Had and Sally Ann.
Sally Ann was sung by "Frantic" Freddie and the Dreamers in a concert sequence. They also sang two non-Klein numbers: a twist version of Camptown Races and Short Shorts, complete with multiple debaggings.
Barry Bethel, who had played the lead onstage, Joe Brown being committed elsewhere at the time, was downgraded to a supporting role for the film. Avis Bunnage was retained as the mother, even if her solo number wasn't - though Things We Never Had was a great vehicle both for her and fellow Theatre Workshop stalwart Harry H Corbett.
I Wanna Be a Beatnik Like Me Brother, sung by a young Tony Robinson in the stage production, didn't make the film either but Klein thought enough of it to revive it for his album Well At Least It's British.
Striped Purple Shirt, also dropped for the film, seems to have predated the musical as it had been released as a solo single in 1962 (produced by Joe Meek) before the original stage production opened.
While Klein thinks pop star Susan Maughan wasn't right for the part of the girlfriend in the film, he talked warmly to Spencer Leigh about Marty Wilde's role as lead layabout Herbie Shadbolt:
Marty came in it because Joe [Brown] asked for him to be in it. Michael Carreras wasn't sure about that, but Marty had done a bit of acting before that, and he was excellent in it [...] very good, very natural. The Herbie character was the best part, he thinks he's the wheeler-dealer. It was a better part to play than Alf [Joe Brown].If dropping the solicitor business for the film was indeed about avoiding offence to the audience or tarnishing Joe Brown's image, as Kieron Tyler suggests, modern sensitivities are perhaps more likely to be offended at the song Layabout's Lament. Spencer Leigh brings up the subject:
There's a song in that, that actually was a Joe Brown B side as well, Layabout's Lament, that actually nowadays would be regarded as so politically incorrect you couldn't do it.It's an odd song to watch now, but it's difficult to find it offensive: there is a kind of zany, carnival atmosphere in the performance and although the British-born layabouts gripe about incomers thronging the labour exchange their main bone of contention seems to be that they can't use it as a glorified social centre anymore - in other words, Klein is really having a dig at himself and his friends:
I know - it's on youtube, actually, where someone said "Here's a very strange song." You look at it now and it just shows you, Spencer, how times have changed!
And you can tell when you hear that song that you must have been laughing away while you wrote it.
That was written from personal experience, because at that time I actually was on the dole: when I was writing What a Crazy World I was out of work and I was geting thirty bob a week down at East Ham on the dole. I put across the attitude of the people who were signing on - so it was completely truthful of that time.
What's happened to those peaceful Friday morningsSix months after the film of What a Crazy World came the seismic shift of A Hard Day's Night:
A quiet smoke with all the local boys
When we used the time to fill in our pools coupons
Now we can't concentrate - there's too much noise
Oh I tell you that it really is heartbreaking
It makes you feel like sitting down to sob
Our local labour exchange has gone to rack and ruin
So we reckon we'll 'ave to find ourselves a job
It was changing fast from when I started writing the stage show in 1962. The Beatles had a big impact, they swamped the business. By the time the film came out, it was probably starting to age already. It was a document of its time, even though it's dated. All I was doing was saying what people felt.No gainsaying the impact of the Fabs, of course, but in an essay in the BFI book Celluloid Jukebox Andy Medhurst distinguishes What a Crazy World from its Hollywood-inspired contemporaries:
The thrust of these earlier pop films is clear enough. Pop is OK as long as it can be moulded into an updated rise-to-fame, putting-on-a-show musical (with Tommy Steele as Mickey Rooney and Terry Dene as Judy Garland).While acknowledging A Hard Day's Night as "The film which inevitably sundered that connection" Medhurst praises What a Crazy World for avoiding being yet another pale copy of an American genre:
What a Crazy World, released in July 1963, attempted to link pop with older cultural traditions without delivering it into the bland hands of mainstream showbiz. Set in the East End, and redolent of the theatricalised Cockneyisms of Joan Littlewood, it posits pop as the inheritor of music hall, casting popsters Joe Brown and Marty Wilde as street-wise London lads, carving out a space for fun and frolics in a world of street markets, council estates and dole offices. The intriguing possibility of a pop / music-hall connection (which Tommy Steele also intermittently explored) was that it opened up a potential space for a pop based on Englishness. That is, I acknowledge, a dangerous term, trailing behind it all manner of nationalistic and ethnocentric connotations, but it does help to locate What a Crazy World in a tradition that has sought to avoid second-hand Americanisms in favour of a pop that addressed more pertinently English structures of feeling.Andy Medhurst is only talking about the film, but that phrase might well stand as a summary of Alan Klein's general approach to the songs in Well At Least It's British: avoiding second-hand Americanisms in favour of something which connects more directly with personal experience. For Medhurst,
What a Crazy World remains fascinating, a neglected thread in that strand of white pop Englishness which later wove itself from the Kinks and the Small Faces through the Jam and Madness to the Smiths and Blur.And Damon Albarn, as we shall see later, became a champion of Alan Klein's solo album Well At Least It's British, citing it as an inspiration for Blur's Modern Life Is Rubbish.
What a Crazy World was revived by Stratford East in 1975, directed by Larry Dann, who had appeared in both the stage and screen versions. Klein told me:
The 1975 revival was an amalgam of both the shows using the film songs and some new ones that I wrote especially. Funnily enough I came across the script for this show the other day but I haven't had a chance to read through it yet to see exactly what the differences are. In this version Alf decides to join the Army ... it was [Larry Dann's] idea to update it.The music business idea from the film was retained, but now the army offered an alternative escape route for the disaffected hero, as this Stage review indicates:
Young Alf is our central character, out of a job, lured by the possibility of instant fame and fortune as a pop star, toying with the possibility of going into the Army to get away from everything - and everyone, which includes his girlfriend Marilyn. Dad and grandfather mouth platitudes and Mum has a passion for bingo and little else besides. Herbie, his best friend, comes from a family more accustomed to doing time than doing anythng else and is fast progressing down the same road. All this flows easily in song and speech and we never feel that we are being got at. Even the recruiting office scene is not laboured.Below is a list of songs from the various versions, based on the theatre programmes and CD tracklist for the film. As far as I know, only the supposed "film soundtrack" - actually studio versions of the songs - has ever been released as an album.
Original 1962 stage production:
Give Me a Chance - Marylin * **
I Sure Know a Lot About Love - Joey *
My Two Brothers - Doris, Alf, Joey * **
Oh, What a Family - Herb * **
What a Crazy World - Alf * **
You've Got to Twist, Twist, Twist - Rockin' Earl Frankenstein
Wasn't It a Handsome Punch-up - Alf, Herb and Boys * **
Treat Them Hard - Herb
Eggs, Beans and Chips - Alf **
Alfred Hitchins - Marylin *
There's Something Funny Somewhere Going On - Alf
I Wanna be a Beatnik Like Me Bruvver - Jimmy ***
He's Not a Bad Boy Really - Mary **
Striped Purple Shirt - Alf ****
A Layabout's Lament - Herb * **
Do Me a Favour Marylin
Finale - What a Crazy World - The Company * **
* also in film
** also in stage revival
*** included on Well At Least It's British
**** Alan Klein solo single
1963 film:
What A Crazy World (We're Living In)
A Lay-About's Lament
I Sure Know A Lot About Love
Bruvvers
Oh What A Family
Alfred Hitchins
Sally Ann *
Wasn't It A Handsome Punch-Up
Please Give Me A Chance
Independence *
I Feel The Same Way Too *
Just You Wait And See *
Things We Never Had *
What A Crazy World (reprise)
Camptown Races **
Short Shorts ***
* written for film
** twist version of Stephen Foster song (Freddie and the Dreamers)
*** cover of American hit (Freddie and the Dreamers)
1975 stage revival:
Layabout's Lament - Herbie and his gang
Give Me a Chance - Marylin
Things We Never Had - Mr and Mrs Hitchens
Brothers - Linda, Alf and Joey
Oh What a Family - Herbie and Alf
Nostalgia Sandwiches - Grandad *
What a Crazy World - Alf
Wasn't It an 'Andsome Punchup - Alf and Herbie
Independence - Chas and Harry
He's Not a Bad Boy Really - Mrs Hitchens **
Eggs, Beans and Chips - Chas, Harry and Herbie **
I Feel the Same Way Too - Marylin and Alf
Ain't It Good to Be Alive - Factory Workers *
Just You Wait and See - Alf
Medley - Alf
What a Crazy World - Company
* written for 1975 revival
** songs from original stage production dropped from the film
2) 60s SOLO WORK & THE NEW VAUDEVILLE BAND
Even before the original stage production of What a Crazy World had opened, Joe Brown's success with the single had encouraged Klein to start a solo recording career. Ken Pitt's promo material, dated May 1962, may inform us that "he is at present working on a very 'down-to-earth' musical" but it was actually written to accompany the Australian release of Striped Purple Shirt on W&G Records (Oriole Records in the UK).
Striped Purple Shirt is crammed with detailed sartorial observation ("taking the mickey out of clobber blokes like me", as Klein has said):
I've got a striped purple shirt and a pair of yellow braces
A chequered coat cut in the latest style
And with me winklepicker shoes on, yes I'm really going places -
I aim to make this life of mine worthwile
Then there is the neatness of the conclusion. Our modern dandy is victim of an 'andsome punch up after chatting up someone else's "darlin'" at a dance (so it's easy to see how the song would have fitted into the musical) but he proves indomitable:
Well, me mum and me dad come down the 'ospital to see me,
Asked me if I needed anything,
I said I'd like the local papers so's I can read all about me capers
And two other items I want you to bring:
I want me striped purple shirt and me pair of yellow braces ...
I asked Alan Klein for his thoughts on Ray Davies, especially as there is a Stratford East connection: Davies did a musical there set in the fifties when rock'n'roll was beginning to replace the dance bands at local dance halls. Did he think that songs like the Kinks' 1966 hit Dedicated Follower of Fashion borrowed from Striped Purple Shirt?
I think that Ray Davies, like myself, was influenced by what had gone before and what was around him. Dedicated Follower Of Fashion to me is more like a mixture of Striped Purple Shirt and Twentieth Century Englishman but that is surely coincidental. His songs, however, have a lasting quality and stand up fantastically well today, I think. I admire his talent.Spencer Leigh:
In 1962 you started making your own records and you were signed to Oriole, which to a degree was a kiss of death label, wasn't it? They didn't promote things.It was well worth it on this occasion: Three Coins in the Sewer is a perfectly realised comedy record, the really rather beautiful strings in counterpoint to the unfolding of the poor unfortunate's tale:
Yeah, but you see I never saw myself as a singer. The publishers said there's this guy called Joe Meek who's got this recording studio up in Holloway Road, I had an audition and he said fine, we'll record these songs, and we did - ended up in Oriole, which was hardly the fashionable label of the time.
Ken Pitt told me that with Three Coins in the Sewer you had a lot of fun with the sound effects on that.
Joe Meek did, yeah. He didn't talk to me for ages after that, cause he said it gave him a cold - he was in the bathroom, dropping pennies in the bath to get the sound effects on it.
And I saw Ivor Raymonde, who was an arranger, one day in the pub, and he said "Funnily enough I've just been putting strings on the backing of one of your songs from Joe Meek," and the joke was Joe Meek's studio was so small you couldn't get more than about three people in there you know (cracking up) you'd get strings and backing singers down the stairs with mikes!
Now me friends won't come near me,There is also a great spoken outro by Klein but the record's masterstroke has to be a violin solo which can only be described as - well, airy: The Sparrer Ascending.
Oh, ain't it a shame
Since that day in the sewer
I ain't been the same
On June 29th, 1963, an article in the Stage announced:
Now that the filming is completed of What a Crazy World Alan Klein will soon start work [on] his second play. It is likely to be presented at the Royal, Stratford East, early next year.But this may have been a bit of PR puffery by Ken Pitt. Klein says:
I never wrote a second play for Stratford East in 1963 as I worked not only on Grab Me A Gondola but then another screenplay with Michael Carreras about the end of a pier - both of which were never made.Grab Me a Gondola was a proposed film version of a 50s stage musical inspired by the real-life story of Diana Dors' 1955 publicity stunt at the 1955 Venice Film Festival, "floating down the Grand Canal in a gondola wearing a mink bikini":
Keiron Tyler:
"I spent a lot of time doing Grab Me a Gondola and was on wages," Alan says. "Then suddenly film musicals went dead. It was to do with a Cliff Richard one that didn't make any money [...] so the plug was pulled and that was the end of it."I don't know whether he was adding new songs or working on the screenplay, or both, but one number from the original stage production, written by James Gilbert and Julian More, is an effective parody of rock'n'roll, which might have appealed to him. One reviewer described Rockin' at the Cannon Ball as "a rock'n'roll monstrosity."
And then in 1964 came Klein's one and only solo album, Well At Least Its British.
Spencer Leigh:
A few years back Blur bring out the album Modern Life Is Rubbish and Damon Albarn is saying Alan Klein is great.Albarn has said in an interview:
Yeah, took forty years for someone to appreciate my album! That was lovely, it was a big boost because I thought to myself, oh then it was all worthwhile, really, because it wasn't successful at the time. Decca put the album out but they didn't get behind it, and then suddenly he found it in a charity shop, obviously could understand what I was all about at that time and thought it was appropriate to just get that idea of Britpop association.
This is the most colloquial record that I own. [...] it was instrumental in me making Modern Life Is Rubbish, and changing, and getting an idea of my own self. [...] It's sort of pop music but it's very strange; his lyrics are very innocent in one way, but at the same time they had that sort of embryo of cynicism which has been taken on board by everyone since.Kieron Tyler:
I can't believe that David Bowie didn't know him inside out, and the same with Ray Davies. My favourite track goes 'He's a twentieth century Englishman' (see Blur's For Tomorrow). It's a fantastic record. I've never seen it anywhere else, and no one's ever mentioned it, but it was an important link for me.
Alan is certain that Well At Least Its British had an impact on Bowie, his style, musical direction and general approach. Anthony Newley was acknowledged as an influence but Alan was never mentioned. "Although I never met David Bowie, I knew about him because Ken was always saying, 'you've got to hear this.' I know my stuff was an influence on Bowie, of course he heard Well At Least Its British."Klein makes it clear that when he did turn to Well At Least Its British ("my idea was still to do my own thing"), he was thinking conceptually, as Bowie was later to do, right down to the conscious statement of that album cover (top):
They wanted to pretty you up for the cover. Decca weren't too pleased with it but I did insist on it as it was making the point. There were still [World War II] ruins in London. It was quite disgusting that you looked around and other cities in Europe were being rebuilt but London was still like this. No one was saying it's the load of crap I've grown up with, it's what I know.
With regard to the music itself, however, the concept is more to be found in the general approach to songs, rather than adherence to a single musical style, as Kieron Tyler's sleevenotes make clear:
Thematically, Alan was concerned with an idea of the self that ran counter to the glossy, exaggerated characters propogated in pop. "The whole point was satirising," he explains."All the singers used to sing with rock bands about the guy who would do it, be certain, the big guy. But my songs are 'I might be, maybe I will, maybe I won't.' All the songs around at that time were too definite. It was my reaction against being the big hero." That sense of a lack of commitment is to the fore in I'll See You Around and explored in the reflective Big Talk From A Little Man.Klein's keen ear for cliche is what gives the album unity, although his ridicule alternates between the gentle, with some songs only nudged ever so slightly off conventional lines, and the extreme.
A good example of the latter is Will You Ever Come Back Again? It's borne out of a remarkably simple - and effective - idea: take a standard, tired phrase as your opening and let everything else follow logically on. I don't know about Bowie and the Kinks, but it's not difficult to imagine a ditty such as this planting deep roots in Vivian Stanshall's cranium:
My poor heart is breaking
My kidneys are aching
My appendix is feeling the strain
And since you said goodbye
I've got a stye in each eye
So will you ever come back again?
Could Canyons of Your Mind owe rather more to this composition, in fact, than Elusive Butterfly, the Bob Lind hit which provided Stanshall with its title? The song's spoken section provides what seems to me like near-damning evidence:
Since our last meeting
I just keep repeating [burps]
Your name. Your sweet name.
In other numbers Klein tends to subvert cliches by stealth. Big Talk From A Little Man, for example, scales down the extravagant promises of conventional love songs to a more - well, human level.
If I offer you the earth
And promise you the moon
Darlin', don't pay too much worth
For you will find out soon
That it's just big talk from a little man
Who's full of big ideas and schemes
Big talk from a little man
Who ain't quite as big as his dreams
This is one of the numbers sung in vaguely American tones, which may provide a clue about Klein's intentions in this case.
I'll See You Around is sung in a louche cabaret style, with tinkling piano and female chorus. The title, in other writer's hands, might perhaps have suggested a tale of swagger or wistful-but-manly regret; the tale Klein's speaker has to tell, however, is all humiliation and pain - and he even blubs:
I'll see you around
Were your last words to me
And now all I know
Are night of loneliness and misery
Never thought you'd leave me
But you let me down
And how I cry when I hear those words
I'll see you around
Twentieth Century Englishman, the track admired by Damon Albarn, seems more in the tradition of English comic songs, albeit with a satirical edge. If you are acquainted with Benny Hill's early sixties comedy songs, this may not be altogether unfamiliar territory:
One day he saw a fellow who was drowning in the river
Shouting out "Help, help, I can't swim!"
He just walked on by and called out "Neither can I,
But I don't boast about it, Jim."
But where Hill is often slapdash, stuffing in any old jokes and frequently cannibalising his own work whatever the notional theme of a song (Ernie is a rare exception), Klein sets up the gags, and his lightly satirical intentions, more carefully in a framework with this opening verse, sung in a manner which anticipates his Tristram persona in the New Vaudeville Band:
We have heard so many stories of our great country's past
And the noblemen who made it that way.
They were chivalrous and fearless, stiff upper lip to the last
But what about the chaps of today?
Then come the Hill-level jokes, but all firmly linked, in Klein's case, to his central theme: the myriad faults of the modern Englishman, lacking in civic duty (as above), dishonest, selfish, unchivalrous - and cowardly:
He was working as a clerk behind the counter in a bank
When a gang of robbers called one day
Quick as a flash he handed them all the cash
Then hid until they'd gone away
Cause he's a redblooded, honest-to-goodness
Twentieth Century English Man
I'm not implying, by the way, that Alan Klein was particularly influenced by Benny Hill, merely using the lack of ambition inherent in the latter's comic songs to demonstrate the craft evident in Klein's. In his early days Hill may have been an innovator in his use of the television medium but his songs reach back to the music hall / variety tradition to which young Alan would also have been exposed on those visits to the Finsbury Park and Hackney Empires.
And of course there were other comic songs around, such as Ted Dicks and Myles Rudge's Right Said Fred and Hole in the Ground, both recorded in a sort of polite Cockney by Bernard Cribbins in 1962; Klein's not dissimilar Three Coins in the Sewer was recorded the same year.
Sadly, Well At Least Its British was not a commercial success and remains the only solo album released by Klein. He told Kieron Tyler:
Decca would issue a lot of American hits but they didn't know what I was all about. I have no idea why they spent money on it and then didn't do anything with it! I was disappointed, it got a couple of reviews but that was it [...] With the Rolling Stones around at the time, who were Decca going [to] promote? Not me!That wasn't the end of his recording career, however, and the following year he even came close to a hit with a later single on Parlophone, the merciless protest spoof Age of Corruption, which makes playful reference to writing a song so controversial that it's taken off the air:
And then when we hear that the radio has banned itIronically, that was pretty much what happened in this case, scuppering McGuire-Klein's chance of a hit:
And the record reviewers on the papers have panned it
We'll laugh all the way to the bank like we've planned it
Spencer Leigh:
You made a parody of Eve of Destruction, and until this album [Well At Least ...] came out I'd not heard that before.After that disappointment, a chance meeting took Klein's career - and persona - in an entirely different direction, as he tells Leigh:
No, cause it was withdrawn. They took it out because the publishers objected to it. It came out and it got quite a bit of radio play, funnily enough, and I thought, "Hello - this is going to be a hit!" and then suddenly the publishers jumped up and said "Oi, this is too close to Eve of Destruction!"
Shouldn't you have checked beforehand?
I thought someone would have done! I recorded it myself, paid for it myself and did it. I would have thought the record company would have checked these things out, but they didn't. And they put it out. What I've never understood to this day is why they didn't say "Why don't we just do a deal on it?" And take the publishing or a percentage or what.
Cause it's not quite the tune of Eve of Destruction.
No, I made sure it wasn't, but it's obviously what it was parodying, wasn't it, so I couldn't really say it was my idea.
Things went quiet for a while, then I suddenly bumped into Geoff Stephens walking along Charing Cross Road, and he said, "Oh, I was just looking for you." And I said, "Oh, why's that?" and he said, "I've got this hit, Winchester Cathedral - I need some songs to put on an album that I'm making, and I need 'em quick. Have you got anything?"As far as I know, Geoff Stephens wrote all the singles for the New Vaudeville Band, with the exception of Finchley Central, cowritten by Klein, who explains:
So I said, "I've got a silly song that I wrote the other day that might be on it, called Whatever Happened to Philys Puke?" And he said, "Oh I love that! I love that; I'll have that song!" I said "Oh, fine," he said, "Come up to the office," went up to the office, got a contract out, said to me, "Would you like an advance on it?" I said, "Yeah, lovely, Geoff" - you know, advances always come in handy - suddenly he's thought to himself, "Do you know what? It might not be a bad idea if I heard the song," so we went down to a studio and I recorded it, just with a guitar.
Afterwards he said, "What are you doing generally?" I said, "Well, not a lot really," so he said "Would you be interested, or do you know anybody who'd like to sing with the band?" And I didn't realise he was offering me the job. I think said "No, I can't think of anyone, Geoff, actually, offhand," so he said,"Well what about yourself?" I said, "Well, I can't sing myself, never really saw meself as a singer," so he said,"Well, it sounds fine - would you be interested in the job, then?" So I said, "Well, I'll give it a shot, yeah" - a week later I was on the Ed Sullivan Show in New York! ... From the Ed Sullivan the band was invited to Las Vegas, and I think we were the first English group to do Las Vegas. I thought to meself we'll either die a death here or they'll like it. And as it happened they liked it - we was a smash hit there.
He gave me some songs to do for a session. And I was coming in on the tube and I suddenly thought: "Those words there don't seem to fit that song," so I wrote it coming in on the tube and I thought "What shall I put, what shall I do?"- a second happy instance, you might say, of Notes From Underground.
And I suddenly thought I'll go back to the Winchester Cathedral idea, but do it about a tube train. Had to get a station - at first it was going to be Hendon Central and I thought no, Finchley Central, that goes well with the tune. When I come into the studio I said to Geoff, "Hey Geoff, what do you think of this for the song?" and he said "Oh yeah, great - put that in." And so we did, and that's how that came about.
The last UK single listed by the band on the 45rpm website is The Bonnie and Clyde (presumably not the Mitch Murray-Peter Callander composition). I'm not sure whether Klein was on that but do recall him singing Green Street Green on Top of the Pops - coincidentally an area of Bromley, where Bowie lived as a child.
Klein says now of the New Vaudeville Band:
I thought I'd go along for the ride, see what being a pop star was like. I did that for a couple of years and then went into the theatre.Aaccording to wikipedia he resumed solo recording in 1969 with a cover of Paul McCartney's Honey Pie - which might have been tailormade for his Tristam guise - backed with his own You Turned a Nightmare into a Dream.
This may be a case of false memory syndrome but I do seem to recall a weekend TV show on the Beeb around that time, a mix of sketches and music with a title like "I'm Sorry, We're British," or something like that. And I seem to recall a performance of Honey Pie. Kieron Tyler's sleevenotes say that he tried to get a comedy series off the ground sometime between 1964 and 1966; could that be related?
In 1970, again according to wikipedia, he was back recording for Decca, but after two singles there is no indication of any further releases.
3) 70s & 80s THEATRE WORK
Between 1972 and 1982 Alan Klein was involved with quite a few stage shows at Stratford East, mostly in collaboration with Ken Hill, along with a TV musical, also with Hill, based on the life of showman Pat Collins (above). The dates below are mostly taken from a complete list of productions on the Theatre Royal website.
Costa Packet 7 Oct To 15 Dec 1972
Dracula 26 Nov to 1 Feb 1974
What a Crazy World 28 May to 21 June 1975
Look Out, It's Sir 8 July to 2 Aug 1975
All the Fun of the Fair (TV) 18 Nov 1979
The Living Dead (Leicester Pheonix Theatre) Dec 1979
The Mummy's Tomb 8 Sep to 11 Oct 1980
Robin Hood 1 Dec 1980 To 24 Jan 1981
Mrs Tucker's Pageant 14 Sep to Oct 1981
Sinbad the Sailor 11 Dec 1981 to 31 Jan 1982
The following descriptions of shows have been pieced together from contemporary reviews and articles. I never saw any of the productions so present this only as a representative sample of available critical responses, so perhaps the reader ought to bear in mind that most critics seemed to get it wrong about What a Crazy World.
COSTA PACKET
Costa Packet united the talents of Frank Norman (Fings ...), Lionel Bart, Alan Klein and Joan Littlewood. It is notable, in historical terms, for being the last production Joan Littlewood worked on, and just about Lionel Bart's last musical (according to a recent biography the degree of his actual involvement in Winnie, a 1988 musical about Winston Churchill, is unclear).
Irving Wardle summed up Costa Packet in The Times as:
a string of sketches about a package holiday on one of Southend's extensions along the Spanish coast. A mixed collection of sun-seekers go through the obligatory beach, restaurant, sight-seeing, and marital routines, being fleeced at every turn by the couriers, but still managing to have a good time.
According to an article in the Guardian by Charles Hamblett the show arose out of conversations with regulars in the bar: the idea was to look at
the difference between people's dream of the perfect holiday and the perfect escape from the fifty weeks of boredom and hell they go through - and what they actually get for their money for that fortnight ... people round here ... save up for the whole year long to go away for those two weeks.Hamblett makes clear that Alan Klein was still pursuing a career outside the theatre at this point:
Lionel Bart looks so sensitively involved with his musical tasks during rehearsal [Hamblett writes] that it would have been brutal to importune him for comment, but Alan Klein, an altogether tougher talent, has knocked about the States a great deal and is revelling in the challenges involved.In the Guardian article, published shortly before the show opened, Frank Norman keeps his counsel about changes to his original script, but when the musical was in its "death throes" ten weeks later, he penned an angry letter to the Times about what had been done to his original conception. Joan Littlewood had lent her support to John Arden's picketing of his play The Island of the Mighty in protest at what the director had done to it - which seemed a bit rich to Norman, who felt he had suffered in a similar way at Littlewood's hands:
"Lionel goes off and writes his songs, I write mine," he explains. "We both know the story, the situations, but work separately. Sometimes we don't see each other for days at a time. Joan takes our songs and tries them out. She'll maybe keep them in for a week or so and then chuck 'em out. I go off and write several [tunes again]. At present Lionel's got four songs in, I've about five. But Lionel is writing one specially for me to sing in the show.
"Yeah, I go on stage and do this song of Lionel's. I've performed all over the world, with groups, solo. and writing original songs. After I'm finished here I'm going to Nashvile to write some songs. My publisher in New York has fixed it up. But I wouldn't miss this experience here, working with Joan, for anything. It's an enlargement experience."
The idea for the show ... came from Littlewood herself and she asked me if I would write a script to which songs could be added later. I decided that my most effective contribution to the finished article would be to provide a measure of social realism ... I delivered the script then went away on my summer holiday. When I returned ... Joan Littlewood had entirely rewritten the script without consulting me: the show was no longer a polemic, it was a romp.He conceded that
Rehearsals commenced in true Littlewood style with the cast adlibbing their parts ... I fought a long battle to get some of my original material back in the show.
My reputation as a playwright has been enhanced by the success of the piece, but my self-confidence has been shattered.The strongest review was that of Irving Wardle in the Times, who thought the show ideally suited to Joan Littlewood's directing style:
Upon the familiar situations are imposed the equally familiar trade-marks of Joan Littlewood's fun-show style: animated sea-side postcard comic performance ... Miss Littlewood has found a show ... well fitted to one of the things she does best ... it is by far the best job she has done in the present series. Of late, her productions have contained brilliant moments, but they have reached the public in an unfinished state. Not so here.He praises her in particular for focusing the audience's attention, and goes on to single out Alan Klein's contribution:
In the restaurant, for instance, the eye is led unerringly from table to table ... to the aloof figure of Avis Bunnage spooning up a monster dessert from a mauve goblet ... The numbers, mostly by Alan Klein, have the beat and lilt that the occasion demands. It is an occasion worlds removed from the West End, but it is well worth the trip when you get there.The critics weren't unanimous in their praise, however. There is a particularly damning review by Kenneth Hurren in the Spectator:
There is, if we may now proceed to the evidence, the latest Joan Littlewood production,at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East, a raucous gallimaufry entitled Costa Packet and unpretentiously billed as "a candy floss entertainment." It's a long time since I had any candy floss, but my recollection is that it's a good deal more pleasing to contemplate than actually to eat, the picturesque pink floss dwindling into a sticky mess, and this is more or less how it is with the Littlewood show. Viewed from afar the idea of sending up the package holidays abroad, which are luring so many affluent workers away from Southend and Blackpool to paellaand-chips in Iberia, has an instant and beguiling appeal to everyone except, possibly, the Spanish and Portuguese tourist industries. What actually materialises on the stage is a tawdry disaster, witless and woebegone, and having indeed, in its appearance of having been flung together desperately that very afternoon, much in common with the illorganised tours and half-built, jerry-built hotels with which it is its intention to make sport.
The songs are by Lionel Bart and Alan Klein, and are jolly but unmemorable; the book, if that's the word I want and it isn't, is said to be "by Frank Norman, to say nothing of members of the cast." Norman is often complimented on an allegedly acute ear for the vernacular of the lower reaches of our society, though not by me; the members of the cast are inordinately cheerful, but not perceptibly gifted, especially in the improvisation which it is implied, and which it is all too apparent, they have been called upon to do. I was impressed by the buoyant optimism of the Daily Telegraph's man, John Barber, who "took leave to suggest that in every single department it could be better" but added, "and this director has the genius to make it so." For myself, I take leave to suggest that Miss Littlewood's " genius " consists in leaving a show looking as though only genius - and perhaps a small miracle - could save it.
For Michael Billington
Costa Packet never really lives up to the promise of its theme: one of the reasons why, I suspect, is that no one seems quite sure what their attitude to the subject really is ... while depicting the package business as a conspiracy against the visitor, the show also suggests, in the words of one song, that "It's nice to get away from the buildings for a while" and that the Costa del Sol is at least a preferable alternative to Walthamstow.He does admit to finding "passages of sporadic fun", such as "Avis Bunnage as a toffee- nosed Edgbaston snob carefully staking out her square yard of sand" but towards the end, Billington claims,
The plot disappear[s] into thin air... one is left with a handful of jolly songs [and] admirable performances.Robert Brusten in the Observer didn't seem to like the songs or anything else but acknowledged that the show was well received by the local audience and admitted he "felt like a bit of an intruder."
In her 2006 book about Joan Littlewood and Theatre Workshop Nadine Holdsworth asserts that Littlewood's final productions in 1972 and 1973, which included Costa Packet,
increasingly resembled end-of-pier entertainments with their saucy postcard-style humour. Reminiscent of the hugely popular Carry On genre of films, Frank Norman's Costa Packet (1972) even had an accompanying series of risque postcards produced by the cartoonist Larry, who also created the set. Unfortunately, these productions simply did not reflect the spirit of 1970s Britain during a period of fervent political, social and industrial unrest. The work seemed frivolous in comparison with the burgeoning alternative theatre movement that attempted to attract non-theatre going audiences with a progressive approach to subject matter and performance strategies. Ironically, this movement drew on Theatre of Action's agit-prop and Theatre Workshop's creative approach in its attempt to revolutionise theatrical process and product, but, in the light of this new aesthetic and political radicalism, Theatre Workshop appeared populist, commercial and even reactionary.I can't comment on this particular show, never having seen it, but I can say that there was a lot of frivolity intermingled with serious intent in the many agitprop shows I saw by 7:84, Wildcat and others in Glasgow in the seventies and eighties. I have also read, although I can't remember the source, of Littlewood voicing fears at some point that however vigorous the form may once have been employing a music hall style now brought automatic associations of coziness and sentimentality.
DRACULA
The next show which Alan Klein was involved with was Dracula at Stratford East in November 1974; I assume that the above image, found online, relates to that production. Irving Wardle wasn't too keen this time, declaring:
[It] consists mainly of gags and steers dangerously close to the dreadful shores of cod melodrama.A review, I think in The Stage, of a revival at Newcastle Playhouse is slightly warmer:
No staple of the Hollywood B-picture seems safe from [Ken Hill's] curious blend of melodrama, pastiche, low comedy and high camp. Dracula, Tynewear Theatre's offering at the Newcastle Playhouse, first saw the light of the moon at Stratford East, and it's no coincidence that the evening's prevailing tone owes much to the good humour, buffoonery - and occasional sloppiness - of E15. ... Alan Klein's songs, if instantly forgettable, were pleasant while they lasted. And if Ken Hill's shows will never win prizes for fine art, this one provided a lively and engaging - as well as overtly popular - evening's theatre.This isn't exactly an out-and-out rave but it's worth quoting, nevertheless, because it seems to acknowledge as important the general approach Alan Klein has said he was aiming for with What a Crazy World: writing for the people and not the critics. In some of the reviews which follow there is a kind of motif of bafflement or resentment which seems to stem from the critic simply wanting something else have to been presented in front of them, just as Kieron Tyler said "the press wanted something to fit their idea of what the Theatre Workshop ought to be doing" when What a Crazy World was first staged.
I asked Alan Klein about his working methods with Ken Hill and why he was drawn to Stratford East.
Ken and I had no specific way of working together. Most of the time we worked individually and only met together when time or a need for inspiration required it. I worked at Stratford East mainly because that is where I was offered the work.
LOOK OUT IT'S SIR
After the June 1975 revival of What a Crazy World, discussed earlier, Alan Klein wrote some songs for the production which immediately followed it, Look Out It's Sir, which opened on 8th July 1975. This was written by Stephen Lewis, author of an earlier Stratford East show, Sparrers Can't Sing, and later to find fame as Blakey in On the Buses; here he played a Will Hay-type headmaster (above).
Only a few weeks earlier a piece in the Stage had announced that the show was to be directed by Joan Littlewood (Ken Pitt's office was handling press enquiries, incidentally), but eventually Victor Spinetti took over the production.
An article in the Guardian, singling out one of Alan's songs, explains:
Since Gerry Raffles died [in April] Miss Littlewood has not been through the theatre door. She was to have directed the new play; Spinetti just came to act. Now he's directing instead, and he says they're trying to work as she always did.Reviews were mostly negative. For Michael Billington the show had
"The nub of the show for me," Spinetti says, is the song Valerie Walsh sings called There's a Great Big World Outside. It's about what a girl is equipped for when she goes out into that world at sixteen: the wonderful world of Woolworth's which is where most of them end up working."
some sublimely irrelevant songs by Alan Klein that give new definition to the word non-sequitur ... Time was whe the ad libs at Stratford East were simply the icing on the cake: now, however, it's all icing and no cake with any break-up [...] regarded as a major event in itself.Irving Wardle wasn't impressed either, though he did single out There's a Great Big World Outside:
Look Out, It's Sir reflects a serious matter: namely the state of British secondary education and the dead-end lives awaiting so many hopeful 16-year-olds. Valerie Walsh has a good song about this. But you don't catch this company going in for serious comedy; or for any but the most distant acknowledgement of the world outside. The show takes place on the day a grammar school goes comprehensive. But all that means is that this is the day they let girls in. ... relaxed spontaneity is the curse of this address: leading this time to delayed entrances, bungled business ...That said, he did go on to praise the performances of Workshop regulars.
The Stage's estimate is higher, although its praise is qualified:
It is a rowdy, loosely woven, often haphazard affair, not as good as some Workshop shows we have had this year, but still something out of the ordinary.In the Daily Mirror, Jack Bentley described the show as "pier-end entertainment without the pier" in a piece which appeared the day before the show opened:
Mr Lewis ... ranges around in his writing and construction too freely and easily, but commands attention and gently entertains. .... There is a genuine Theatre Workshop atmosphere of something half created being brought to full creation in the process of the action.
When it goes on, donkey rides, ball games, slot machines and all the fun of the fair will be available around the theatre area.I don't know whether anything happened to the show, although given that Lewis was about to appear in the second series of his On the Buses spinoff, Don't Drink the Water, presumably the interest was serious.
At try-out performances of the farce, ribald heckling from Cockney humorists was often as funny as the show itself, and now the idea of transferring the proceedings to TV is being considered by two major companies.
Says Stephen [Lewis]: "If the TV people latch on to the idea they could tape the proceedings and cut out the naughty bits."
THE LIVING DEAD
The Living Dead was produced at the Pheonix Theatre, Leicester and reviewed in The Stage in December 1979, its critic describing it as a "generous mixture of intrigue, mysticism and humour". It sounds intriguing:
"Nazi agents ... have recruited an army of zombies ... but have reckoned without the shining integrity of a rather dim-witted English aristocrat [with] an admirable butler who does all the right things in an emergency." ... songs are by Alan Klein and Ken Hill and include a lament by the Nazis for the totalitarian delights of Berlin, and a stiff-upper-lip song ...
ALL THE FUN OF THE FAIR
The next Alan Klein project that I am aware of is a 1979 "musical play for television." All the Fun of the Fair, written by Ken Hill, is "based on the sensational career of Midlands showman Pat Colins from 1914-1939." The following account comes, I think, from The Times:
Pat Collins, the showman, was not quite a Barnum or Bailey, but ... in the post-war years and up to the late 1930s, he was the next best thing. The son of a tinker, he became undisputed king of the fairgrounds and later, Mayor of Walsall and a Liberal MP. By all accounts, he was one of the worst speakers the House had ever known. But, as a spokesman for the rights of fairground folk, he had no equal. Tonight's musical play, All the Fun of the Fair, is the story of Collins. It was written by Ken Hill and David Calder ... plays Collins.With songs by Alan Klein and Ken Hill, it seems to have been directed by Glyn Edwards with assistance from Ken Hill. The Stage liked Alan Klein's contribution but was disappointed overall:
Set in a studio fairground, this drama-musical ... had little of the atmosphere and razamatazz of its subject, and the whole effect was somewhat subdued. This was a pity because Ken Hill's idea ... was a good one and music (Alan Klein) and choreography (Bill Drysdale) were catchy and melodious.
THE MUMMY'S TOMB
According to the Ken Hill website, Alan Klein's next collaboration with Ken, The Mummy's Tomb, was originally commissioned and produced by the Phoenix Theatre, Leicester; a revised version was produced at Stratford East and reviewed in the Stage and in the Times by Ned Chaillet. The Stage review of September 18th concluded:
Ken Hill has devised an entertainment which arguably restores popular community theatre to its proper place. This stylish comedy has something for everyone: thrills, spills, a soupcon of political satire for those ears suitably attuned and songs which range from cod Coward [it may be remembered that Klein cited Noel Coward as an early influence] to fringe Friml. Alan Klein is the co-provider of songs and these have been stylishly arranged by Bunny Thompson.Ned Chaillet went further: the songs made the show. While praising Ken Hill's "thorough regard for plotlines" he considered that ...
the liveliness of the songs, composed by Mr Hill with Alan Klein, are the key to his success. A jokey script playfully recalling the horror films of the 1930s is not really very much in the way of a full evening's entertainment, even in the Theatre Royal's new atmosphere of simple diversion. Given the songs, however, and a company as professional as the cast of The Mummy's Tomb, and something of the mood of music hall takes over ... "Kenn Stitt reviewed another revival, at the Newcastle Playhouse in 1983, for the Stage:
No one would call Ken Hill's The Mummy's Tomb especially sophisticated theatre ... an end-of-term romp for an accomplished cast and an undemanding evening for the Playhouse's audience ... the songs, also by Hill with Alan Klein, combined tunefulness with instant forgettability. The cast were obviously enjoying themselves. So was the first night audience. It would seem churlish to ask for anything more.
Robin Hood was written and directed by Ken Hill with songs by Alan Klein. Irving Wardle's review in the Times made no reference to the music, though The Stage said that
The songs by Alan Klein have a hillbilly swing to them, enhanced by the presence of Pete Stanley as Alan-a-Dale playing banjo ... this year's pantomime is proof once again that East End kids aren't as deprived as they once were.
[photo: Frazer Ashford]
MRS TUCKER'S PAGEANT
Mrs Tucker's Pageant in 1981 featured Peggy Mount (above, left) with Judith Bruce as Mrs Tucker (as far as I can tell). It was warmly reviewed in, of all places, the Catholic Herald:
Mrs Tucker's Pageant is at the Theatre Royal, Stratford. in East London until October 31. If the theatre indulged in the West End practice of long runs I would hazard a guess that allowing for its small seating capacity Londoners from every part of the city would still fill the theatre to see this musical in 1985.
Despite that prediction I doubt whether it would have such a success anywhere else. The Theatre Royal is unique and it has the ability to create a production particularly suited to its ambience. The human actors are even a match for the labrador in the cast, and four-legged performers are inveterate scenestealers.For Michael Billington in the Guardian, however, the piece was "drenched in Barriesque whimsy ... just about redeemed by some lively songs and some exhuberant performances" but he does include a handy summary of events:
The challenge that small budgets and technical limitations create often stimulate producers and designers to greater heights than a much more lavish approach, nowhere more so than in this theatre, and especially in the case of the designer SarahJane McClelland.
This is a contemporary musical. The villagers in it organise a pageant to fight jaggernauts, developers and petty bureaucrats. The musical deals with the cost of living, disability pensions, local councils and subsidies and the villagers seek relief from their problems in the Local, the Cloud and Cuckoo.
When the village-hall is threatened by some monster development scheme, newcomer Mrs Tucker plans a local festival, the highspot of which is to be a 1066-And-All-That-type historic pageant ... the enemy is routed in time for a communal knees-up."Ned Chaillet in the Times said it was
... primarily a romp, an autumnal pantomime designed to please and amuse. ... Mrs Tucker, prematurely retired and new to the village ... organises a defence of old England against the onrush of European bureacracy [and] greedy councillors who plan to [demolish] Mr Hill's pretty pantomime English village of old pubs and shops in pastry colours to a build a factory and shoppping complex.For Chaillet, the show had "a happy balance of ideas and entertainment " and he praised its "celebratory appeal."
SINBAD THE SAILOR
Sinbad the Sailor appears to have been a "straight" pantomime - ie critics knew what to expect of the show and couldn't reasonably complain that it wasn't the searing drama they wanted. "Of treats to the eye there are plenty", enthused Roy Robert Smith in the Stage, praising the smooth-changing sets ("like a pop-up story"). The only gripe, in fact, seems to have been that he wanted rather more:
Previous productions [by Ken Hill] have included songs by Alan Klein and again a few meagre offerings are presented during the proceedings. Simple tunes and not enough of them.
And that, as far as I can tell, is the final theatre production with which Alan Klein was involved. Another Ken Hill show, The Magic Sword, opened at Newcastle Playhouse on December 2nd, 1982. Although the Stage review seems to be claiming that Klein cowrote the lyrics he told me that he has no memory of it:
I don't recall working on 'The Magic Sword '... I see though that I am credited on a couple of websites but I'm sure I would have remembered at least one of the songs had I been involved.Here is what the Stage review says:
Ken Hill is perhaps best known for his "horromimes" conflations of the Dracula/Werewolf/Mummy's Tomb tales with the traditions of pantomime.... The Magic Sword is Hill's version of a bit of the Arthur legend, which bears a passing resemblance (though pretty rapidly passing) to TH White's The Sword in the Stone ... some music by Alasdair MacNeill and songs with lyrics by Hill and Alan Klein - pretty tuneful and instantly forgettable. ... Everybody gave it everything. It was all very silly and jolly and the kids loved it.Another review (I'm not sure of the source) liked the visuals but thought "the music and lyrics ... somewhat sparse."
MacNeill also wrote the score, based on well known operatic arias, for Hill's version of The Phantom of the Opera. Despite illness, Ken Hill continued to "deluge" Stratford East with ideas for new productions. Mo Bhula writes:
At the time of his untimely death in 1995, Ken Hill was working on a production of Zorro at Stratford East. It went ahead as a tribute to the master of popular theatre.Spencer Leigh's 2008 interview doesn't mention those collaborations with Ken Hill or any other later work, as the main aim was to promote a CD of his 60s music, but when pressed about future projects Klein makes it clear the door is now firmly shut:
I know your daughters run a recording studio, so has that never tempted you back at all to - ?As Spencer Leigh comments afterwards, "It's sad, that, really," but there's no denying that forty years is a long time to hold yourself in readiness for a little recognition. And I can only guess at what it must have felt like, after the huge popular success of What a Crazy World, to discover that Decca were not doing all they could to promote an album offering something genuinely different.
No, I wouldn't do it, go back to it now, it's far too late.
And you wouldn't write any songs now - or do you?
No, I've not written any songs now for some time. Since about 1993 I became ill with arthritis - I get that on and off - it's called reactive arthritis, which flares up every so often so it sort of restricts me, you know?
Surely from time to time ideas come to you, titles, and you think oh, "that'd make a nice song"?
I've got a few half-finished songs there, but I just don't have the enthusiasm. Once you lose the mental energy required for it there's no excitement in it anymore - if there's no excitement you become blase about it.
The opening and closing lines of Ken Pitt's press release ("Details as at May 1962") could, were you so minded, seem poignant in retrospect:
This young modern composer, who is also a guitarist and singer, has a varied and original style, both in writing and singing.But it's clear from the above that whatever frustrations or obstacles there may have been, Alan Klein continued to work through through the seventies and into the early eighties, and that theatre audiences remained appreciative even if critics or record companies were less dependable.
We foresee a great future for this 21 year old boy, who has a most inventive and original talent.
And the 60s work is still there for the hearing. As far as I know the deleted Sanctuary CD reissue of What a Crazy World can still be easily obtained secondhand and the film has recently been given an official DVD release by Network, looking infinitely better than the ropey off-air copies which had been circulating before; I understand from the company that the DVD has sold unexpectedly well.
For those interested in exploring Well At Least Its British, RPM have issued a CD which includes some great Klein singles as bonus tracks. The same company has also issued a disc featuring all the New Vaudeville Band sides: in addition to the pop hits and some demos there are what sound like period arrangements of standards, given an extra boost by Alan Klein's singing: he seems to be endorsing the sentiments of the songs and ever so gently sending them up at the same time.
It's a pleasant collection, although the continuing freshness and verve of Alan Klein's What a Crazy World and Well At Least Its British make them an impressive enough pair of monuments on their own - regardless of whether or not this new Bowie documentary acknowledges Klein's influence on the future star.
*
Gnome Thoughts ... A series of posts about Bowie's early influences
I have to admit I wasn't aware of Alan Klein until relatively recently. My interest was prompted by the purchase, in 2010, of a songbook entitled The Vintage David Bowie, the first I had seen to include sheet music from the Deram era. This set me a-wondering about musical influences on the young Bowie, and those leisurely musings eventually grew into a series of 38 posts entitled Gnome Thoughts ..., cited by Chris O'Leary in his song-by-song Bowie book Rebel Rebel.
In addition to the obvious example of Anthony Newley I have examined the "larky" songs of Myles Rudge and Ted Dicks, Spike Milligan, Ray Davies and others, as well as writing more generally about the backdrop of fifties Britain.
For those minded to explore further here is a guide to that series. The style is usually more discursive than the above, because each post is a voyage of discovery, and some are more loosely related to Bowie than others, but if you have enjoyed reading this you will probably find something of interest in most of them.
Posts 2 and 4, for example, contain more about my personal reaction to the What a Crazy World film than could be fitted into the current piece, and Spencer Leigh's BBC Radio Merseyside interview with Alan Klein, quoted above, can be found in fuller form in Post 13. Post 38 was quite a recent addition, prompted by the discovery that Bowie had chatted online about the Myles Rudge and Ted Dicks song Toll the Bell for Minnie Dyer, from Kenneth Williams's album On Pleasure Bent, so he was definitely listening to comparable writers around the time of his self-titled debut.
1: Gnome Thoughts From a Foreign Country: the Vintage David Bowie
Deram songs, irony, distancing, and Anthony Newley.
2: Anthony Newley, Alan Klein
More about Newley and initial thoughts about the writer of stage/film musical What a Crazy World who shared a manager with Bowie.
3: Three Hats for Lisa
Candyfloss-light with a speck of grit: strangely appealing film musical which, like What a Crazy World, stars Joe Brown.
4: What a Crazy World
A more detailed account of the film's roots in social reality and its portrayal of an unbridgeable generation gap.
5: What a Crazy, Violent Playground
Changes made for the 1975 stage revival of What a Crazy World at Stratford East plus Basil Dearden's film Violent Playground and the comic songs of Paddy Roberts (who also wrote the music for that film).
6: Music Hall to Rock
The demise of Theatre Workshop musicals (and Jake Thackray).
7: Bowie and the Kinks
Bowie's comic vignettes compared with Ray Davies'.
8: Waterloo Sunset
"It may not be a confessional song but it does feels intimate, unprotected." A close analysis.
9: Ray is in the details
In which the lyrics to Panic in Detroit prompt further thoughts about the influence of one Raymond Douglas Davies.
10: Son of Hickory Holler's Tramp
A story in song by Dallas Frazier, whose work has been referenced by Bowie and Bolan.
11: Well At Least It's British
A detailed account of Alan Klein's solo album, cited by Damon Albarn as an influence on Bowie and Ray Davies. (Warning: this post may also contain traces of Vivian Stanshall and Benny Hill.)
12: Damon Albarn on Alan Klein
What Albarn actually said about Well At Least It's British.
13: Alan Klein interview
An overview of Alan Klein's career based on an interview by Spencer Leigh and some PR writing by Ken Pitt.
14: Alan Klein: corrections and clarifications
More information about Klein's career.
15: Myles Rudge and Ted Dicks alert
The lost art of "larky" songs - see also the link for post 18 below.
16: JP Long and My Old Man's a Dustman
The 1922 song later reworked as Lonnie Donegan's My Old Man's a Dustman.
17: More songs by JP Long
More comedy songs by the composer of the above.
18: Myles Rudge and Ted Dicks programme
More about the "larky" songs of Myles Rudge and Ted Dicks (Right Said Fred, Hole in the Ground) and the role of producer George Martin, drawn from a radio programme about the pair.
19: Reasons to Be Cheerful, Lipstick on Your Collar, Joe Brown
A ragbag of a post including: a review of Paul Sirett's Ian Dury musical Reasons to be Cheerful (produced at Stratford East, like What A Crazy World); the change-anticipating mood in Dennis Potter's fifties-set TV series Lipstick on Your Collar; the experience of recently seeing Joe Brown live (... and if you're wondering where Bowie is in all this, well, I explain that too - to my own satisfaction, at least).
20: Stop Dreamin' at Guildford
Review of an early tryout of Ray Cooney's Chas and Dave musical. I don't know whether it got any further.
21: 1950-53 UK charts, Hoagland concedes
Not too much discussion in the next few posts, more lists of fifties UK hits from a CD series with youtube links to most songs. This post covers 1950-1953 and has some notes about Hoagy Carmichael.
22: 1954 charts, Goon Rock
1954 UK hits and the Goons' take on My September Love.
23: 1955 charts
Bill Haley's Rock Around the Clock is the portent of change to come.
24: 1956 charts, Hullensian overtaken
1956 UK hits and Ronnie Hilton momentarily withstanding the onslaught of rock'n'roll.
25: 1957 charts, Lipstick, Macca plays The Fool
1957 hits, more on Dennis Potter's Lipstick on Your Collar and Paul McCartney's version of Stanford Clark's The Fool.
26: Private Hopper, public Craddock
The Gene Vincent sequence from Lipstick on Your Collar.
27: The Atomic Mr Haley and others
" Instead of existing in the past, it was time to live in the moment": nuclear terror and rock'n'roll.
28: Ringo forever?
Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse imagine an evergreen Beatles. (Appropriately enough the embedded links are dead).
29: 1958 charts, Humph & Big Joe, 50s Lennon
1958 UK hits followed by a discussion of Big Joe Turner and John Lennon.
30: 1959 charts and early Britrock
1959 UK hits plus a review of a 1956-1964 British rock'n'roll compilation.
31: The Man from Mendips
Continuing the theme of the influence of rock'n'roll on British teenagers, an interview with Colin Hall, the curator of John Lennon's childhood home (transcribed from raw interview audio for the documentary LENNONYC).
32: That Was Fifties Britain That Was
An overview of 50s Britain (based on Humphrey Carpenter's introduction to That Was Satire That Was).
33: Fifties radio comedy
"Writing comedy prose for radio shows": an overview of 50s radio comedy in Britain, drawing on interviews in David Nathan's The Laughtermakers. Plus John Lennon's review of The Goon Show Scripts.
34: The first rock'n'roll record?
Bowie and Lennon's first experience of rock'n'roll and a list of fifty records in contention for the title of "first rock'n'roll record." (There are youtube links for most of these titles but be warned that I haven't checked them recently.)
35: If John had stayed with Mimi ...
A John Lennon competition. (There were no entrants so I won by default.)
36: My memories of John Lennon's death
Page of a letter to Stuart Sutcliffe.
37: Over the Wall We Go
This final post ties things together more neatly than might be expected as the Bowie-penned Over the Wall We Go clearly borrows from a Spike Milligan song produced by George Martin.
38: Toll the Bell for Minnie Dyer
A late addition to the series (technically making the previous post the penultimate one unless there are more to come), this was prompted by the discovery that Bowie was a fan of the Kenneth Williams song above, recorded for Decca the same year as Bowie's Deram debut.
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