Round Britain Rejects # 7: answer

As with the previous question, the answer, if you have given up all hope of alighting on it naturally, is below - but you have to make the choice to click. No one's forcing you. I think this one is a good 'un and fairly set out. I think.

Round Britain Rejects # 7

Okay, one more. I found this in an old email but I can't remember the answer. I'm sure there will be one. Ah. I do remember the second bit. I'll try to find the rest but see if you can beat me to it.

If the only way is up for an American Professor's admission, 

and down for a sleepy combo's combinations (as engineered by their manically grinning bespectacled leader), 

furnish me with the boy to make this answer thrice-blessed dramatically.

It may be (I'm honestly not sure now) that the question didn't have a complete answer, but that's unlikely. I suppose I could devise a post facto answer, but that may be like the one from Alice in Wonderland - you know, "Why is a raven like a writing desk?" This was just a bit of fun, as Peter Snow would say, and when Carroll did cobble together an answer you could hear the distant whoosh of tumbleweed as you read it: 

 Because it can produce a few notes, tho they are very flat ...

Oh, stop, Mr Dodgson, my sides will split. There is an article with some alternative explanations, on the Straight Dope website, here; this site is also the source of a good piece about the word pismotality, which you can find by clicking the "meaning of pismotality" page above.

Beat.

Ah! I have just remembered the complete answer. And it does make sense. All the clues are there. I'll fess up that I'm not entirely sure about the first part, but the other two are okay. Bonne chance - and laissez les bons temps rouler.

Previously on King Lear ...

I don't normally do mini-soundbite-type posts but this is irresistible - Paul Merton talking about his forthcoming autobiography:

Until I sat down to write my autobiography I had no idea my life
story was so fascinating - what with its tremendous ups and downs both
in and out of showbusiness. I can't wait to see what happens next.

Apparently it will include a description of what sound like pretty tough early days in South London, packing heat - oh. No. Packing meat, I'm sorry. I mistook the word. I read it wrong and wrote it down wrong. It happens. Deal with it. Blogging is an imprecise art. I misheard and I misspoke, as a penitent Phil was once obliged to say on Larry Sanders.

Do not, however, confuse Merton's forthcoming book with an earlier spoof autobiography entitled My Struggle. I bought a hardback copy of this at the time - think I paid full whack, too - and it was a disappointment. Possibly better as an audiobook or more suited to a small gobbet episode format.

Anyway, you can read a bit more about plans for the real autobiography in the British Comedy Guide here.

And there is a highly recommended King Lear study site by Greg Smith here. This has been around a long time and recently revised. Were I still in dominie mode I'd be a-clicking. I won't say much about Lear here as I'm still mourning the loss of the posts on my Cracklearjack blog. I put 'em back into draft form then they all disappeared. Admittedly the concept wasn't all that amusing - do Lear in end-of-show Crackerjack mode - and even more admittedlyer, I was losing interest in it because you cannot knock Lear - I mean, you just can't. But I would have liked readers to be able to make up their own minds.

This is the only surving post.

One of Those Movies ...

Incredible though it sounds, it is now the fortieth anniversary of the film That'll Be the Day.

If you have travelled deep within the recesses of this blog, you will know that the soundtrack had a profound effect on my musical tastes. In fact there wouldn't be a blog as we know it (well, I know it anyway) without it: those songs ignited my love of doo wop and rock'n'roll.

I was probably about fifteen when I saw the film, and at the same time the songs featured were being played on the radio: I still can the remember the moment I became aware of the beauty and the yearning in Frankie Lymon's voice when he hit a certain note during Why Do Fools Fall in Love? Around the same time there was a Chuck Berry concert on TV, I bought a Little Richard album a few days later, and I've been listening to that kind of thing, or developments thereof, ever since. What? Yes, of course Specialty. Why do you even need to ask?

I was reminded about the film by an article in the current edition of UK music magazine Mojo which provides some interesting background about the films and some amusing details; if you travel to this site you will find readable scans of the article as well as  youtube versions of the complete movie along and its sequel, Stardust. 

I was pleased, though not surprised, to learn from Mojo that Rosemary Leach was unfazed by costar Keith Moon. David Puttnam talks of meeting her at the hotel where the cast were staying when a door crashed open, and drummer and partner tumbled out in flagrante. "Oh," said Leach, "It's one of those movies, is it?"

Now is not the time to talk about my mild - and really only very mild - disappointment at finally seeing Sadie, It's Cold Outside, the sitcom written by Jack Rosenthal and starring Leach and Bernard Hepton as a middle-aged couple under siege from the outside world. I'd seen a short scene with Rosemary Leach in bed asking where it had all gone wrong in a TV compilation of sitcom moments, and thought it must be a forgotten masterpiece, but the series as a whole wasn't quite up to that. In my opinion. Performances were great but the overall effect was a bit too whimsical for my tastes, bit too much making bricks without straw. Maybe it's about getting a solid slab of that kind of thing; scenes in the snug of the Rover's Return in Rosenthal-scripted episodes of Corrie are miniature gems. And maybe  it depends how you feel about that other Rosenthal sitcom The Lovers, which you could say is the same story viewed from the other end. (Wonder if Sadie, It's Cold Outside was sold to ITV as a sequel to The Lovers?)

Good to see, too, in the Mojo article that Puttnam and others admit the first film is better. "It's about me, that film," says writer Ray Connolly, "me in the universality of being adolescent." Which seems like a cue for that reposted review:

 First film is the more universal tale

That'll Be The Day is a modest but very satisfying rites-of-passage movie with 70s pop star David Essex (who'd already scored in the stage musical Godspell) playing a 1950s teenager with a string of conquests but no sense of direction until music starts to give his life a purpose.

He is careless of the feelings of others, so this is not a simple pop cash-in for the singer, and there are good actors around him (the exasperation and affection of mother Rosemary Leach is especially notable) and an excellent, well structured screenplay by Ray Connolly, where even small scenes - the action of a kindly policeman, for example, when Essex is drunk and lonely on his birthday - contribute to a coherent whole.

Ringo Starr must have been taken with the script, too, as he plays Essex's buddy/mentor when they are both working at Butlin's. And a young Robert Lindsay is his schoolfriend, watching in horror as Essex chucks all his books into the river prior to an exam. Lindsay later reappears in a truly fifties moment when he and his university chums are all listening to trad jazz, and the visiting Essex is made to feel left out; shades of the early Beatles having to pretend they were a jazz band to get gigs in Liverpool.

The aimless Essex, for so long indifferent to his mother's concern, eventually makes a stab at being the dutiful son but it does not last long: he cannot resist sleeping with Lindsay's girlfriend (the last in his long line of conquests) immediately before he is due to marry his friend's sister, nor is he able to sustain the marriage for long.

But his struggle throughout the film to make some kind of sense of his life, and the way in which the answer - music - eventually comes into focus with an insistence which cannot be denied, keeps the character sympathetic, or at least understandable.

And in case anyone misses the point, the film is bookended with the idea that he takes after his philandering father, unable to settle down to domesticity after the war. And the greyness (or, to judge from the decor of the family sitting room, the dark, suffocating browns) of a life of late fifties/early sixties conformity is well painted; taking over the family shop, or becoming like the smug Lindsay ("There's always night school," says his mother hopefully), convinces you that whatever is needed to feel fully alive cannot to be found in either of those options. There's a tiny scene using Bobby Darin's Dream Lover, for example, where the combination of the shot and the music really makes us feel his yearning for something else.

The sequel, however, which follows "Jim McLaine" into stardom, is, for me, far less appealing, and Ringo jumped ship (what was effectively his role was taken by Adam Faith). The trouble with this film is that a rites-of-passage story has a universal appeal; following a troubled star's decline when he's surrounded by material wealth (especially when his music is pretentious and high-blown tosh about the role of Woman and Mother) doesn't stir the same sense of general recognition.

Additionally, the focus is on the relationship between Essex and his manager so that the group, the Stray Cats (whio seem to be all actors apart from muso Dave Edmunds) are not called to do that much, and Jim's wife reappears too briefly to make much of an impact. (Come to think of it, the one criticism which could perhaps be levelled at the first film is that we glimpse an underused band there, led by Billy Fury, but in that instance I could understand if they were largely edited out because they don't contribute significantly to Jim's journey.)

So don't expect too much from the sequel. Although I admit that maybe that's partly because for me, personally, the earlier film is a very important one as it alerted me to the hitherto unknown delights of early rock'n'roll and doowop; the soundtrack is liberally spattered with classics of the day, greatly enhanced by the fact that many of them are playing in the perfect setting of a fairground.

A footnote: as for the title of that first film, from a vague memory of reading Melody Maker when the film was just an idea, there had been an attempt to do a Buddy Holly biopic which was quashed for some reason - possibly I'm misremembering but they certainly didn't use, or weren't permitted to use, actual Holly recordings so the version of That'll Be The Day which plays over the closing credits is the Bobby Vee cover (with, I think, the Crickets backing him), and there is a scene where, reunited with his precious record player, Essex brandishes a Buddy Holly LP, saying "I've been waiting weeks to hear this," only for us to be treated to the strains of ... Richie Valens' Donna. But whether or not a biopic of Holly was originally intended, what emerged is a thoroughly worthwhile film which captures the sense of rootlessness which found an answer for many fifties teenagers in rock'n'roll. 

I later wrote some notes about Nowhere Boy, about the young John Lennon's early days, and was surprised to learn from a review by the Observer's Philip French that That'll Be the Day had been based, in part, on Lennon. Surprised, that is, in the sense that I hadn't known about it before - not that surprised otherwise. Neil Aspinall and Ringo were involved in the film, and Rosemary Leach is definitely of the Aunt Mimi type, even though she's the hero's mother. The post is readable here.

Another post, mainly about the novel Paperback Writer, includes a shameful detail about arranging to see this film with a friend. You can read it in full here, but this is the relevant passage:

I was late, and wasn't allowed to enter the cinema as I was just over the thiry minute limit. I wanted to scream: It's not fair! I'm going to appreciate it more than her, what with my extra knowledge about the Beatles, having read all the biographies including the "spurious" one - I've even got a complete book about the "Paul is dead" theory - I mean, c'mon.

But (of course) I didn't. I walked away and mooched around in bookshops for an hour.
There was, however, a reward of sorts later, when she emerged from the cinema and spoke these words: "I'd forgotten she was run over."

But the feeling I had at that moment - an unlovely male sense of superiority about being in possession of more Beatle fax'n'info, basically - vanished in the act of writing this down. 

Round Britain Rejects # 6: Answer

Before you look down below, if you want to have a go at my Round Britain Quiz-type question go to the previous post, here.

Here's the answer for those who have given up. But you have to click to get it, so it will be your choice. No one will think any the less of you for giving in. There are probably other matters in your life more worthy of attention. Choke down that sense of defeat. One click is all it takes.

Round Britain Rejects # 6

Okay, this is a fiendish one, and shall be the last for a while. Pretty certain this is one which was actually despatched to the programme, though I have striven to make it more accessible. Honest. I was going to say you need to get the first part first, but now I've revised the question I think you can start anywhere. 



Addressing a female creator of bovine pastries more formally than usual may call this man's nemesis to mind, relatively speaking.

But why might situating him at the end of a Mayfair shopping mall out him as a late riser?

Alternatively, if a hound from the Daily Mail followed behind, why might that effect a Spanish transformation to his name - at least, if you hail from the North of England?

Disclaimer: No responsibility can be accepted for damage caused to computer screens by the frustrated pounding of participants' fists accompanied by what sounds suspiciously like crying.

Round Britain Rejects # 5 continued

Ah, I can add the bits which will make it a proper RBQ questiion. (Insofar as such a thing is within my power, obviously.) So here is the complete question, and I'm going to remove the partial answer presented as an image in the previous post to remove temptation from the frustrated.

 If Hook's alma mater has jammy arms why would a modern Cockney be unconcerned? Might there be a different response from a famished drifter? Or would he prefer a more "softly softly" approach?

Round Britain Rejects # 5

Okay, here's one which was gently turned down by RBQ in 2009. It doesn't have enough sections but it amuses me so I present it here. Answer on Thursday or Friday. Possibly.

 If Hook's alma mater has jammy arms why might a modern Cockney be unconcerned?

Round Britain Rejects # 4

Find an abode suitable for a Cockney dancing partner reluctant to accept direction, an artistic creature of habit, and a seamstress of the penumbral.

Round Britain Rejects # 3

To find the hometown of a female authority on the longevity of Lucy's accessories, put muddy feet on a victorious leaf.

To identify a female authority on the companionable qualities of said accessories, bid a guttering farewell to Bobby's alleged girl (amongst others).

A former drifter could be instrumental to this answer - unless, that is, you'd prefer a bunch of fake gladiolas associated with another leaf.

Round Britain Rejects # 2

Well, I showed the RBQ-style question in the previous post to a colleague who pointed out, in a reasonably gentle manner, the ways in which it didn't quite make the grade. Luckily, another was nearer the standard set by that BBC Radio 4 programme so I shall reproduce it below. It's probably fair to say you will need to be of a certain age, and to be familiar with 60s British pop entertainers, to have a fair chance of solving this, but when you have solved part then the rest ought to fall into place fairly easily.

And my colleague suggested that the real test of a Round Britain Quiz question is that the answer, when revealed, ought to make you exclaim in delight: "Oh, of  course!" I hope the following offers you that possibility.

If you can name Joe Brown's would-be christener and a rank and enseamed hat model then locate precisely the attractive Pirandellian health worker hymned by Macca why might it be a circular journey?

Round Britain Rejects # 1

A while back I shared a self-devised Round Britain Quiz-type question with readers but couldn't find the cache of emails which I had sent to a colleague over the last few years which had lots more. Well, now I have - and the burden of these delightful notes shall occupy the next few posts.

Some questions were actually sent to the BBC programme and didn't make it, so maybe they weren't that good. Or maybe they were too much about my specific areas of interest.

Yes. Yes, that's the only explanation which makes any kind of sense.

So if you are a regular reader of this blog then you might have an idea of what to expect. And if you're not ... well, you'll already be three or four clicks away from this page, so it doesn't matter.

Looking over the emails I am struck by the melancholy thought that I was more amused, in the formulating, than my original emailee was in the reading. But he occasionally said he was tickled, so maybe he was. Who knows? Anyway, I am sending these out into the world in case others may be.

If you are unfamiliar with Round Britain Quiz, a description in that earlier post may help:

 Round Britain Quiz is a longrunning programme on BBC Radio 4 where each week two teams from different regions strive to answer questions which require the making of unlikely and unexpected connections between a varied series of high and low cultural references. When, as is often the case when faced with anything relating to popular music, a team fails, the listener then has the chance to feel all smug and superior - until, that is, another strand in the same question exposes the limitations of that hypothetical listener's supposedly mature and eclectic sensibility.

So let quizzing commence. Not sure how long I should leave questions up for - will see how long it takes to get responses. Go to the contact page, above, to send your answers ... if you dare. Alright. Ready? It'll be one question per post.


1 If a Dutch rodent's domicile initially leads you to a proprietorial disease, which organs might be affected by some additional Nancy-ish behaviour (without a late mime's soundbite)?

Whatever happened to ... the Sam Cooke biopic?

I was watching the interview on BBC 4 with writers Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais the other night. It's very enjoyable and worth watching all the way through, even if you know the basics (who in Britain doesn't?) but one detail leapt out.

Asked about film projects which hadn't worked out, without too much prompting they mentioned they had completed a Sam Cooke biopic. They finished the screenplay before a director had been chosen; when a director was in place and he said that he wanted his own input they assumed this would mean collaboration, but in the event not a single scene of theirs was left. Did this mean everything they had done was sh*t? La Frenais (I think) asked.

Anyway, I knew nothing about it, assumed that if you are reading this you might be interested too, found it was based on Peter Guralnick's book and is being produced by Jody Klein (daughter of Allen) of ABKCO.

There are several places online which give basic info about this (so why didn't I find out about it sooner?), but here is a piece which is slightly more detailed and cautious about the choice of Clement and La Frenais, citing inconsistency, and fearing that Klein's "rooted financial interest" may lead to a hagiography. Anyway, good or bad, now we'll never know unless their original script leaks out. What makes it odd is the extravagant praise heaped on their screenplay by Klein in Billboard:

"We had been looking for a long time for a writer to develop Peter's book," Klein told Billboard, "and it clicked when we met them. They understood the artist, they understood the times. It's one of those things, like when you meet the love of your life and you know you have met your (future) wife. They have written a fantastic script."

So who knows? I can't find the director's name online - lots of pieces about ABKCO being on the hunt for a director, but no names. Anybody know?

Watch the interview with Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais here, if you can access BBC iplayer, until Wednesday 27th March. The Telegraph's Michael Deacon, reviewing the programme, wrote:

It was fascinating to hear them talk, not just because they’re fascinating writers, but because the format allowed them to be fascinating. Mark Lawson Talks to… is perhaps the least visually enticing format on TV: this was an hour spent watching three men sit still in a barely lit studio, and one of the men was Mark Lawson. But that’s what made it good: interesting talk without visual distraction. TV that aspires to be radio. 

And talking of radio, I cannot avoid mentioning Neil McKay's A City Called Glory, an excellent account of Cooke's life using the device of his friend and sometime Soul Stirrer June Cheeks, as an Ancient Mariner-type narrator and choric figure. Here's part of what I wrote in an earlier post (read it in full here):

Cheeks, who never deserted the gospel field - he became a preacher in tandem with his singing - is the touchstone for Cooke as he wavers between two worlds. First a friend and confidante to the young Sam, Cheeks is then split into two as the play approaches its climax: a voice in Cooke's own head as well as the real man desperate to tell his tale, give his subjective but privileged take on what may have happened on that fateful night Cooke was shot.
Although Cheeks was briefly in the Soul Stirrers, he is best known as the lead singer in the Sensational Nightingales, screaming himself hoarse in performances, so it's a neat idea that he is the polar opposite of Cooke in more ways than one. And although Cheeks had been dead for several years by the time of the first broadcast, so presumably it was less complicated to use him as a narrator figure, the choice of a character who is and is not of Cooke's world was inspired.

I have read the two biographies of Cooke (Daniel Wolff and Peter Guralnick) since first hearing this play; it really does still stand up. Both are good but the Guralnick one in particular brings out the sense of his contradictory, elusive nature as he pursues success: capable of immense warmth and charm yet taciturn and dissatisfied in private (Cooke's widow Barbara contributed to the Guralnick book). You emerge from the book not really knowing him fully, wondering whether it's possible to know him, but Neil McKay's play - and I don't know how much information was available to him at the time of writing - feels right: if it wasn't that way then it's still a convincing conclusion to draw from what is known about his life. 

The play has been repeated a few times on BBC Radio 4 Extra, so it may come round again. However good or bad the finished feature film, Neil McKay's play can be very highly recommended indeed. It was part of a series called All Shook Up, directed by Andy Jordan. The quality of the writing in the series was a little variable, but the two plays by McKay - the other, Take the Night, was about Roy Orbison - were great.

Cuddles IS Vindice ...

Have just read that Cuddles the monkey is preparing for the lead role of Vindice in a new production of The Revenger's Tragedy. This is his first foray into Jacobean revenge tragedy - and, indeed, his first straight acting role after a career spent largely in variety and panto. It is also his first project away from longtime associate Keith Harris. 

There is no rancour between the two, however. In fact, a few days ago a beaming Harris was happy to talk to press about his friend's progress at rehearsals, and how he is dealing with the new challenge of learning such a substantial part. 

"He's not off-book yet," Harris admitted to a journalist who voiced what appeared to be a general concern about the monkey's lack of formal training, "but the director says he's very pleased with his progress and  he's already got to the essence of his character's motivation: 'I hate that duke.' "


Cuddles will be appearing in The Revenger's Tragedy in June-July at the National Theatre - details here.

Donovan autobiography part two - free download

 Surprising  news: there is now a second volume of Donovan's autobiography, and you can download  the first part of an audio version for free from  his official website here. (The image above is a screengrab.)

Will it also be published in book form? There is no indication on the website. The freebie seems to be a marketing ploy (and why not?), as we're told each instalment relates to a particular album - the first is Brother Sun, Sister Moon - also available for purchase via the website.

The first  part of Donovan's autobiography didn't get universally good reviews, but the most surprising thing about it was that the seventies weren't really covered: it ended, really, with his being reunited with Linda Lawrence,  and there was no indication that there would be another volume. That first book is highly readable – Donovan’s tranformation into a major musical figure is a fascinating story, after all – and sections like his account of the casual beatnik lifestyle in Cornwall are enormously entertaining.

But despite a strong page-turning quality, occasionally it feels like details have been omitted or insufficiently expanded. His eventual reuniting with Linda Lawrence is the overall arc of the book; perhaps as a consequence, other relationships seem to be given short shrift. And when you consider who our troubadour kept company with at the height of Flower Power isn’t there a more complex, contradictory tale - or at least an extra anecdote or three - waiting to come out?

Insight: The People. The Sounds. The Blogpost. (BBC 6 Music documentary series on iplayer)

I've really been enjoying the Insight series on BBC Radio 6 Music. You can find a guide to the currently available epsiodes here; the image above is just a screengrab. But hurry, as some are disappearing in a matter of hours or days.

I don't know when they were first broadcast - I mean originally, presumably on Radio 1 - but the fact that Pete Drummond is doing the portentous opening announcements suggests it wasn't all that recently. Late seventies, maybe? But don't let Drummonds' tones put you off because these hour long programmes are, at least the ones I've heard so far, little gems: very clear guides to musical genres, record labels, groups or individuals.

With the odd bit of quirkiness thrown in. There's a two part interview with Marvin Gaye, for example, where the star's responses remind me a bit of the beguiling - and mildly disturbing - raw footage of Jerry Lee Lewis which can be seen on the extras if you buy the big box set version of Taylor Hackford's documentary of Chuck Berry: both men are delighted by their own wit and not too bothered about how clear their intentions are to the listener. And it's a fair bet that neither has a PR person from their record company hovering within a five mile radius.

Asked if (I think) Mickey Stevenson is a mentor, Gaye professes ignorance of the term, asking if that's "like a tormentor", to which Gambo, perhaps not getting it, replies "That's for you to say." Did Marvin like working with Harvey Fuqua and Johnny Bristol? Fuqua he knew from his time in the Moonglows but as regards Bristol he has difficulty working with people he doesn't respect - not that that applies to Bristol; he's just choosing, he says, to make a general observation at this point. "He's okay, you're okay, everyone's okay, I've read that book (chuckles)."

Two gospel records

I may have to curtail the extended blog posts for a bit, but I'm still going to try to post regularly - maybe even make a virtue of the more limited time available by focusing more on individual songs.

Here, for starters, are two gospel recordings I have known and loved for a long time. They have been posted on youtube quite recently, so what better reason to celebrate them?

Alright, in the time it takes to type this Russell Davies would have conjured up about half a dozen relevant anniversaries, outed a lyricist mysteriously absent from the original sheet music credits and made who knows how many other pertinent observations, utilising his trademark waspish wit all the while, but hey, I can only work with what I've got.

Freddie Davies in The Secret Garden at King's Head, Islington

For fans of Freddie Davies within reach of London, the happy news that he is currently appearing in The Secret Garden at the King's Head, Islington, on Saturday and Sunday nights until Sunday 17th March. Click here for more details and to make a booking. The performances are at 7.15 but there is also one matinee performance at 3.00 on the last day.

Freddie is recreating the role of Ben Weatherstaff, the gardener, which he played in the original RSC production at Stratford which transferred to the Aldwych in 2001. The King's Head production is a concert version, so dancing is out, but on the plus side you're very close to the cast, who make good use of the limited space: there are effective moments as they walk through the audience.

I'm not the greatest fan of the singing style in some modern musicals but even I could appreciate that the singing was top notch throughout (no amplification either) and that the songs were about revealing character, advancing the story. There were several musicians onstage, too, so it wasn't just a piano backing. The orphaned Mary is a resolutely un-cute Ana Martin, and Freddie has a particularly affecting moment in Act 2 when, in a beautifully judged speech, he recalls her mother.

I have to declare an interest, as I am acquainted with several of the cast, but there is another review here and here, and you can find more online.



Read an earlier post about Freddie Davies here. 

Photo credit for above: Claire Bilyard.

Richard Briers

 

Have just read that Richard Briers has died. I was lucky enough to see him in Ray Cooney's Run For Your Wife at the Shaftesbury Theatre around 1983, in what may have been the first run cast which included Carol Hawkins, Bernard Cribbins and Royce Mills. Naturally I knew him from television but this was of a different order altogether: there was a sense of his absolute control of the audience, his surfing the laughs which he had chosen precisely when to unleash. Can you unleash something which you subsequently surf? Probably not, but anyway he made it happen, and then he shaped it, determined the length. We were his willing instrument.

This may even have been my first visit to a London theatre, a couple of years before I moved here. Every single moment of that production - and Richard Briers was present more or less throughout - was sheer pleasure. I believe there is, or is going to be, a film version but I suspect it's a purely theatrical experience, and something akin to music. Coachloads may have come in to see Briers because of his telly fame but there is no doubt that he owned the stage and knew this genre inside out. I've only had a handful of great nights in the theatre but that was undoubtedly one of them. There had been a review in the Sunday Telegraph which may be online somewhere; if I can find it I'll add it below, but the main point it made was that farce is closely aligned to tragedy in terms of structure but it is "one of the hardest of theatrical trees to climb" (if I remember the crtic's words correctly) although Ray Cooney had successfully done so on this occasion.

So the source material presumably wasn't any hindrance to Briers giving a good performance, although I can think of other Cooney farces with other stars which don't stay in the mind in the same way. So let me salute the memory of a performer whom I was lucky enough to see in a farce which was a perfect fit. He once said of his 1956 performance as Hamlet (top) that it wasn't one of the best, but it was one of the fastest; beat by beat on that night in 1983 in the Shaftesbury Theatre there could have been no possible complaints about timing.


Postscript:

I have found an extract from that Telegraph review:

“A frolic? It is much more than that, it is a triumph. The brilliance of the structure, the imaginative joy, the scope for comic acting … put this entertainment at the top of the hardest of all theatrical trees to climb - that of farce.”

And I have just read that the film premiere of Run For Your Wife was only a couple of weeks ago.

With one Danny Dyer in the Richard Briers role.

Think I'll pass.

The Beatles' Please Please Me: Remaking a Classic

This documentary about younger artists recreating the Beatles' day-long recording session for their first LP was better than I expected. It will be available on BBC iplayer here until 1:39AM GMT until Wednesday the 27th, and is worth watching.

As you may have guessed from this blog my interest in popular music and its makers falls off sharply by the seventies, so my expectations weren't very high: why watch this when you could be listening to the original album? But what was interesting to see was that quite a few of those involved were okay about following the Beatles' blueprints - not slavishly copying, but seeing them, not unreasonably, as a pretty reliable guides. And it was, essentially, about an act of homage, at a historical moment (the fiftieth anniversary to the day) in the place where it originally happened, so there was never likely to be much in the way of iconoclasm.

But it wasn't a tribute band experience either: Mick Hucknall's remaining ginger locks were neither literally nor metaphorically concealed beneath a Beatles wig. He made the point that Lennon stuck pretty close to Arthur Alexander's vocal for Anna, and the show was partly about acknowledging those artists like Alexander and the Shirelles, who had been covered by various Liverpool groups.

Hello Walls

I have written earlier in this blog of the surprising omission, in later editions of Philip Larkin's All What Jazz, of his review of St Louis Blues as recorded by Louis Armstrong and Luis Russell's Orchestra.

In the first hardback edition of this collection of jazz criticism, as pictured above, Larkin called it "the hottest record ever made" and claimed  that by a certain chorus you could actually feel the walls move.

In these days, when archive recordings are often compromised (don't get me started), it's harder to put that to the test but I certainly seem to remember experiencing such a sensation, or something like it, when I first heard St Louis Blues on the little record player I once owned. Listening to it now, however, the arrangement sounds too basic, too unadventurous - and maybe at some point Larkin felt the same and recanted. Or maybe someone in the chain messed up, who knows?

The other side, Dallas Blues, continues to excite, and there's a fair bit of bassist Pops Foster in there too, who must take most of the responsibility for any perceived wall-wobble in either performance. But Panama, recorded by the Russell Orchestra without Armstrong, is even better than Dallas Blues. In fact - and I'm talking cold, hard scientific fact, be certain of that - it is the Best Jazz Record Ever.

Spector trial film

It may sound like a premature April Fool, but according to Rolling Stone magazine Al Pacino is to costar with Helen Mirren in an HBO (ie TV) film on March 24th about Phil Spector's trial, written by David Mamet, and here is the trailer to prove it:

You Gave Me the WRONG Answer

Today, on a certain social networking site, I was informed that Paul McCartney has set up a new Q&A feature on his website entitled You Gave Me the Answer, named after the Honey Pie-style pastiche which appears on the Venus and Mars album. This prompted me to listen more closely than heretofore to the lyrics of said song, and it is not too much to say that the experience stunned me. Below is my analysis.

Such have I dreamed

Granted, the internet is full of a number of things, but here's something I really didn't expect to find. Someone has sampled the opening chords of one of my favourite (but little known) doo wop records, Chimes by the Pelicans. Not saying that I particularly like the result but it is - interesting.

The More the Mercerer

A quick note about the latest Bazza programme, this time about lyricist Johnny Mercer. No, Baz didn't play the Astaire version of One For My Baby, but there was a high proportion of archive recordings featured this time; he even said at one point that he preferred the older recordings, liked to imagine Mercer hearing his songs on record for the first time.

Tiger, Tiger or Let the newt see the steam train

Ah, I know what I did now. Tried for too much in the same day. Like Icarus. Or Bruce's Big Night Out.

Unplugged ... and Unequivocal

Found this version of Macca's Unplugged show on youtube recently - suspect it won't be up for too long so don't blame me if it's already disappeared by the time you click on the embedded link below.

More songs (and repeats) than the CD or the original televised MTV programme, and while there is nothing spectacular in the material which appears here for the first time the whole is very enjoyable. The performance comes from 1991, so is already more than twenty years old, and what I mostly remember from the CD is a reworked And I Love Her (47.12) slowed down and effective in a different way, and a beautiful instrumental performance of Junk (1.15.02) which is better than the studio original.

Brighten the Corner ...

 

Had a small but pleasing moment today which I want to share.

After I had lunch at the local shopping centre (ooh, classy) in the area of North London where I work I had a few minutes before I had to return to business. "What's it to be?" I thought to myself. "A mooch in HMV?"  But as I a) couldn't remember whether it was still open, and b) couldn't imagine finding much of interest there anyway, I went instead into the shop known as Tiger, really just to waste some time.

If you don't know about this chain, Tiger is full of lots of little things which contain the promise of creativity, though in my case it's rarely followed through, as though on some level I've tricked myself into believing the act of acquisition is enough in itself: sad to report my flat is full of such empty promises.

They Write the Songs: Dietz and Schwartz

 Not too much to say about the latest episode of Barry Manilow's They Write the Songs (available on BBC iplayer here until Thursday) except that I enjoyed it. Felt that the langurous, melismatic version Something to Remember You By (Etta Jones this time, not James) did a disservice to the song - it's a plea, not a seduction - but then I have Turner Layton's more modest version firmly lodged in my head (not available on youtube or Sp*tify, so you will have to search it out for yourself).

But the main thing is that after several episodes I'm more keenly aware of, and warming to, Barry's particular skills: he's chatting casually about something he loves, so you're not going to get the precision or detail of a Russell Davies or Robert Cushman, but that's the wrong thing to be looking for. As easy, friendly introductions to these songwriters these are well done - provided you accept Barry's personality.

When Barry bigged up Harry

Spare those keyboards, embittered Manilovians contemplating a pre-emptive strike, for I am happy to report that the most recent episode of Barry Manilow's BBC Radio 2 series They Write the Songs, available on iplayer until Thursday, is a wall-to-wall good 'un, and warmly recommended. This week's subject is Harry Warren, whose songs  - particularly those penned with lyricist Al Dubin - featured frequently in Benny Green's Sunday radio show.

But despite a remarkable output over several decades it's fair to say Warren's name is not generally known, for all the enduring popularity of his songs. He is, as Barry puts it, "the most non-famous songwriter I know" - a form of words which seems precisely right on this occasion, suggesting a difference of kind, not degree.

The question Round Britain Quiz (possibly) dared not use ...

 ... or, as is equally likely, I didn't send it in - can't remember now. Or maybe it just wasn't good enough. You'll have to ask Paul Bajoria.

Look, let's not keep going on about it. The point is I found an old attempt at a Round Britain Quiz question and decided to share it with the nation - or that small but significant proportion of same whose eyes habitually slide over these musings.

Barry - this week's deliberate mistake

Have just listened to the second episode of They Write the Songs, on Cole Porter, currently on BBC iplayer here.

As with last week's programme about Jerome Kern, you get to hear most of the composer's best known songs (usually in the most Radio 2-friendly versions), some basic information (in Porter's case: lots of hit songs but fewer hit shows), and at the end Barry sings snatches of some Porter songs he didn't have room to include, so there's no doubt he owns the material he's presenting, and if the effect of the programme might be to turn more listeners on to Porter, that can only be a good thing.

So what have I found to complain about this week?

I Didn't Write the Song, Not Really ...

As AA Milne would have phrased it, I am become obsessed with the music of Jerome Kern. This might have manifested itself in some form on this blog at a later date, but something has forced my hand. I speak of a programme devoted to Kern which was broadcast last night as part of Barry Manilow's They Write the Songs on BBC Radio 2 (listen to the 7/7/14 repeat here for one week).

This is a series in which that much-loved entertainer aims, in a chummy kind of way, to enlighten those of us who know nothing, or who seek to know a little more than the little they already know, about major contributors to the great American songbook (you know, that thing which was around before rock'n'roll).

This is the start of a second run, and the shows have been decently done: you don't need to be a Manilow fan to feel buoyed up by his good humour and enthusiasm for his subjects. As an entry level guide it's well pitched, and there isn't the sense of a celebrity name fronting a show in which he has nothing invested.

But there was something which annoyed me a great deal in last night's show and, as I couldn't find details of a producer on the BBC's site, I'm venting here. You don't have to read it but I have to write it (hey, that could be my slogan).

From Matthew Street to Abbey Road (Beatles radio documentary)

 No time to trick this out with lots of pics and clips but I want to alert readers, before it's too late, to Spencer Leigh's very enjoyable three part radio documentary From Matthew Street to Abbey Road, chronicling the Fabs' gravitation from Liverpool to London via Hamburg in 1962. Sadly, the first programme, recently repeated on BBC Radio Merseyside, has already outlived its one week span on BBC iplayer, but you can catch the remaining two programmes for the next four and five days respectively by going here (part two) and here (three). Don't bother clicking the image above as it's only a screengrab.

The story will be known, at least in outline, to most people reading this, but the beauty of this series is that with a narrowness of focus and three whole hours to play with Leigh can dig a little deeper than other docs and uncover all manner of fascinating details, many of which will be unknown even to the most ardent of Beatle People.

For example you may well know, as I did, that at George Martin's insistence the Beatles recorded Mitch Murray's How Do You Do It? And you may have heard it: not unpleasant, a competent job even though their hearts clearly weren't in it. Ah, but have you also heard the demo which Martin gave them to work from? And have you heard Murray's thoughts on the job the Beatles did on what he considered to be his finest song to date?

Those Bad Cabaret Medleys in full ...

Thanks to audacity (the software, I mean) those of you wondering how those mooted clubland medleys in the Christmas quiz might sound can hear for yourselves, as they have been uploaded to soundcloud - links below.

The Richest Songs in the World (BBC 4 documentary)

If you're like me - a reasonable supposition if you've elected to read this blog - then this TV documentary probably didn't seem the most enticing of prospects. Another excuse for a musical countdown: cue overfamiliar info, annoying celeb soundbites and those frustrating, miniscule fragments of the songs themselves which make you wonder why you're wasting your time when you could be, I dunno, writing a play or something.

Still, always a bit of manufactured tension to be savoured after you've allowed yourself to get hooked and fall to wondering just what songs will feature higher up the list - though to extract maximum enjoyment it's generally wiser to record this kind of show, not watch it live: that way you've got a fighting chance of skipping to the good, or goodish, bits without being driven crazy in the meantime by the aforesaid celebs' unremarkable musings or, worse, the portentous tones of a certain ubiquitous, rent-an-authority commentator.

In the event, however, he didn't feature, and in fact this show proved to be something a great deal better than the norm, which is why I'm writing about it below, and recommending that you catch it on BBC iplayer here, where it will be available to view in the UK until the 1st of February 2016. [updated link]

Christmas Quiz- Answers

As I'm going to be out later I am posting the answers to the Christmas Quiz now, but entries will still be accepted up to 10pm GMT today (Boxing Day). So go to the entry here if you still want to take part and don't click below to read the answers until you have submitted your entry via the Comments box in the Questions post. Good luck, everyone, and thanks for taking part - hands across the water, indeed. 

I have tricked out the answers with a few pics and youtube links, so even if you didn't outperform the others at least you will get a bit of diversion. I now feel slightly bad that I didn't contribute a prize - maybe next year. Okay, prepare yourself. And the blogger's decision is final, unless you can provide proof positive to the contrary (and no, self-adjusted wikipedia entries don't count):

Valentines - A Christmas Prayer

As a reluctant nod to the season, herewith Christmas Prayer, a lesser-known Valentines track from 1955 - at least it isn't on the Collectables Best of collection that I have. I first came across it on a UK compilation  of Christmas-related songs from "the Roulette family of labels" on the now-defunct Westside label, which issued quite a lot of doo wop.

Snodgrass or Lost John

Today marks the third anniversary of this blog and I was all ready to do some reflecting on what it's all been for - and possibly some shameful admission of the amount of time I've wasted and why I ought never to write another word here and devote myself to Important Writing. But then I saw something and I thought: Wow! 


Now I don't know whether you will share my reaction, but I do know I want to record it for those who might. Ready? Okay.

Beat.

They're making a film of Snodgrass.

Ian Whitcomb

If you were turned on to Ian Whitcomb as a result of reading an earlier entry in this blog - or even if you've just alighted in search of information about him -  then you may be concerned to know that he is currently recovering from a stroke: details on the ukelelia site here. Luckily he and his wife Regina were at a restaurant two blocks from a hospital when it happened and Regina recognised the symptoms. He has already resumed broadcasting - I've just been listening to the second part of his Before the Beatles show - but get well cards can be sent to PO Box 451, Altadena, CA. 91001.

Jonathan Richman - Corner Store

Alright, it's not about a record shop as such but a Jonathan Richman song from the above album seems the most appropriate way of following the previous post. When the chorus, with its nonsense words, swells up for the first time (about 1.44 in) it seems stupid, old fashioned and odd - yet a joyous release, as though it does indeed embody the store, is the "ghost smell", the "old wooden smell" made audible, the shop magically - well, re-stored, I suppose you'd have to cry it.

Sound It Out (BBC 4 record shop documentary)

I commend unto you Sound It Out, a documentary about an independent record shop in Teesside. It was broadcast on BBC 4 yesterday, and will be repeated on Monday, and available on BBC iplayer here for the next six days. Nothing earth-shattering about it, really, just a warm and sympathetic look at the owner, the assistants, and a handful of the customers, but that's a plenty for me - and, it seems, many others.

Turn on, tune in, tape dropout

There have been various programmes on the radio to commemorate the fact that it's now ninety years since the BBC started broadcasting. This post isn't going to be a digest of them - though I register, without much interest, that Damon Albarn's recent soundscape met with less than universal acclaim - but I thought one series might be of particular interest to readers of this blog, as it's a history of radio in the US and UK, presented by the Beeb's American import Paul Gambaccini (above). You can find available episodes here and listen to them via BBC iplayer.

Parker final part

Have just realised that I haven't really put in much about my own response to Junior Parker. Already possessing the Rounder CD with all the Sun sides, I recently opted to buy the Complete Blues collection (below) instead of the all-encompassing Fantastic Voyage CD, as this seemed to have most of the sides represented in the songbook.

The Feelin' Good Factor or Boogie Chillen's Twisting Chillen

Following on from the previous post about Junior Parker's Stand By Me, I happened to be listening to an old edition of Steve Propes' 45s Show  which included Henry Strogin's Old Folks Boogie While the Young Ones Twist.

This record, new to me, reminded me of an earlier Junior Parker recording, made for Sun Records. (The above is the album on which I first heard Parker's Feelin' Good back in the days when Charly put out records which sounded, as well as felt, good, but that's a topic for another time.)

Anyway, I investigated a little online and found there was a missing link between Parker and Strogin. More to the point, I also discovered that Parker had previous. As with his recording of Stand By Me, Feelin' Good wasn't exactly the fountainhead.

Don't Stand So Close By Me

 This is by way of a coda to an earlier post, here, about the origins of Ben E King's recording of Stand By Me. If you have read that - or even if you haven't - you may know that the famous song which is credited to King and Leiber and Stoller derives in part from a 1960 Soul Stirrers number called Stand By Me Father, cowritten by Sam Cooke - though that came in its turn from an early gospel song by Charles Tindley simply entitled Stand By Me. (With me so far?)

Deborah Chessler

From October 23rd onwards, the highly recommended documentary series Street Corner Soul is to be repeated on BBC 6 Music - details of upcoming episodes here; details of episodes currently available to hear on BBC iplayer can be accessed here. Earlier posts about the series, an account of the rise and fall of doo wop as a force in popular music, can be found here.

I'm sorry to pass on the news that Deborah Chessler, composer of It's Too Soon to Know, has died. This 1948 Orioles hit is the number commonly credited with ushering in the doo wop era, so whether or not her name is known to you - and I wasn't aware of her until recently - she played a major part in musical history.

Two radio plays available on BBC iplayer

Love Me Do by Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran
Everything Between Us by David Ireland

There aren't many drama reviews on this blog, unless the piece in question is in some way music-related. I've succumbed to the odd post about comedy when the urge has proven irresistible (annoyingly, these get more hits than my pronouncements about doo wop), but in the main I've tried to keep this blog as a logical extension of the online dialogue with Clarke Davis which sparked it off: music is the main focus. But I thought I'd break my rule today because I've just listened to a couple of plays still briefly available on BBC iplayer which seem an interesting pair of bookmarks. I greatly prefer one to the other but both are good fits for their respective slots.

Love Me Do: the Beatles '62 (BBC documentary)

I watched Love Me Do: the Beatles '62 last night, a documentary commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Beatles' first single. It is available on BBC iplayer, here, until next Sunday. If you're like me, you will know most of the main points in this programme already: Brian Epstein buying up records; Pete Best replaced by Ringo who was temporarily replaced, in turn, by Andy White; the record which was a creditable start but far from a smash ... it's all in the numerous biographies which you've already read. If you're like me.

So why bother with this?

No, HE is Klang ... and he's mad as hell

I mentioned the film Sven Klang's Combo some time earlier, in a post about doo wop biopics. Three scenes have recently surfaced on a youtube clip, including the key moment when the group's new saxophonist plays a Charlie Parker-type solo during a torpid dancehall gig and finds that, instead of setting the woods on fire, it's politely tolerated by a puzzled audience, no more than that.

Unfortunately there are no subtitles for the clip but what I remember about seeing the film is that there was a lot of screen time devoted to the process of making music. This was not one of those films where music is really a backdrop: we see actually see them working things out. Benny Green, the broadcaster, jazz writer and a saxophonist himself, praised it in the highest possible terms in Punch.