Come and have a Turkey-Lurkey* Christmas with us, says COLIN HILL, the director
Take a very funny script by the master of American humour, Neil Simon, add the wonderful music and lyrics of Burt Bacharach and Hal David and mix in a highly talented group of actors, singers, dancers and musicians and you will be sitting down to enjoy a feast of Christmas enjoyment at the GWT in December.
It’s going to be a challenge to outdo the same show currently wowing the audiences at the Broadway Theatre in New York, but at least you don’t have to worry about renewing your passport or having to face the interrogation at your arrival airport (and it won’t cost you a minimum of £35 for a ticket). Just book your seatgs at Beech Walk and settle down to two and a half hours of sheer delight.
We have a wonderful cast. Scott Shearer and Helen Gaston, last seen together singing and dancing their way through The Full Monty, are back as Chuck Baxter and Fran Kubelik, the hero and heroine of this tale of the seedy activities at the heart of corporate American business. Penny Walshe, another Full Monty stunner, returns to demonstrate her wonderful singing voice as the very friendly Margie MacDougall, a friend to Chuck for a short while on Christmas Eve. Supporting them we have many of the GWT’s favourite performers. Alan Goodwin is the concerned doctor who is Chuck’s neighbour and Mike Martin, David Webster, Dave Kerry, John Turnbull and David Oatley (last seen in The Miser) are the five executives who are trying to conduct their extra-marital affairs using his one-bed apartment.
The ladies are well represented. Justine Greene and Kelsey Short, who appeared with such success in Time And The Conways have got out their dancing shoes and cultivated American accents for your entertainment. Gaynor Griffin, another member of that cast, has wasted no time in returning to our stage to demonstrate her versatility in playing the rejected lover of the personnel manager Mr. Sheldrake, who is now squiring Fran Kubelik instead. The cast is complemented by several performers making their GWT debuts. Something which always gives me great pleasure to see.
This should be a very satisfying way to kick off the Christmas festivities. Don’t forget, we have an EXTRA PERFORMANCE: the opening night is FRIDAY DECEMBER 3rd. Bookings are already flooding in, so if you want your favourite night and your favourite seat BOOK EARLY. Come along and join us in our Turkey-Lurkey* Christmas!!
[*Turkey-Lurkey Time is one of the song-and-dance numbers in Act 1. You can catch a preview of it on YouTube.]
In our last issue BILL BRAY lifted the lid on how to become a successful producer on Broadway ... Producer David Merrick, looking for his next Broadway hit in the mid-sixties, conned Neil Simon and Burt Bacharach into agreeing to work on their first stage musical, an adaptation of The Apartment. This astringent film comedy, with some dark twists, in the 1960s world of New York business life, was scripted by Billy Wilder and I A L Diamond. Wilder had also directed the film and surprisingly gave, as his original inspiration, the 1945 British film Brief Encounter, with Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard in an illicit affair using a friend’s flat for their romance.
Neil Simon, with a string of non-musical comedies behind him, but new to the musical stage, wrote the book and closely followed the plot of The Apartment. Bacharach worked with his usual lyricist, Hal David, whose first drafts for each lyric closely followed the book. Simon had suggested places in the plot for the songs but there were many changes. Bacharach wrote a notional score but there were more adjustments when the show was cast and he found that the sound of a performer’s voice necessitated a change. As Bacharach said in an interview, once he had seen and heard the actor, he had to write for the real thing, rather than "the cardboard figure in my imagination that I had been writing for".
The period of preparation of Promises Promises for its premiere on Broadway was probably the most testing and frustrating time in Bacharach’s career. He had presumed that, having written the score, his part in the production would be largely completed, but how wrong could he be? One number was too difficult to choreograph; the lyrics of another song did not fit the mood. Other numbers were shortened and, by the time the production reached its opening night in Boston, the last engagement before Broadway, Bacharach had changed the song running order and a new song was added. This was I’ll Never Fall In Love Again, which proved to be the most popular song in the entire score. It was all so unlike what he was used to in the recording studio. "We’re exposed, naked, like in a fishbowl. The music can be damned difficult but you can’t stop as if it were a studio. It’s a competition with one chance to win, and what you win is a live audience. If you do a good job in a recording studio or on a film score, it’s that way forever. But if you come back the next night and hear what’s happening in a theatre musical you’ll rush to the bar for a quick drink!"
Audiences, however, did not share his extreme unease and Promises Promises ran in New York for 1,281 performances from December 1968 to January 1972. At London’s Prince of Wales Theatre it had nearly 600 performances in 1969-70. So don’t miss Burt Bacharach’s one and only score for the theatre. The GWT now brings you the opportunity to judge for yourself.
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