50 Favourite Musicals: 24: 42ND STREET (1980) (Harry Warren / Al Dubin, Johnny Mercer)

The 50 shows that have stood out down the years and, as we get up among the paint cards, the shows that have become the cast recording of my life:

First performed: 1980, Winter Garden, NY

First seen by me: 1984, Drury Lane, London

Productions seen: two

Score: Harry Warren / Al Dubin, Johnny Mercer
Book: Michael Stewart, Mark Bramble

Plot:  1933: Broadway director Julian Marsh is hoping his new show 'Pretty Lady' will restore his fortunes after recent flops, although he is saddled with a temperamental leading lady Dorothy Brock whose sugar daddy is bankrolling the show.  At an audition for the chorus, Peggy Sawyer, fresh from Pennsylvania, is the last to be cast.  But when Dorothy breaks her ankle onstage during an out-of-town tryout, all looks lost...but then Julian remembers young Sawyer...

Five memorable numbers: DAMES, 42ND STREET, LULLABY OF BROADWAY, ABOUT A QUARTER TO NINE, WE'RE IN THE MONEY

Producer David Merrick, trying to reclaim his King of Broadway crown, decided to produce 42nd STREET, adapted from the film by Mark Bramble - his ex-office boy - and Michael Stewart.  Stewart had written the lacklustre book for MACK AND MABEL which Merrick produced and Gower Champion directed.  The show flopped and Champion swore they would never work together again.  But six years and two more flops later, Champion signed up for 42nd STREET but, again, he and Merrick clashed.  Aware that word had reached the NY critics that 42nd STREET had problems in it's Washington tryout, the paranoid Merrick cancelled all the Broadway previews to stop the press sneaking in but insisted the actors still perform to the empty auditorium.  One of the cast suggested that they all bring in any cuddly toys they had one night and played the show to them sitting in the front rows!  These non-previews also covered up the sudden absence of Champion, but he was in hospital having succumbed to a blood disease that he had been fighting.  Opening night arrived and Merrick *had* to let the press and public in - but that morning, Gower Champion died.  Merrick only told the writers and asked Champion's family to keep silent.  After acknowledging the rapturous ovation at the end of the show, Merrick announced to the stunned cast and audience that Champion was dead.  The next morning 42nd STREET was front-page news and Merrick had his hit.  There is still conjecture that he made the announcement this way knowing it would make any bad reviews redundant.  The show transferred to London in 1984 and was an instant hit, giving London the sort of huge Broadway show it had not seen in years.  I saw a preview and was swept away by Champion's machine-gun tap choreography, Theoni V. Aldredge's lavish costumes and the larger-than-life performances of Georgia Brown as Dorothy Brock, Clare Leach as Peggy Sawyer and Carol Ball as Anytime Annie.  I knew Carol from Richard Eyre's company at the National Theatre so eventually her dressing room became a second home.  Flash-forward 33 years and it was a very strange experience to see the show on the same stage when it was revived in a slightly revised version.  I had not wanted to see it to be honest... but there I was at the end, clapping like a seal and beaming.  Randy Skinner had filled out the choreography for some added numbers and the show was directed by Mark Bramble, who has since died.  Bramble didn't revise his book so it remains as thin as ever - 42nd STREET is definitely the last musical to go to if you want 3-dimensional characters; it literally jumps from song to song like a tapping mountain goat.  But the show knows it's strengths and the songs - and the thrilling dance routines that accompany them - just keep on coming.  The Harry Warren and Al Dubin songs might not be the best songs of the 1930s but boy, they have tunes. From the famous opening moments - when the curtain rises and pauses so you can focus on the ensemble's furious tapping feet - the show just picks you up and whirls you through it's classic backstage tale.  Oddly enough, what stuck me during the revival is the desperation behind it all:  if PRETTY LADY fails Marsh faces a bleak future, Peggy has only her no-hope existence in Pennsylvania to return to, and the dancers all face unemployment and the breadline.  It's odd that I never really noticed it in the 1980s.


Most of the available video footage is of the revivals but 42nd STREET is here because of the impact that original 1984 production had on me so here is the wonderful Clare Leach as Peggy with Michael Howe as Billy in the climax of that production, singing and dancing the bitter title song; what better lasting tribute to Gower Champion's sensational choreography.

MAGGIE MAY at the Finborough - Wake Up Maggie... you're onstage again.

Four years after the life-changing success of OLIVER! - which was still running in the West End - Lionel Bart's new musical MAGGIE MAY opened at the Adelphi Theatre in 1964.  Despite winning the Novello award for Best Theatre Score and a Critics Circle award for Best Musical, the show simply vanished from the repertoire.  Our Liverpudlian heroine appeared briefly in 1992 in a National Youth Theatre production but the revival at the Finborough Theatre is it's first professional appearance in 55 years.

Bart was still riding the success of OLIVER! when MAGGIE MAY became his second consecutive show to open at the Adelphi.  His 1962 musical BLITZ! - whoever said exclamation marks were a recent way to denote a musical - had opened there for a moderately successful run but was judged to be an uneven show; Sean Kenny's collapsing East End London set garnering the most attention over Bart's score or performances.  Returning again to the working-class milieu that had proved so successful for him, Bart turned away from London and focused on the thriving Liverpool scene, collaborating with writer Alun Owen who had success with his Liverpool plays PROGRESS TO THE PARK and NO TRAMS TO LIME STREET, and had just won acclaim for his script for A HARD DAY'S NIGHT.

Bart's favourite designer Sean Kenny recreated the Liverpool docks setting, while Owen was reunited with Canadian director Ted Kotcheff who had directed his plays on stage and television.  The show reunited Bart with Barry Humphries who had appeared in London and New York as OLIVER''s Mr Sowerberry - here playing the Brechtian role The Balladeer - and the show starred Rachel Roberts as Maggie May and Kenneth Haigh as Patrick Casey.  The cast also included such future tv names as Morecombe and Wise 'star' Janet Webb, Geoffrey Hughes, Billy Boyle (currently appearing as Theodore Whitman in the National Theatre's FOLLIES) and in the chorus, making her West End debut, Julia McKenzie.  MAGGIE MAY not only had a cast recording but Bart's friend Judy Garland also released four of it's songs on an EP.  In an odd twist, Bart had originally offered OLIVER! to Rachel Roberts but she declined so Georgia Brown got the role; he then offered MAGGIE MAY to Georgia but she declined so Rachel Roberts got it!  Non-singer Roberts' vocal chords just about survived to the end of her contract where she was replaced by - you guessed - Georgia Brown.

MAGGIE  MAY was Bart's last hurrah however: his 1965 musical TWANG!! was a theatrical car-crash and his 1969 Broadway musical LA STRADA not only had most of his score ditched but closed after a single night.  To finance these disasters, Bart had stupidly sold the rights to his hit shows - Max Bygraves paid £350 for OLIVER! and then re-sold them for £250,000 - so by 1972, Lionel Bart, the once and future king of British musicals, was bankrupt and suffering from alcoholism and substance abuse.  He re-awakened public interest with his Abbey National jingle 'Happy Endings' in the late 1980s, and in 1994 - the same year that MAGGIE MAY's Alun Owen died - Cameron Mackintosh revived OLIVER! with Bart making additions to the score for which he received a share of the profits.  He died in 1999 of liver cancer.

OLIVER! has had many revivals since it's 1960 opening - largely thanks to the enduring popularity of the 1968 film adaptation - but his other shows have been overshadowed.  Interestingly, his two 'contemporary' scores - FINGS AIN'T WOT THEY USED T'BE and MAGGIE MAY - are certainly influenced by his parallel career as a pop songwriter so maybe sound dated to theatre producers today; but they also carry within them an earthy, vital spark that didn't see it's like again until Willy Russell's BLOOD BROTHERS.

Maggie is a vivacious tart with a heart whose inner sadness, at losing her childhood sweetheart Patrick Casey to the life of a sailor, results in calling all her punters 'Casey'.  She lives and works near the Liverpool docks with her salty friend Maureen, and one day word reaches Maggie that Patrick Casey has arrived back, having left the navy for good.  They meet again and immediately realize they were meant to be together.  Patrick's friend Judder gets him a job on the docks but for Patrick this is a poisoned chalice; his father Joe was a famous trade unionist and rabble-rouser, loved by the workers and hated by the bosses.  His death at a demonstration has made him a legend and Patrick finds this a burden to carry with his fellow-workers who expect so much of him.

However when a worker is killed by a falling crate Patrick shows he is his father's son; not so much for the death but for the fact that the crate contained a secret shipment of guns, bound for South America which Patrick knows will be used against striking workers.  This leads him to confront his father's former crony Willie Morgan who is now the corrupt head of the docker's union.  Morgan knew the guns were being shipped as it meant jobs for his men but Patrick accuses him of class treachery.  Willie realizes Casey could easily displace him so decides to ruin him... and the key to this is through Maggie.

More guns arrive dockside and Casey's gang are assigned the job; Casey refuses and is sacked but Judder whips up the fellow dockers to walk out in support of their new hero Patrick, only Maggie realizing that this can only lead to more trouble.  She warns Patrick about going up against Morgan but he persists on addressing a large strike meeting about the need to be united with other world-wide comrades.  Morgan speaks next and manages to turn the strikers' against any further action - why think of others when your own job is on the line?  Morgan makes a move on Maggie knowing she is unhappy with Patrick but despite a trip to the fair, she rebuffs Morgan knowing that Patrick is her real love.

Patrick realizes his activism is doomed by his fellow-workers attitudes and decides his only happiness is with Maggie who has told him she will give up the game for him.  Patrick leaves her and bumps into Judder who is angry that his friend has given up so easy, especially for a tart.  They fight over Maggie, but Patrick says he has one last action to complete for the workers of the world.  Jealous of Maggie and of Patrick's secret mission, he informs Morgan that Patrick is headed for the docks.  As Casey attempts to use a crane to dump the crates of guns into the river, the police, Morgan, Judder and Maggie arrive on the dock...

MAGGIE MAY does feel uneven: Alun Owen's blue-collar book addressing trade union corruption and the in-fighting workers is a natural for his "Armchair Theatre" tv plays but sit oddly against Bart's score - both are good but play like a cut-and-shunt job.  However a little doctoring could give both a better flow; what is remarkable is to see a musical so committed to showing the working-class experience - how often does that happen?

There is a problem with the character of Maggie, a vibrant live-wire at the start of the show, she dwindles towards the end of the show to become a mere bystander to Patrick's fate.  The ending feels like a conscious steal from WEST SIDE STORY with it's sudden tragic conclusion but this too demotes Maggie to being an onlooker in what is supposed to be her story.

Matthew Iliffe's production is constrained by the small auditorium - the Finborough seats only 50 at a squeeze - allowing only a few small crates and a movable metal staircase as a set but the possibilities for the show do come through in his focused and fast-moving show, eliciting strong - sometimes too strong - performances from his cast.  James Darch was excellent as Patrick, a natural leading man with a strong voice and easy charm and he was well-partnered by Kara Lily Hayworth as Maggie, my only complaint being that her singing voice, while pretty in the current theatre soprano way, probably didn't give Maggie's songs their best as they were written for a rougher, more belting voice like Georgia Brown's.

A special mention to the hard-edged Maureen of Natalie Williams, the rest of the cast were all ok but Michael Nelson as Judder for some reason shouted rather than speaking his lines which seemed absurd in such a small space, however he was an excellent dancer, easily the one to focus on during the punchy and dynamic dance numbers choreographed by Sam Spencer-Lane to *just* fit the space.

Lionel Bart's score had several of his trademark numbers - the big ballads for his leading lady, a solo for his lead man reviewing his situation, ensemble numbers, a few comedy routine numbers and, kicking off the second act, an early sixties rock 'n' roll number that Cliff Richard wouldn't have turned his quiff up at - a very special mention to Henry Brennan, playing the whole score on a piano.

I honestly thought I would never see a revival of this but I am glad I did: for all it's uneven qualities, it's possibly one of the UK's most over-looked musicals.  Congratulations to Matthew Iliffe and his cast of 13 (where the original cast hit 50!), MAGGIE MAY is now sold-out for it's run at the Finborough.

 

42nd STREET at Drury Lane - Nostalgia isn't what it used to be...

33 years: a long time ago but, as is often the case, it also seems like no time at all especially if you are experiencing the same show in the same theatre.  In 1984 I saw a preview of "42nd STREET" at Drury Lane and was swept away by Gower Champion's propulsive choreography, Theoni V. Aldredge's lavish costumes and the larger-than-life performances of Georgia Brown as 'Dorothy Brock', Claire Leach as 'Peggy Sawyer' and Carol Ball as 'Anytime Annie'.  I knew Carol from Richard Eyre's company at the National Theatre so eventually her dressing room became a second home!  So there I was and here I am, sitting in the same theatre seeing a revival of the same show...

I had been in two minds about seeing the revival; with such fond memories of the original, how could it compete?  However last week, Owen surprised me with tickets - even better was the fact that when O picked up the tickets, he asked was there any chance of an upgrade from the Upper Circle to the Dress Circle?  Constant Reader, you can't go wrong in the second row of the Dress Circle - £35 tickets upgraded to £125 seating! Well, you don't get if you don't ask eh?

The production is directed by Mark Bramble, who co-wrote the original production with the late Michael Stewart, and the show has been made bigger and better with Champion's routines added to by choreographer Randy Skinner.  Oddly enough, the book has been the last thing to be revised so is still as thin as ever - 42nd STREET is definitely the last musical to go to if you want 3-dimensional characters -and the book literally jumps from song to song like a tapping mountain goat.

But the show knows it's strengths and the songs - and the thrilling dance routines that accompany them - just keep on coming.  The Harry Warren and Al Dubin songs might not be the best songs of the 1930s but boy, they have tunes and Bramble has inserted three extra ones into the original score - remarkable to think that the original 1933 musical film only had five songs!

From the famous opening moments - when the curtain rises and pauses so you can focus on the ensemble's furious tapping feet - the show just picks you up and whirls you through it's classic backstage tale of Broadway director Julian Marsh, desperate for a hit to put him back on top, having to rely on untried chorus girl Peggy Sawyer to take over the lead role when his temperamental star Dorothy Brock breaks her ankle.

The show's genesis is now Broadway legend: producer David Merrick, trying to reclaim his King of Broadway crown, decided on produce 42nd STREET that was adapted by Bramble - his ex-office boy - and Stewart.  Michael Stewart had written the lacklustre book for MACK AND MABEL which Merrick produced and Gower Champion directed.  The show flopped and Champion swore he would never work with Merrick again.  But six years later, and with two more flops to his name, Champion agreed to work on 42nd STREET but again producer and director clashed during pre-production.  Aware that word was reaching New York that the production had problems in it's tryout in Washington, the paranoid Merrick cancelled all the Broadway previews to stop the press sneaking in but insisted the actors still perform to the empty auditorium.  One of them even suggested that they all bring in any cuddly toys they had one night and played the show to them sitting in the front rows!

The non-previews also covered up the sudden absence of Champion, but he was in hospital having succumbed to a blood disease that he had been fighting.  Opening night finally arrived and Merrick had to let the press and public in - but that morning, Gower Champion died.  Merrick only told a couple of people and, after acknowledging the standing ovation at the end of the show, announced to the stunned cast and audience that Champion had died.  The next morning 42nd STREET was front-page news and Merrick had his hit.  There is still conjecture that he made the announcement this way knowing it would make any bad reviews redundant.

It's a show where the ensemble is the real star - the leads are played pleasantly enough but some of the supporting performances are pitched so high as to be like fingernails on a blackboard. Sheena Easton - Sheena Easton!! - can never be accused of being an actress but she sang well enough - it's not her fault that she does not have the pure star heft of the late and great Georgia Brown.  Tom Lister as Julian Marsh was a surprise as I felt he had a real presence on stage, but the one who dazzled - as she should - was Clare Halse as Peggy Sawyer.

Halse twirled, whirled and fired off machine-gun tapping riffs and, in particular, in two interpolated numbers - WITH PLENTY OF MONEY AND YOU and an extended finale with just her and the chorus - she resembled a young Debbie Reynolds.  Julian Marsh famously sends Peggy out on the opening night of PRETTY LADY with the phrase "You are going out there a youngster but you've got to come back a star" - suffice to say, Halse is one now!

Oddly enough, what stuck me with this version is the desperation behind it all, Marsh faces a bleak future with no hit shows, Peggy has only her no-hope existence in Allentown if she fails, the dancers all face the breadline and the score is peppered with songs like WE'RE IN THE MONEY, WITH PLENTY OF MONEY AND YOU and THERE'S A SUNNY SIDE TO EVERY SITUATION (the pithy lyrics are courtesy of Johnny Mercer) which make light of the lack of money.  It's odd that I never really noticed it in the 1980s.

As I said I was in two minds about seeing 42nd STREET but I'm glad I did, there is really no other show like it at the moment which is so resoundingly optimistic about the joy that a Broadway musical can bring and puts all that money on the stage.  Randy Skinner's additional choreography really works, fleshing out the title number with the ensemble thundering down a huge staircase - a reference to the original staging of "Lullaby of Broadway" in the film GOLD DIGGERS OF 1935 - and the joyous extended finale danced by Clare Halse and the chorus.

Oh and on the subject of money...

Here is the reverse of the 42nd STREET flyer that I picked up at that preview all those years ago - bear in mind Owen's £35 Grand Circle tickets was upgraded to Royal Circle seats that ordinarily would have cost £125...

I guess it was 33 years ago...