A Kid for Two Farthings is a 1953 novel by the British writer Wolf Mankowitz

Wolf Mankowitz

Cyril Wolf Mankowitz was an English writer, playwright and screenwriter of Russian Jewish descent.-Early life:...

, based on the author's experiences of growing up within a Jewish community in London's East End. It was translated into a film

A Kid for Two Farthings (film)

A Kid For Two Farthings is a 1955 film, directed by Carol Reed. The screenplay was adapted by Wolf Mankowitz from his own novel of the same name.-Plot:...

 by Carol Reed

Carol Reed

Sir Carol Reed was an English film director best known for Odd Man Out , The Fallen Idol , The Third Man and Oliver!...

 in 1955. Mankowitz himself wrote the screenplay

Screenplay

A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...

.

The story was adapted into a musical play in 1996, and presented at the Bridewell Theatre in London by the Mercury Workshop, starring Ron Moody

Ron Moody

Ron Moody is an English actor.- Personal life :Moody was born in Tottenham, North London, England, the son of Kate and Bernard Moodnick, a studio executive. His father was of Russian Jewish descent and his mother was a Lithuanian Jew. He is a cousin of director Laurence Moody and actress Clare...

 as Kandinsky. Music was by Cyril Ornadel

Cyril Ornadel

Cyril Ornadel was a British conductor, songwriter and composer chiefly in musical theatre.Cyril Ornadel was born in London. He studied at the Royal College of Music. During the 1950s he was famous for conducting the orchestra for the hit TV show The Sunday Night At The Palladium...

 with lyrics by Philip Glassborow

Philip Glassborow

Philip Glassborow is a playwright, lyricist and composer who writes for theater, radio and television. His best-known theater musical is the cult hit The Great Big Radio Show! with book in collaboration with Nick McIvor, which won a special prize in the Vivian Ellis Awards and was premiered by the...

 and book by Glassborow and Robert Meadwell.Michael Kennedy in Masquerade, The World of Show Music Magazine, Issue 23

The title is a reference to the traditional Passover

Passover

Passover is a Jewish holiday and festival. It commemorates the story of the Exodus, in which the ancient Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt...

 song, Chad Gadya

Chad Gadya

Chad Gadya is a playful cumulative song in Aramaic and Hebrew. It is sung at the end of the Passover Seder, the Jewish ritual feast that marks the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Passover...

, which begins "One little goat which my father bought for two zuzim".Steven H. Gale, Mankowitz, Wolf, Literary Analysis, Encyclopedia of British Humorists, Vol. 2, 1996. At the very end of the film version, Mr. Kandinsky softly sings fragments of an English translation of this song.

Plot introduction

In a lower-class London community of small shops, open-air vendors and flea-marketers, Joe, a small boy, lives with his mother, Joanne, who works in and rooms above the Kandinsky tailor shop. Joe is innocently and earnestly determined to help realize the wishes of his poor, hard-working neighbours. Hearing from Mr. Kandinsky the tale that a captured unicorn will grant any wish, Joe uses his accumulated pocket change to buy a kid with an emerging horn, believing it to be a unicorn. His subsequent efforts to make dreams come true exemplify the power of hope and will amidst hardship.