Expresso Bongo
Encyclopedia
Expresso Bongo, a 1958 West End musical and a 1959 film, was a satire of the music industry. It was first produced on the stage at the Saville Theatre
, London on 23 April 1958. Its book was written by Wolf Mankowitz
and Julian More, with music by David Heneker
and Monty Norman
, also the co-lyricist with Julian More. The production starred Paul Scofield
with Hy Hazell, Millicent Martin
and James Kenney. Musical Director was Burt Rhodes. The subsequent 1959
film version was directed by Val Guest
and starred Laurence Harvey
, Cliff Richard
, and Yolande Donlan
.
). Johnny rechristens Rudge as "Bongo Herbert" and signs him to a contract that gives Johnny a 50% share of the profits. With Johnny's help, Bongo rockets to stardom. Bongo's success attracts a host of sleazy music industry types intent on exploiting him. Johnny quickly finds himself outclassed in the sleaze department as Bongo turns out to be the slipperiest slime of them all.
The writers of the 1958 musical were inspired by songwriters such as Noel Coward
. Their lyrics were clever, wordy and allusive: "The Gravy Train", for example, has Johnny quoting an apt line from Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, (Act 5, Scene X), while the unrepentant shopaholics in "We Bought It" describe themselves as "two eccentric socialites, dissipated sybarites". The tunes modulate all over the place and parody rock, Latin jazz, skiffle and trad. In essence, the score sounds like a warm-up for That Was the Week That Was
. Indeed, the musical's female lead, Millicent Martin
, went on to be the singer who opened each episode of TW3.
Music historian John Snelsen writes,
The 1958 Original Cast Recording lists the following songs and singers:
.
plays sleazy hustler Johnny Jackson, who is always on the lookout for fresh talent to exploit, while managing his hectic life with his stripper
girlfriend, Maise. Maise is looking to find a better life in singing.
Jackson discovers a teenage singer named Bert Rudge, played by Cliff Richard, in an espresso
coffee shop and sets about sending him along the rocky road to fame. He changes his name to Bongo Herbert and soon gets him a record deal and a relationship with an aging American singing sensation Dixie. Dixie, played by Yolande Donlan was Val Guest's wife and appeared in many of his films.
However, Bongo soon realizes that his 50/50 contract with Johnny is not as great as he thought it was, and breaks from Johnny's contract with help from Dixie as Bongo is a minor
.
Director Val Guest engaged Kenneth MacMillan
to choreograph the strip-club dancers who appear in the film. Struggling at Shepperton Studios
to get them to dance and sing to playback at the same time, MacMillan complained, 'It's the simplest routine. They may have looks, legs and tits, but they have no co-ordination.'
At first, Laurence Harvey was undecided on the kind of accent he would give his character, so Guest told him he was 'part Soho
, part Jewish, and part middle-class' and that it might be an idea to model him on the writer Wolf Mankowitz
. Harvey arranged a couple of lunches with the unsuspecting Mankowitz to study the writer at close hand, so the character Johnny Jackson in the film sounds something like the writer of the film. Harvey's character sports a melange of accents including his own South African
.
named its 1980 album Expresso Bongo after the film version.
Saville Theatre
The Saville Theatre is a former West End theatre at 135 Shaftesbury Avenue in the City of Westminster. The theatre opened in 1931, and became a music venue during the 1960s, finally being converted to a cinema in 1970.-Theatre years:...
, London on 23 April 1958. Its book was written by Wolf Mankowitz
Wolf Mankowitz
Cyril Wolf Mankowitz was an English writer, playwright and screenwriter of Russian Jewish descent.-Early life:...
and Julian More, with music by David Heneker
David Heneker
David Heneker was a writer and composer of British popular music and musicals, best known for creating the music and lyrics for Half a Sixpence.-Life and career:...
and Monty Norman
Monty Norman
Monty Norman is a singer and film composer best known for being credited with composing the "James Bond Theme".-Biography:...
, also the co-lyricist with Julian More. The production starred Paul Scofield
Paul Scofield
David Paul Scofield, CH, CBE , better known as Paul Scofield, was an English actor of stage and screen...
with Hy Hazell, Millicent Martin
Millicent Martin
Millicent Mary Lillian Martin is an English actress, singer and comedienne.Martin was born in Romford, England. She made her Broadway debut opposite Julie Andrews in The Boy Friend in 1954...
and James Kenney. Musical Director was Burt Rhodes. The subsequent 1959
1959 in film
The year 1959 in film involved some significant events, with Ben-Hur winning a record 11 Academy Awards.-Events:* The Three Stooges make their 190th and last short film, Sappy Bull Fighters....
film version was directed by Val Guest
Val Guest
Val Guest was a British film director, best known for his science-fiction films for Hammer Film Productions in the 1950s, but who also enjoyed a long, varied and active career in the film industry from the early 1930s up until the early 1980s.-Early life and career:He was born Valmond Maurice...
and starred Laurence Harvey
Laurence Harvey
Laurence Harvey was a Lithuanian-born actor who achieved fame in British and American films.- Early life :Harvey maintained throughout his life that his birth name was Laruschka Mischa Skikne. However, his legal name was Zvi Mosheh Skikne. He was the youngest of three boys born to Ber "Boris" and...
, Cliff Richard
Cliff Richard
Sir Cliff Richard, OBE is a British pop singer, musician, performer, actor, and philanthropist who has sold over an estimated 250 million records worldwide....
, and Yolande Donlan
Yolande Donlan
Yolande Donlan is an American actress who has worked extensively in the United Kingdom.She is the daughter of James Donlan, who was a hard working character actor in Hollywood films of the 1930s...
.
Plot
Paul Scofield plays Johnny, a slimy, small-time music promoter and talent scout who notices teenage girls going crazy for the singing and bongo playing of talentless and seemingly idiotic Herbert Rudge (played by James KenneyJames Kenney
James Kenney was an English dramatist, the son of James Kenney, one of the founders of Boodles' Club in London.His first play, a farce called Raising the Wind , was a success owing to the popularity of the character of "Jeremy Diddler"...
). Johnny rechristens Rudge as "Bongo Herbert" and signs him to a contract that gives Johnny a 50% share of the profits. With Johnny's help, Bongo rockets to stardom. Bongo's success attracts a host of sleazy music industry types intent on exploiting him. Johnny quickly finds himself outclassed in the sleaze department as Bongo turns out to be the slipperiest slime of them all.
Music
The music for the 1958 musical was, with the exception of one song, entirely different from the music that was used in the 1959 film. Cliff Richard wasn't likely to sign on to a film project that depicted him as a talentless idiot, so the music and the plot were rewritten to downplay the satire and showcase Richard and his band. In the best ironic traditions of Tin Pan Alley, a satire became a tribute. Only The Shrine on the Second Floor — a song that was intended to drive a sharpened stake into the heart of all sentimental ballads about Mom — made it into the movie and Cliff Richard sang it straight.The writers of the 1958 musical were inspired by songwriters such as Noel Coward
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
. Their lyrics were clever, wordy and allusive: "The Gravy Train", for example, has Johnny quoting an apt line from Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, (Act 5, Scene X), while the unrepentant shopaholics in "We Bought It" describe themselves as "two eccentric socialites, dissipated sybarites". The tunes modulate all over the place and parody rock, Latin jazz, skiffle and trad. In essence, the score sounds like a warm-up for That Was the Week That Was
That Was The Week That Was
That Was The Week That Was, also known as TW3, is a satirical television comedy programme that was shown on BBC Television in 1962 and 1963. It was devised, produced and directed by Ned Sherrin and presented by David Frost...
. Indeed, the musical's female lead, Millicent Martin
Millicent Martin
Millicent Mary Lillian Martin is an English actress, singer and comedienne.Martin was born in Romford, England. She made her Broadway debut opposite Julie Andrews in The Boy Friend in 1954...
, went on to be the singer who opened each episode of TW3.
Music historian John Snelsen writes,
Expresso Bongo opened in the West End in the same year as My Fair Lady. It did not run as long and has hardly been seen since, but its gritty cynicism, contemporary setting and pop score gained it many fans. It was voted Best British Musical of the Year in a Variety annual survey of shows on the London stage, with a ballot result far ahead of My Fair Lady, and was referred to in general as 'the other musical' to distinguish it from Lerner and Loewe's work.
The 1958 Original Cast Recording lists the following songs and singers:
- Overture: Orchestra
- Don't Sell Me Down the River: James Kenney
- Expresso Party: James Kenney
- Nausea: Meier Tzelniker
- Spoil the Child: Millicent Martin
- Seriously: Millicent Martin
- I Never Had It So Good: Paul Scofield
- There's Nothing Wrong With British Youth Today: Ensemble
- The Shrine on the Second Floor
- He's Got Something for the Public: Hy Hazell & Principals
- I Am: Millicent Martin
- Nothing is for Nothing: Meier Tzelniker, Hy Hazell & Paul Scofield
- We Bought It: Hy Hazel & Elizabeth Ashley
- Time: Hy Hazell
- The Gravy Train: Paul Scofield
- Finale: The Company
1959 film
Fifty years on the film remains notable mainly as the second screen appearance by Cliff Richard and the Shadows during 1959, the first being the much darker Serious ChargeSerious Charge (1959 film)
Serious Charge is a 1959 film now most notable for being Cliff Richard’s screen acting début in a very minor supporting role, playing a layabout teenage musician called Curley Thompson.The film was adapted from a stage play written by Philip King...
.
Plot
Laurence HarveyLaurence Harvey
Laurence Harvey was a Lithuanian-born actor who achieved fame in British and American films.- Early life :Harvey maintained throughout his life that his birth name was Laruschka Mischa Skikne. However, his legal name was Zvi Mosheh Skikne. He was the youngest of three boys born to Ber "Boris" and...
plays sleazy hustler Johnny Jackson, who is always on the lookout for fresh talent to exploit, while managing his hectic life with his stripper
Stripper
A stripper is a professional erotic dancer who performs a contemporary form of striptease at strip club establishments, public exhibitions, and private engagements. Unlike in burlesque, the performer in the modern Americanized form of stripping minimizes the interaction of customer and dancer,...
girlfriend, Maise. Maise is looking to find a better life in singing.
Jackson discovers a teenage singer named Bert Rudge, played by Cliff Richard, in an espresso
Espresso
Espresso is a concentrated beverage brewed by forcing a small amount of nearly boiling water under pressure through finely ground coffee. Espresso is widely known throughout the world....
coffee shop and sets about sending him along the rocky road to fame. He changes his name to Bongo Herbert and soon gets him a record deal and a relationship with an aging American singing sensation Dixie. Dixie, played by Yolande Donlan was Val Guest's wife and appeared in many of his films.
However, Bongo soon realizes that his 50/50 contract with Johnny is not as great as he thought it was, and breaks from Johnny's contract with help from Dixie as Bongo is a minor
Minor (law)
In law, a minor is a person under a certain age — the age of majority — which legally demarcates childhood from adulthood; the age depends upon jurisdiction and application, but is typically 18...
.
Director Val Guest engaged Kenneth MacMillan
Kenneth MacMillan
Sir Kenneth MacMillan was a British ballet dancer and choreographer. He was artistic director of the Royal Ballet in London between 1970 and 1977.-Early years:...
to choreograph the strip-club dancers who appear in the film. Struggling at Shepperton Studios
Shepperton Studios
Shepperton Studios is a film studio in Shepperton, Surrey, England with a history dating back to 1931 since when many notable films have been made there...
to get them to dance and sing to playback at the same time, MacMillan complained, 'It's the simplest routine. They may have looks, legs and tits, but they have no co-ordination.'
At first, Laurence Harvey was undecided on the kind of accent he would give his character, so Guest told him he was 'part Soho
Soho
Soho is an area of the City of Westminster and part of the West End of London. Long established as an entertainment district, for much of the 20th century Soho had a reputation for sex shops as well as night life and film industry. Since the early 1980s, the area has undergone considerable...
, part Jewish, and part middle-class' and that it might be an idea to model him on the writer Wolf Mankowitz
Wolf Mankowitz
Cyril Wolf Mankowitz was an English writer, playwright and screenwriter of Russian Jewish descent.-Early life:...
. Harvey arranged a couple of lunches with the unsuspecting Mankowitz to study the writer at close hand, so the character Johnny Jackson in the film sounds something like the writer of the film. Harvey's character sports a melange of accents including his own South African
South African English
The term South African English is applied to the first-language dialects of English spoken by South Africans, with the L1 English variety spoken by Zimbabweans, Zambians and Namibians, being recognised as offshoots.There is some social and regional variation within South African English...
.
Trivia
The Australian band Mental as AnythingMental As Anything
Mental As Anything are an Australian New Wave–rock music band formed at an art school in Sydney in 1976. Their most popular line-up was Martin Plaza on vocals and guitar; Reg Mombassa on lead guitar and vocals; his brother Peter "Yoga Dog" O'Doherty on bass guitar and vocals; Wayne "Bird"...
named its 1980 album Expresso Bongo after the film version.
External links
- http://www.doollee.com/PlaywrightsN/norman-monty.html Monty Norman plays