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ON THE RECORD: Three Mid-50’s Musicals from the U.K.
By Steven Suskin
22 Jan 2006
This week’s column discusses new releases of Peter Greenwell’s Twenty Minutes South, Vivian Ellis’ The Water Gipsies and Julian Slade’s record-smashing hit Salad Days.
TWENTY MINUTES SOUTH [Must Close Saturday MCSR3032]
Once upon a time — precisely one hundred years and two weeks ago, as I write this — George M. Cohan’s Forty-Five Minutes from Broadway opened at the crossroads of Broadway and 42nd Street. This was a musical comedy situated 45 minutes away, in New Rochelle; the plot told of a housemaid who inherits a fortune — her name is Mary, as in “Mary Is a Grand Old Name” — but decides New Rochelle is better than the big bad city.
Fifty-five years later, and closer to town, came Twenty Minutes South. South of London, that is. This was the tale of a group of suburban commuters, rushing to the City every day “On the 8:27” (opening number) and returning “On the 5:27” (finale). The girls work as secretaries, the boys propose, etcetera. This might not sound all too promising, especially to listeners in America in 2005. But do not lose heart. Twenty Minutes South is the work of Peter Greenwell, who was totally unknown to me until three years ago, when Must Close Saturday brought us the striking Crooked Mile. One hearing of that recording made me, at least, more than ready to hear anything else that Mr. Greenwell might have written.
Twenty Minutes South was initially produced at the Player’s Theatre, which had just then originated Sandy Wilson’s The Boy Friend. Similarly, the show transferred to the West End, opening July 13, 1955, at the St. Martins. Unlike The Boy Friend, Twenty Minutes South quickly wilted and disappeared. Greenwell returned with at least four more musicals, including the aforementioned Crooked Mile in 1959.
The score for Greenwell’s earlier musical does not approach that of the latter. The work calls for a formulaic assortment of songs, presumably at the behest of librettist-lyricist Maurice Browning (who was not involved with The Crooked Mile). Even so, one can’t help but be struck by the composer’s deft touches. The music for “On the 8:27,” for example, is rhythmically altered time and again by train-chugging sounds from the singers. There is a typewriter song with similar written-in effects, and this was long before Frank Loesser’s “Secretary Is Not a Toy” or Thoroughly Modern Millie. Greenwell does something rhythmically similar in “Do We?,” one of those songs with two boys complaining about their girls and who needs ’em anyway? A hackneyed song slot, but handled with imagination by the composer.
Adrian Wright, in his typically compelling liner notes, quotes Greenwell on Twenty Minutes South: “I wrote what I thought was required, you know. I wrote what people expected to hear, and I didn’t do my own thing. One or two bits in it are really me, but I didn’t put myself into it, and I sort of saw what the critics meant. I was writing what I thought were the popular songs of the day. I mean, the show had a mambo.”
I rather like “The Addison Mambo,” myself. And I find Twenty Minutes South breezily bright, although not to the extent that I’d describe it as a must-buy. Let’s just say that some readers of this column are sure to enjoy it, and hopefully you can already tell if that means you. Continued...
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