Letter To Mark Bowden, NewsRevue, 22 January 1993

Here is a letter I wrote to director, Mark Bowden, just after the start of the first run of 1993.

He and his cast took a shine to my songs. Perhaps too much of a shine; the show was ram-packed with them.

Here’s a link to the submission I sent that crew on 4 January 1993 – click here.

The following letter was written the day after the opening night.  I’ll up the songs referred to therein as soon as I am able:

                                                                                                                               22 January 1993

 

Dear Mark

 

Congratulations on a grand opening night.  I enjoyed the show very much and get the feeling that the other writers felt the same.  Please pass on my felicitations to the team.

 

I promised you some comments (hopefully constructive ones) once I had sobered up so here they are.  These you may take or bin.

 

FEMIDOM

 

I think this song would go down better later in the show (once more people are more drunk).  Consider “Coal Digger” or “Prince Charlie” as the warm up number.  The metre baffled me.  For what it’s worth – here is the metre I intended and tested thoroughly (to rigorous BS5750 standards etc):

 

Loving you is so fantastic, inside a Femidom,

With your coat of thermoplastic, known as the Femidom;

This vaginal {this vaginal} polyvinyl {polyvinyl},

Is an artificial con,

Little darling let’s bonk and tonk, inside a Femidom {a Femidom}

We only bought the one, because the price is so steep,

By the time you got it on, I’d long since gone off to sleep; etc etc

 

WHITE HOUSE

 

Seemed a bit static – consider bringing the other rednecks on once they are mentioned – to create a bit more movement.  This is actually a very difficult song and you did it surprisingly well.

 

SLOBIDANS ARMY

 

Also a very difficult song – I thought the delivery was excellent.  I don’t really think the audience is supposed to laugh much until the last few lines – they should be half wanting to laugh and half thinking how awful it all is.  That balance came across very well I felt.  Consider substituting Sudan for Iran at the end as it has just hit the news this morning.

 

COAL DIGGER

 

Well done!  I’d like you to think about the metre on the following lines as the joke is lost unless it is right.

 

And the miners all – know they’ve been pissed on,

Cos the mining in-dustry’s gone.

 

MICHAEL JACKSON

 

Total triumph – very pleased with this one.  “There are people starving but I’m the last one laughing,” ended up negative somehow but otherwise I cannot imagine it being done better.

 

Hope all this helps – and its tough if it doesn’t help.

Well done once again to you all – look forward to seeing you soon.