Travel, Theatre, Music, Cricket, Tennis, Writing, Life
Neither Janie nor I recall a great deal about this particular evening. I think it was the only time I went to DJ’s place in Steeles Mews for dinner and I think there were a fair few of us there.
I can see from the diaries that Janie and I had arranged to stay at my place for the weekend, not least because we had theatre at the National the next day:
I’m pretty sure we ate and drank well at DJ’s that evening – that much I do remember.
The papers were full of the story of actress Yasmine Gibson swanning off to the Costa del Sol, leaving her daughter Gemma home alone.
This link term – click here – finds what little can still be found on-line on the news story. Click here for an interesting take on the story, by Lynn Barber, which suggests that the tabloid press intervention might have done more harm than good. Even 25 years ago this stuff about press freedom and intrusion was debated.
As I write 25 years later, I recalled my lyric and the performance of it far more vividly than the news story itself. Victoria Jeffrey was the actress who performed it in NewsRevue and I remember her slovenly-looking, sangria-swilling, belting performance, as the mother, vividly. It went down a storm.
Here’s the lyric. Strong lyric, but weak ending – perhaps the cast improved on that.
I DON’T CARE ‘BOUT MY BABY
(To the Tune of “Take Good Care Of My Baby”)
INTRO – YASMINE
My tears are falling cos the papers cause me pain,
But tho’ they’ve really hurt me so, I’m glad I’m here boozing in Spain.
CHORUS 1 – STILL YASMINE
I don’t care ’bout my baby, I’m not as kind as mums should be;
The tabloids say I fail her, some loony may impale her,
While I’m out quaffing G&T.
CHORUS 2 – LITTLE JEMMA
I don’t care if my mummy, will ever reappear from Spain;
Newspapers all tell fibs on, the state of Jemma Gibson,
While mum is knocking back Champagne.
MIDDLE BIT 1 – STILL LITTLE JEMMA
Once up a time, my freedom wasn’t crime,
Now mum has flown, the papers say I’m home alone, so
CHORUS 3 – YET MORE LITTLE JEMMA
I’m in care since my mummy, has left me in the house for weeks;
I entertained all my friends, held parties on the weekends,
That’s stopped now we’ve been shopped by tabloid sneaks.
CHORUS 4 – BACK TO YASMINE
I don’t care ’bout my baby, I like to go out for some fun;
I know I’m not a has-been, you’ve now all heard of Yasmine,
Front page of Mirror, Star and Sun.
MIDDLE BIT 2 – STILL YASMINE AGAIN
My good name’s been stained, since little Jemma claimed,
Reckless abandon, and I don’t have a leg to stand on, cos
CHORUS 5 – YASMINE CONCLUDES
I don’t care ’bout my baby, but she’s a cow to grass on me;
I’ll keep her in the kitchen, one day I’ll do that bitch in,
And eat my baby up whole for tea.
Here’s a charming video of Bobby Vee singing “Take Good Care Of My Baby” with a gratuitous crowd of young women in short skirts clapping out of sync with each other and even more out of sync with the beat of the tune. Honestly my dad’s home vids back then (c1961) were better quality cinematography than this:
Also, here is a link to Carole King’s charming lyrics to Take Good Care Of My Baby.
I wrote a Version 2 of this lyric in August 1993 for a chorus of slovenly holiday-making mothers:
WE DON’T CARE ‘BOUT OUR BABIES
(To the Tune of “Take Good Care Of My Baby”)
INTRO – NEGLIGENT MOTHERS
Our tears are falling cos the papers cause us pain,
But tho’ they’ve really hurt us so, we’re glad we’re here boozing in Spain.
VERSE 1 – NEGLIGENT MOTHERS
We don’t care ’bout our babies, we’re not as kind as mums should be;
The tabloids say we fail ’em, some loony may impale ’em,
While we’re out quaffing G&T.
VERSE 2 – SPROGS
We don’t care if our mummies, will ever reappear from Spain;
We don’t think they are sinful, we too shall have a skin full,
While they’re out knocking back Champagne.
Once up a time, our freedom wasn’t crime,
Now they have flown, the papers say we’re home alone, so
We’re in care since our mummies, have left us in the house for weeks;
We entertained all our friends, held parties on the weekends,
That’s stopped now we’ve been shopped by tabloid sneaks.
VERSE 3 – BACK TO THE EVIL MUMS
We don’t care ’bout our babies, we like to get away for fun;
Newspapers all are stalking, the evil mums of Dorking,
Front page of Mirror, Star and Sun.
Our good names are stained, since Britain’s papers claimed,
Reckless abandon, and we don’t have a leg to stand on, cos
We don’t care ’bout our babies, but we’re not as bad as all that,
Those kids had us arrested, ‘tho’ they were not molested,
Once we get out again we’ll kill those brats.
This was not one of the more successful evenings. In some ways it was a reprise of the charming Kim & Micky & ossobuco evening which helped cement me and Janie together…but a sort-of dystopian version of it.
It was not dustopian because of the food. Oh boy, the food was terrific. Janie’s Friday diary reads…
…collect ossobuco & Langues de chat biscuits & mascarpone [from La Pasena]
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It was the company that made the evening dystopian.
Rita is one of Janie’s colleagues – even 25+ years later Janie still refers work to Rita when appropriate.
Now don’t get me wrong, I liked Rita. Rita is absolutely fine.
The problem at that time was that Rita was with a chap named Tony and Tony liked far right politics of the most venal kind. Rita and Tony as an item didn’t stand the test of time for all that long beyond this dystopian evening…
…nor indeed did Tony make it very deep into middle age. Stonk in the brain or something of that ilk. It isn’t ONLY the good who die young.
But the Rita and Tony partnership had, by then, lasted long enough to produce young Mark who was 10-12 years old. By all accounts, Mark has subsequently settled down but at that time he was a fully paid up member of the Tony-Loony-Tunes-Yoof and not averse to doling out a bit of lip.
None of the Mark and Tony shenanigans went down very well with me and Micky. I don’t think it went down too well with Rita either when the extent of the mismatch inevitably spilled over into the evening.
I seem to recall Kim subsequently finding it all rather amusing; she rather thrives on conflict in a funny way. Not to say that she found it acceptable; just that she preferred to laugh it off afterwards while Micky and I sought solace in incredulity.
That particular evening grouping was a one-off.
The food was terrific though.
Less than a month into Mark Bowden’s run, I was submitting material for Terry Randall’s run, which was due to start in early March 1993.
I don’t remember Terry Randall well – but I’m pretty sure he is this guy – click here...or if you prefer, click here.
He wasn’t as wild about my material as Mark Bowden nor one or two directors who soon followed. I think he might have written a fair bit of material himself and with his cast.
Anyway, this submission sheet at least shows the material that Mark Bowden and the preceding cast had been using – even more than I remembered!
LIST OF SONGS SUBMITTED AND TAPE TRACK LISTING
TERRY RANDALL MARCH-APRIL 1993 RUN
Song Title Original Title/
Artist on Tape
Aprox. No. of Performances 7+ 4-6 1-3 New/Nil Inside A Femidom Under The Moon Of Love/Curtis Lee Y Slobidan’s Army Oliver’s Army/Elvis Costello Y White House Our House/Crosby Stills Nash & Young Y My Genitalia My Generation/The Who Y I Gatt Round I Get Around/Beach Boys Y Better Face Heal The World/Michael Jackson Y So Long Ma’am So Long Mom/Tom Lehrer Y Midnight Plane to Jordan Midnight Train to Georgia/Gladys Knight & Pips Y Coal Diggers Goldfinger/Shirley Bassey Y Closed to You Close to You/Carpenters Y Snatchbroker Snatchbroker Matchmaker Matchmaker/Fiddler on the Roof Cast Y Designer Delilah/Tom Jones Y Mad Mullah Moonshadow/Cat Stevens Y Mating A Bull With A Heffer Stairway To Heaven/Led Zeppelin Y Don’t Leave Us This Space Don’t Leave Me This Way/Thelma Houston Y Marje Proops High Hopes (no recording – sorry) Y Standing On The Dole Queue Lambeth Walk (no recording – sorry) Y
We’d got to the stage, by the end of 1992, that most of our getting togethers didn’t get specific mention as “Jane” or “Ian” in our respective diaries.
Yet this particular weekend, 5th to 7th February, is marked in Janie’s diary:
Ian over for weekend…
…and marked in mine…
Jane [with an arrow and a line through the weekend]
The significance of this, I think, is that we had not, untilt hat point or slightly beyond that point, considered spending the whole weekend together as a given. In fact, with Janie still taking a fair bit of weekend work and with me spending some weekend time writing the book with Michael etc, we rarely spent several days together.
Clearly we blocked this one out to spend the whole weekend together.
Janie also wrote:
Arab party?…
…in the Saturday, but I don’t think that happened. I think the New Years Eve party with lebanese food…
…became that party instead – probably because most of Janie’s lot used to go off skiing in the early weeks of the year.
There are some notes on Janie’s Friday page about food:
Strips of top side or buttock flattened out for beef olives…
…sounds like we ate well at Janie’s fair hand.
Some Hamas forces got stuck out on some Lebanese hills on the borders with Israel…
…I know what you are thinking…this is not an easy subject for comedy. You are right and I was wrong.
But I had a reasonable go at it and it has balance. Writing now, 25 years later, I am proud of this lyric, even though it didn’t make the show. I remember Janie really liked it at the time…that mattered.
DON’T LEAVE US THIS SPACE
(To the Tune of “Don’t Leave Me This Way”)
INTRO – SUNG “MECCA” STYLE
Ay, ay ay ay ay ay ay, ay ay ay ay ay, ay ay
VERSE 1
Don’t leave us this space,
We can’t survive, can’t stay alive,
In Lebanon;
Don’t leave us this place,
We can’t exist, fundamentalist, Islamisists,
Don’t leave us this space.
CHORUS 1
Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-amas,
Israeli soldiers burst in to grab us,
Cos they believe we’re causing Arab fuss,
They exiled us out to South Lebanon,
They say Israel has got a Jihad ban on,
So listen to Abdul Aziz Rantisi,
Now only Yizhak Rabin can set us free, {set us free, set us free}
VERSE 2
Don’t leave us this space,
We just can’t stand, this no man’s land,
With ice and breeze;
Don’t leave us this place,
In these harsh climbs, Sir Ranulph Finnes,
Would also freeze,
Don’t leave us this place.
CHORUS 2
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-shwari,
Has won around Boutros Boutros-Ghali,
She’s the Palestinian Mata-Hari,
Four hundred of us want reparations,
With the help of the United Nations,
But Israel won’t return us to Palestine,
Despite Resolution 799 {799, 799}.
OUTRO – DANCE OFF STAGE SINGING
Please let my people go, let my people go.
Here is a vid of Themla Houston belting Don’t Leave Me This Way:
Genetic engineering has been in the news, on and off, for a heck of a long time. e.g. 25 years ago at the time of writing (February 2018).
I wrote this very ambitious lyric for NewsRevue back then.
I mistakenly didn’t think it had been used – the show was chock full of my songs at that time anyhow and I wrote this early in a new run.
Normally a song needed to be spectacularly good to displace established material.
I don’t think this is spectacular, but there are some good lines in there, though I say so myself…
…and Mark Bowden and his cast seemed to like my stuff a lot. Anyway, you can judge for yourselves:
MATING A BULL WITH A HEFFER
(To the Tune of “Stairway to Heaven”)
VERSE 1
There are breeders who show X and Y Chromosomes,
And they’re mating a bull with a heffer;
The sperm’s sex they confirm just by dying the sperm,
And dividing a pair with electrons.
Ooohhh, ooohhh, and they’re finding a fair way to sex them.
VERSE 2
Now the ladys who know fertilise in vitro,
With a polymerase chain reaction;
The girls check on the sex of the sprog that’s due next,
But their fellows miss out on the action.
Ooohhh and it makes me wonder, whooohhh is going to fund ‘er?
MIDDLE BIT ONE
Once they have dyed and charged the sperm up, in a tea cup,
I’m gonna put my new blue genes on;
But this genetic engineering has me fearing,
If this world is still where I belong.
Ooohhh and it makes me wonder, ooohhh suppose they blunder:
MIDDLE BIT TWO
They’ll cross a mussel with a hedgehog, you’ll hear alarm bells,
Now Sonic plays DNA games;
Led Zeppelin’s lyrics are pretentious, and if you’re drunk,
You may imagine that their words rhyme.
CLIMAX
And once they’re further down the road,
Geneticists will write a tome,
Then buy and sell genetic code,
Cos they will know human genome,
And once the scheme of youth is sold,
We’ll live to be ten thousand old,
And once our aging process’ slowed,
We’ll spawn a twenty legg-ed toad,
French restaurants will buy a load.
And they’re breeding a pear with a head on.
(Lead singer holds up a grotesque effigy which is a talking doll covered with a large plastic pear. The doll says “Mama” and the lights blackout)
Here is a vid of Led Zeppelin performing Stairway To Heaven, with lyrics:
Not much in Janie’s and my diaries for Janiary 1993 other than work and stuff, although I am pretty sure that we were spending most weekend time together by then.
I guess we were starting down the road of being people with whom we could do nothing together.
I did a couple of bridge and bookwriting sessions without Janie. Janie seemed to have given up on French lessons by the start of 1993 but was still taking Saturday work and going to the odd chiropody meeting.
On Sunday 17 January, although there is nothing in my diary, Janie has a whole load of notes about Steve Bright’s attempt to repair one of my reel-to-reel tape recorders. We must have been together for that.
The following weekend Janie notes that Ros was coming on the Sunday and I am pretty sure I first met Ros then.
We went to Kim and Micky’s for dinner on that Tuesday evening (26 January).
On Saturday 30 January Janie and I schlepped out to Wallington to Paul James’s place for a party at his house. Paul was one of the Binder Hamlyn Management Consultancy partners and I remember being surprised to be invited, although I was doing a tiny bit of work with him at that time.
I seem to recall Janie quite enjoying the party but not to the extent that justified the schlep to Wallington.
I’m not sure what gossip columnist Marjorie Proops did or had done to her in January 1993 – must have been something in the press – just gossip I think, about her having an affair with a relative youngster. She survived until late 1996.
Anyway, here is my lyric, which I don’t think made it to the show. The show was awash with my material at that time anyway.
Neat little lyric, though.
MARJE PROOPS
(To the Tune of “High Hopes”)
VERSE 1
If you want vice at a newspaper price,
There’s a lot to be learned so seek advice.
Just what made that youthful gallant,
Want to thrill an agony aunt;
Anyone knows a gallant can’t,
Move an agony aunt.
CHORUS 1
But he had Marje Proops,
He had Marje Proops,
He had back of a barge, nose too large Proops.
So if you’re reading a solemn,
Agony column,
Just recall that gallant.
Oops there goes another agony aunt,
{Oops there goes another agony aunt,}
Oops there goes another agony aunt.
VERSE 2
When troubles fall and your back’s to the wall,
There are lots of advisors that you can call.
Once there was an elderly vamp,
Wanted fun with a juvenile scamp,
That youngster made his damp stamp,
On the elderly vamp.
CHORUS 2
Cos he had Marje Proops,
He had Marje Proops,
He had light brigade charge, specs too large Proops.
So if you’re not feeling fine,
On your advice line,
Just recall that young scamp.
Oops there goes another elderly vamp,
{Oops there goes another elderly vamp,}
Oops there goes another elderly vamp.
Wham bam!
Here is a vid of the song “High Hopes”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsrEsz7H5ZE
Here is a link to the Sammy Cahn lyrics to High Hopes…
…I clearly still had Sammy Cahn on my mind so soon after his passing and my obituary lyric for the great lyricist.
Back to Marje Proops – I remember people at school teasing me that my mum looked like Marje Proops – I think it was mostly the cruel spectacles to be honest>
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.