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Twang!!

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Original Theatrical Programme
Twang!
MusicLionel Bart
LyricsLionel Bart
BookLionel Bart & Harvey Orkin
Productions1965 West End

Twang!! is a musical written by Lionel Bart, based on the character of the legendary outlaw Robin Hood. It is most famous for its disastrous box-office failure. It opened at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London's West End on the 20th of December 1965 and ran for three weeks.[1] Bart wrote both the music and lyrics and also directed and produced it together with Joan Littlewood. Bart and television writer Harvey Orkin had collaborated on the book of the musical.[2]

The Story

The plot of Twang!! concerns the efforts of Robin Hood and his Merrie Men to break into Nottingham Castle in a variety of preposterous disguises, in order to prevent a marriage between the nymphomaniac court tart Delphina and the hairy Scots laird Roger the Ugly, arranged for the purpose of securing the loan of Scottish troops for bad Prince John.[3]

Cast

Twang!! brought together a cast that included the Littlewood's Theatre Workshop’s strongest players including Ronnie Corbett, Barbara Windsor and James Booth. Booth had won the coveted Robin Hood role and it had the potential to be a great vehicle for him, and he was repeatedly assured that the part would be expanded to starring dimensions.[4] Also featured in the cast were Bernard Bresslaw, Maxwell Shaw, Toni Eden and Philip Newman.

A Legendary Flop

But Twang!! was a disaster from the word go. The script was weak and stayed that way, especially the part of Robin Hood, despite constant, confusing rewrites. Rehearsals were dis-organised and fraught with tension. In front of the whole company, Littlewood accused Bart of being too strung-out on LSD to fulfill his creative responsibilities. The day before press night, Littlewood quit the company. A “theatre doctor”, American Burt Shevelove, was brought in to salvage things, leading to still more confusing changes, but nothing helped.[5]

The show opened in disarray and closed soon after, to universal scorn and derision. What angered the public in previews was that the scenes had no relation to the songs, and the tabloid predictions of doom only heightened the bad reception.[6] Opening night was a fiasco, the musical director, Ken Moule, collapsed of exhaustion and he had failed to orchestrate the second act. The house lights kept going up and down throughout the performance and vicious arguments were overheard backstage.[7] Two songs were cut out in the hours before the curtain rose and a decision had been made to camp everything up - even to add some transvestism.[8] The show had been intended as a romp and nothing more. It aimed to satirize the Crusades, the attitude of the Church and the human flaw of wanting to turn an outlawed man into a kind of heroic saint.[9] Orkin believed the show failed because they failed to establish the exact butt of that satire, it was all too vague, unfocused and inconsequential.[10] The critics were angered by the lack of heroics in this version of the Robin Hood legend and the pseudo-pantomime delivery.[11] It has been noted that Twang!! did have some very effective musical sequences - a scene around a gallows became a morris dance around a maypole.[12]

Aftermath

The critical fraternity were unaware that Bart had invested his personal fortune in Twang!! and he lost everything.[13] He was devastated by the failure of Twang!!.[14]

James Booth said that he had never felt good about Twang!!. Against his own better judgment he had allowed himself to be flattered and cajoled into accepting the half-baked part of Robin Hood when he could have been doing other things. He voiced his concerns over and over again, sticking with Twang! only from a sense of obligation. He had made no money during the year it took to prepare for Twang!.

In contrast, for Ronnie Corbett the failure of Twang!! was a lucky break - it meant he was free to participate in The Frost Report which was his first real breakthrough in television. He says of it "in retrospect its failure was as important to my career as any of my successes".[15]

Songs

  • Welcome to Sherwood Forest
  • What Makes a Star?
  • Make an Honest Woman of Me
  • To The Woods
  • Roger The Ugly
  • Dream Child
  • With Bells On
  • Twang!!
  • Unseen Hands
  • Sighs
  • You Can't Catch Me!
  • Follow The Leader
  • Wander
  • Whose Little Girl Are You?
  • I'll Be Hanged

A cast album was recorded and released on LP and cassette. Label- TER 1055. It has yet to be released on CD.

References

  • Garrick Theatre Programme
  • Roper, David (1994). Bart! The Unauthorized Life & Times, Ins and Outs, Ups and Downs of Lionel Bart, Pavilion Books Ltd.
  • Corbett, Ronnie; David Nobbs (2006). And it's goodnight from him... The Autobiography of The Two Ronnies. London: Penguin. ISBN 0718149645.
  • Parker, Derek & Julia (1979). The Story & The Song. Chappell & Co.

Notes

  1. ^ Roper, 1994 p.98
  2. ^ Roper, 1994 p.84
  3. ^ Roper, 1994 p.93
  4. ^ Roper, 1994 p.86
  5. ^ Roper, 1994 p.88
  6. ^ Roper, 1994 p.89
  7. ^ Roper, 1994 p.94
  8. ^ Roper, 1994 p.92
  9. ^ Roper, 1994 p.84
  10. ^ Roper, 1994 p. 93.
  11. ^ Roper, 1994 p.94-95
  12. ^ Parker, 1979
  13. ^ Roper, 1994 p.88-89
  14. ^ Roper, 1994
  15. ^ Corbett, Ronnie (2006). And it's goodnight from him... The Autobiography of The Two Ronnies. London: Penguin. pp. 6–9. ISBN 0718149645. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
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