Hils, Crog, Madam Arcati and I paid another visit to one of our fave venues, the Art Deco glory that is Crazy Coqs at Brasserie Zedel last night - this time to see a tribute to one of the most popular entertainment partnerships of the 1950s and 60s, Messrs Flanders and Swann!
For the uninitiated (and that's presumably everyone on the windward side of the pond, although the gents did make quite an impression on Broadway in their day), Michael Flanders and Donald Swann were accomplished "revue" players; a cabaret genre that evolved out of a combination of operetta, Music Hall and satire, was embraced by a wealth of artists such as Noel Coward, Tom Lehrer, Joyce Grenfell and Hermione Gingold, and itself spawned variations on the theme, including Burlesque, Follies and "variety entertainment". They wrote and composed numerous sketches and songs, both for their own shows and for others, and in the UK - a nation suffering post-War austerity and deprivation - became "national treasures". Their compilation LPs At the Drop of a Hat, At the Drop of Another Hat and The Bestiary of Flanders & Swann were even produced by the legendary George Martin.
Being fanatics for preserving the legacy of two such great men, our performers last night Tim FitzHigham and Duncan Walsh Atkins were definitely not there to do "impersonations" of the duo, but rather to lovingly recreate the wit, the interplay, the tone, the joie de vivre, the timing and the sheer professionalism that was the secret to Flanders & Swann's success, with a selection of their greatest numbers including In the Bath, The Gasman Cometh, Ill Wind (a song about a stolen French Horn, set to Mozart's Horn Concerto No. 4 in E flat major), Misalliance (aka "The Honeysuckle and the Bindweed"), A Transport of Delight ("The Omnibus")...
...and these two brilliant sing-a-long numbers that I fondly remember from my childhood:
If there's one song, however, that could provide both an insight into creative genius and a sign of the times in which they were at the peak of their success, it's this. Who else but they would have dreamt of writing a sad musical lament for all the railway lines and stations that were cut as part of the general "belt-tightening", money-saving, "modernisation" programme latterly known as "The Beeching Axe" (after Dr Beeching of British Railways who presented the report)? Messrs FitzHigham and Atkins did this one perfectly...
Miller's Dale for Tideswell
Kirby Muxloe
Mow Cop and Scholar Green
No more will I go to Blandford Forum and Mortehoe
On the slow train from Midsomer Norton and Mumby Road
No churns, no porter, no cat on a seat
At Chorlton-cum-Hardy or Chester-le-Street
We won't be meeting again
On the Slow Train
I'll travel no more from Littleton Badsey to Openshaw
At Long Stanton I'll stand well clear of the doors no more
No whitewashed pebbles, no Up and no Down
From Formby Four Crosses to Dunstable Town
I won't be going again
On the Slow Train
On the Main Line and the Goods Siding
The grass grows high
At Dog Dyke, Tumby Woodside
And Trouble House Halt
The Sleepers sleep at Audlem and Ambergate
No passenger waits on Chittening platform or Cheslyn Hay
No one departs, no one arrives
From Selby to Goole, from St Erth to St Ives
They've all passed out of our lives
On the Slow Train, on the Slow Train
Cockermouth for Buttermere ... on the Slow Train
Armley Moor Arram
Pye Hill and Somercotes ... on the Slow Train
Windmill End
Beautiful.
It was a splendid evening's entertainment. Well done, old chaps!
And here they are...
Read more about Mr FitzHigham and Mr Atkins, as well as Mr Flanders and Mr Swann, at their Flanders & Swann: A Drop of a Hippopotamus site.
