ONE MORE TIME
Quite recently I had a butcher’s at the Message Board of a well-known pantomime site, where someone claimed that they would be interested to hear people’s favourite songs “heard in panto this year.” I presume he or she meant season.
There were just two replies. The first was from a correspondent who had “particularly enjoyed” ‘Price Tag’, and ‘Dont (sic) stop beleiving (sic)’. The other stated “EVERYBODY uses ‘Don’t Stop Believing’!”, and made an appeal for more original songs in panto, or at least more original and imaginative song choices.” Everybody" indeed! That must have been quite a survey.
Neither of these songs meant anything to me, so I did a search on YouTube.
The video for ‘Price Tag’ featured some young woman, who I confess I would not have recognised had she fallen out of my cornflake packet. She cavorted, capered, and caterwauled. On a scale of one to ten, I would rate the performance around minus six! Part way through, a gentleman appeared and began talking in some language I didn’t understand. I discovered that he is what is known as a rapper! Is it just a strange coincidence that all rappers suffer from photophobia? I concur with the person who said that the description ‘rap music’ was an oxymoron!
The video lasted 4 minutes, the girl wore 9 different outfits, and I presume to stop anyone getting bored, just one shot lasted for more than two seconds… a fair number were only a fraction of a second!
When I see modern so-called pop stars prancing and posing I think, forget it! Mick Jagger was doing it almost 50 years ago… and much better.
So to ‘Don’t Stop Believing’, from the ‘Glee’ television series, which so far, I have managed to avoid. The video starts with a good ethnic mix that is, I believe, almost obligatory in American television shows theses days. They chanted the word “dah”… at least, that is what it sounded like to me. One instinctively knew what was going to happen next…
A spotty youth steps forward in that dramatic pop operatic style, that is so popular these days, and he sings a snatch of an inane lyric as though it was the work of William Shakespeare. He is joined by a girl with a voice that would strip paint of a jumbo jet, who effectively shouts at him, in that dramatic pop operatic style that is so popular these days, and they hold out their hands to each other, echoing the iconic image of the hand of God giving life to Adam, painted on the Sistine Chapel ceiling by Michelangelo. It’s just 50 seconds into the video, and I have already lost hope and interest.
Cut to some oiks playing (?) keyboard, guitars, and saxophones. It is obvious to anyone that they are not responsible for the music on the soundtrack that accompanies this offering.
The ethnics join in, there is a line, “It goes on and on and on and on…”, and that is exactly what it does.
This appears to me to be an ersatz version of ‘Fame’ (1982-87). As Monty Python might have said, “And now for something completely the same.”
To anyone who feels that I shouldn’t criticise in this way, my answer is… they started it. They chose to concoct those cinematic presentations, and make them available to all and sundry. If you're not mature enough to take criticism, you're too immature for praise!
I have said it before, and I’ll say it again. This stuff is pretentious, derivative, so predictable, and virtually interchangeable. You’ve heard one, you’ve heard ‘em all.
Pantomime deserves better than this, and in my opinion, this could kill the genre stone dead. The more original and imaginative song choices are out there, but they were probably written quite some time ago, and you need to search for them.
I decided this very day to discover what musicals were currently being presented in London ’s West End . Prior to looking, I had no idea what I would find, but I took a chance, and surprise, surprise! Out of the 23 listed I found the following 16…
BACKBEAT The story of how The Beatles ‘became’ The Beatles.
BLOOD BROTHERS (1983) by Willy Russell.
CRAZY FOR YOU (1992) Music and Lyrics by George and Ira Gershwin.
DREAMBOATS & PETTICOATS THE MUSICAL Featuring songs from Roy Orbison, The Shadows, Eddie Cochran, Billy Fury, Chuck Berry and many more.
JERSEY BOYS The story of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons.
LES MISERABLES (1980) Lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer, Music by Claude-Michel Schonberg
MAMMA MIA Inspired by the songs of ABBA.
THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (1986) Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by Charles Hart
ROCK OF AGES featuring 80's rock music.
SINGIN' IN THE RAIN (1952) Music by Nacio Herb Brown, lyrics by: Arthur Freed.
SWEENEY TODD - THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET (1979) Music & lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.
TOP HAT (1935) Music and lyrics by Irving Berlin.
THRILLER LIVE Featuring the songs of Michael Jackson & The Jackson 5.
WE WILL ROCK YOU Musical with songs by Queen.
THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939) Music and lyrics by Harold Arlen and E Y Harburg.
It’s not about choosing a song, it’s about choosing a musical number that fits in with the plot, the mood of the characters participating in it, and one with which you can do something to make it entertaining for a wide age range.
You can’t do the costume changes, the quick cutting etc. but that shouldn't stop you devising a good routine.
For example…You’ve got a scene in ‘Robinson Crusoe’, or ‘Dick Whittington’, or whatever, set in a jungle. A gorilla is involved in the ‘ghost scene’. Two native girls then fit the gorilla with a false shirt front (dickey), bow tie, and top hat. A female gorilla with a bow in her hair, and wearing a skirt enters, and we go into ‘Loving You Has made Me Bananas’, written and performed by Guy Marks, released in 1968, with three native girl singers standing by a microphone on a stand… see left.
You could write your own introduction to suit.
Native girl dancers enter, carrying inflatable bananas, and go into a Busby Berekely-inspired sequence...
It's certainly imaginative, and who knows, it might even be original! If you have never heard the song before, then as far as you are concerned, it's new.
Why am I so good to you?
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