Sandy Wilson - Thanks for the Memories

[Guest]

Died today, aged an ever-young ninety.

I remember being bemused and delighted by the 1975 BBC Radio 3 production of his musical Valmouth with Elisabeth Welch:

http://castalbums.org/recordings/Valmouth_1975_BBC_Radio_Cast/10920

[french frank]

bemused and delighted by the 1975 BBC Radio 3 production of his musical Valmouth with Elisabeth Welch

Not surprised at the bemusement, given the original Ronald Firbank novel.

I tried to find something from the Peter Maxwell Davies music composed for the film version of The Boy Friend, but sadly there only seems to be some short extracts from the suite on YT.

[Ockeghem's Razor]

Very sad news. I love Firbank and I love Sandy Wilson's version of 'Valmouth', especially the song in which Cardinal Pirelli celebrates the cathedral of Clemenza where the rococo would drive you loco and the altar's a mass of pure lapis lazuli. I have the CD with Bertice Reading, Fenella Fielding, Doris Hare and Robert Helpmann. Off to play it now.

[amateur51]

Very sad news. I love Firbank and I love Sandy Wilson's version of 'Valmouth', especially the song in which Cardinal Pirelli celebrates the cathedral of Clemenza where the rococo would drive you loco and the altar's a mass of pure lapis lazuli. I have the CD with Bertice Reading, Fenella Fielding, Doris Hare and Robert Helpmann. Off to play it now.

I've often wondered if the song about 'Pirelli's Miracle Elixir' from Sweeney Todd was Sondheim's nod towards Valmouth & Firbank.

Some erudite soul is now bound to respond with some other explanation and I shall feel such a fule.

[Richard Tarleton]

Apart from The Boyfriend, my memory of Sandy Wilson is of him taking part in a celeb debate at the Oxford Union in the late 60s - during Gyles Brandreth's presidency, who else - alongside such luminaries as Emperor Rosko, Simon Dee....

[gurnemanz]

I loved Twiggy in Ken Russell's version of The Boyfriend - the only film I watched during a brief sojourn in Hull in 1972. Otherwise I must confess I know very little about Sandy Wilson.

[Stillhomewardbound]

Sandy Wilson RIP

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/11059755/Sandy-Wilson-obituary.html

What are we to make of SW's obit on The Telegraph which concludes with that most antique, not to say anachronistic, of remarks ... 'He never married.'
The obit is unattributed so I'm not sure if the line is meant to be post-ironical or simply tart, or perhaps ... post-factual celebratory.
I'd like to hope very much that it is the latter.

[Dave2002]

Intriguing. Presumably a statement of fact, though one wonders if it could either have been left out altogether, or elaborated.

I know very little about Sandy Wilson, other than that he wrote the Boy Friend, which was popular I believe, and that a film starring Twiggy was produced which I saw and enjoyed.

He appears to have made so much money according to the article that he did not need to work again after the Boy Friend, but he did continue with a few other projects, but none of them seem to have been particularly successful.

The article gives the impression that after 1970 or so he might just have had a rather sad life, but there's really not a lot to go on. He could, in contrast, have been perfectly happy or contented. There's nothing about relationships or any other interests as his "life" in the theatrical world declined.

Perhaps he was a recluse.

However, SW, thanks for a few hours of enjoyment, even if it was only watching Ken Russell's film.

[clive heath]

Can I tell my Twiggy story now, please? In the mid 60s during my out-of-work period I occasionally played for dance, jazz and tap classes at the Dance Centre in Floral Street just by Covent Garden, so I was on their books. In the early 70s, (I now had a proper job) I got a call one Friday evening " Could I come and play for an hour tomorrow?" yes, I could, "It's Twiggy"

As indeed it was, with Tommy Tune who had been in "The Boy Friend" with her. They had decided to try and get finance for a film with a shipboard romance setting à la Fred and Ginger and wanted to rehearse some numbers to sell to prospective backers. After the session they asked me if I could play for them regularly as they were rehearsing which turned out to be in a studio near Earl's Court. Well, they were great company for the few months I was involved, Twiggy could do a wonderful "10 Cents a Dance", Tommy Tune's light baritone was deployed on Al Bowlly's "Love is the Sweetest Thing" and as they pirouetted round the studio, you could imagine the boa threads floating around. Along the way I met Peter Frampton at his North London studio and even Justin de V who was back in her good books. The show didn't get the backing at the time but a version arrived in 1983. My One and Only, starring Tommy and Twiggy, opened on Broadway at the St. James Theatre on May 1, 1983 and closed on March 3, 1985 after 767 performances and 37 previews.

Earlier, Twiggy had a show on the TV from which I recall her Marilyn Monroe take-off "My Heart..." and the duet "Me and my Friend" with Anita Harris.

p.s. I too loved the film but it seemed then and still seems now an oddity in the Ken Russell catalogue.

[Don Basilio]

When it comes to skill I say, you can't beat an old master...

[Don Basilio]

The Northcott Theatre Exeter in the late 60s produced a series of musicals for their Christmas show. As a teenager I was blown away by The Boy Friend one year and Guys ‘n’ Dolls the next.

I was getting into classical music and realising it wasn’t just overblown romantic piano concerti and Puccini arias, and I had discovered the Bach suites.

I was delighted with The Boy Friend. It was just like a Bach suite. Instead of bouree, passepied, minuet, gavotte you got tap dance, foxtrot, chareston, waltz, novelty dance (The Riveria). At the same time I was discovering Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey. Like The Boy Friend I could enjoy the parody, without knowing what the original parodied was.

In the case of The Boy Friend, I read later that Wilson was inspired by a particularly crummy provincial revival of No! No! Nanette. Wilson shamelessly used the two duets for the juvenile leads in that work for his parody: the tap dance sequence Tea for Two becomes A Room in Bloomsbury and the foxtrot I want to be happy becomes I could be happy with you. And he improved on the original.

Wilson is as good at outrageous rhyming as W S Gilbert: “I don’t claim that I am psychic/But one look at you at you and I kick/Away every scruple/I learnt as pupil/At school my dear.” But Gilbert’s parodic framework and ingenious rhymes are deeply unsettling and cynical (or would seem so if it wasn’t for Sullivan’s wit and charm). Wilson relishes the parodic element to produce something rather touching: humans do carry on in clichés but they are still human and endearing. The parody celebrates rather than condemns.