Flash, Bang, Wallop!
What a picture! What a photograph!
Before those upstarts from Liverpool muscled in, Londoners dominated the British musical scene in the early 1960s. Cliff Richard was the biggest name but Adam Faith, Joe Brown and Tommy Steele could still fill venues and top charts, albeit with on only one side of the Atlantic. Steele was particularly valued because of his versatility — a genuine song and dance man who excelled in both disciplines.
With Love Me Do creeping into the Top 20, work began on a new musical, star vehicle for the Bermondsey boy. Half a Sixpence would lean into Tommy’s public persona — as a cor-blimey-guvnor cockney. He would sing twelve of the fifteen numbers — and even show off his banjo.
Half a Sixpence also tapped into a vogue for celebrating colourful English eccentricity — exemplified by the 1960 West End hit musical: Fings Ain’t Wot They Used T’be. Initially an earnest social drama, Fings was set in an ersatz 1950s underworld. Then Joan Littlewood put down her placard and brought in Lionel Bart to do the music. Lionel didn’t do earnest but was the master of histrionic emoting — and fabulous sing-along tunes.
Half a Sixpence was from the same school but looked back further to those dandified Edwardians. A fancier source, too — H.G Wells semi-autobiographical Kipp (1908). It also kept closer to the Rodgers and Hammerstein golden era formula: go big on on energy, setting and story with new songs that sound like they’ve always been there — see Eidelweis etc
The Show
Half a Sixpence opened in the West End in March 1963 to good reviews. It survived the tsunami of Beatlemania later in the year, running for 671 performances. Tommy Steele was widely acclaimed for a barnstorming performance and John Cleese made a less commented upon stage debut.
Rooted in music hall, Half a Sixpence also proved predictive of future trends. Loud Edwardian clothes and exquisite tailoring are right there in Tommy’s deck-chair jacket on the poster. Paul McCartney, whose Austin Maxi would pitch up at every big cultural event in London, would raid the same dressing-up box for Sergeant Pepper in 1967.
This applied musically, too. The Beatles had grown up singing The Ying-Tong Song as well as Heartbreak Hotel. Broad British comedy underpinned their own surrealist singalongs — see Yellow Submarine and even I Am the Walrus (umpa, umpa, stick it up your jumpa).
For its part, the explosive energy of Flash, Bang, Wallop! fitted into a musical landscape dominated by the Yeah, Yeahs as the French called them.
The songwriter: Words/music by Brigadier D. Heneker (1906–2001)
The son of a general and leading military strategist, David Heneker followed in his father’s footsteps until his early forties. Wellington, Sandhurst, cavalry regiment and then upstairs to join the top brass.
Much more unusual was his side hustle as a composer and performer in musical theatre. This began when he was recuperating from a serious riding accident in 1934. Intoxicated by Noël Coward’s Bitter Sweet he began writing his own comic numbers with notable successes, including the Gracie Fields wartime hit “The Thing-Ummy Bob”.
In 1948 Brigadier Heneker decided he’d done his bit, resigning his army commission to become a lounge singer at the Embassy Club. This startling career swerve literally paid off. Soon he was producing West End shows, often contributing his own songs.
In 1958 Heneker teamed up with Monty Norman (writer of the original Bond theme) for two hit musicals: Expresson Bongo and an English version of the French Irma La Douce. The latter transferred to Broadway, where it was nominated for a Tony.
The Film
The film of Half a Sixpence did not appear until 1967. By that point The Beatles were wearing its clothes but had stopped smiling. A sour note also characterised the the critical reviews, which were notably sniffy about the soundtrack. Renata Adler of the The New York Times gave it both barrels:
The songs themselves, trite, gay, and thoroughly meaningless, make absolutely no concession to anything that was happened in popular music in the last 10 years
Hmm. You might want to check out For the Benefit of Mr Kite, Ms Alder. Meanwhile in the cheap seats the no-nothings were humming at least one of the tunes. And ‘trying not to laugh’ at its risque jokes about morning suits and big bass drums.
Um-tiddly-um-pum-um-pum-pum
Stick it in your family album
