Rock Follies at the BFI London

Yesterday (Sunday 27 October) I joined a small group of people to see the whole of the first series of 'Rock Follies' at the British Film Institute in the NFT3 cinema. It was a newly digitised version of the series and the quality was very good indeed, so well done BFI restorers. There were six episodes with short breaks and a lunchtime plus a Q&A with the stars and writers. The whole binge took seven and a half hours and it was worth every minute.

'Rock Follies' was broadcast in 1976 when we still only had three TV channels and the only pop music show was Top of the Pops on Thursdays so 'Rock Follies' brought some much needed music to our screens. Even back then it was a bit dated in some respects, particularly the use of the hippyish language by some of the characters and fat old men being spaced out ma a an, but none of that really mattered. It's a tale of the rock business versus the power of rock and the business wins out every time. A cynical - and probably very accurate - view of the rock business in the 70s and, probably, in every decade since.

However, what we wanted was to follow the trials and tribulations, the highs and the lows, the loves and the spectacle of The Little Ladies - Dee, Anna and Q otherwise known as Julie Covington, Charlotte Cornwall and Rula Lenska. *Presses play*

I loved it back in the day and still do. I was 16 and punk hadn't exploded yet so what else was there to do but watch a telly show about a group being pulled together and working to get rid of their rough edges, getting close to making it but not quite. I watched the series and bought the album when it came out. I bought the CD when that was finally issued and the DVD. I hope there's a new DVD now that the show has been properly digitised - I'll buy it again. On the back of the show Julie Covington had a hit single with Alice Cooper's 'Only Women Bleed' and the first version of 'Don't Cry for me Argentina' from 'Evita' and found stage stardom with 'Guys and Dolls'.

It is, of course, of it's time, with all the casual sexism of the '70s, the superiority of men as the natural order and that's portrayed very graphically in the show given that it's about three women. They're perpetually being told what to do by men, being threatened, potential violence, demeaned and all that but they fight back - it's quite feminist in a way despite being written by a man.

One thing that was really quite noticeable was the continued supremacy of men in the Q&A that was held between episodes five and six. One of the big knobs at the BFI asked questions of Howard Schuman (who wrote the show), Andy Mackay (of Roxy Music who wrote all the music), Rula Lenska who played Q and Charlotte Cornwall who played Anna. Given that we'd just seen five episodes of the show showing men trying to be in charge and then here we had the interviewer pointing the majority of questions towards Howard and leaving the women on the panel out of the discussion. It was very noticeable. And Howard in turn chipping in on virtually every question whether it was relevant or not. I quite understand that fans of old TV shows wanting to probe the background and motivations behind the series and all that but listen to yourselves... Rula and Charlotte were very patient.

The digitised 'print' and sound were excellent and are now preserved forever in the BFI archive. More people should see this show - it's obviously aged but is still relevant in many ways, particularly given #metoo. It's the best Sunday afternoon I've had in a long time! Now, we just need a similar screening of 'Rock Follies of '77' and have Julie Covington join the panel discussion. Thanks BFI!

'Hey, Old Friends!' Sondheim at Drury Lane

It's Stephen Sondheim's 85th birthday so the Sondheim Society put together a gala show at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in aid of the charity Silver Line, a telephone helpline for older folks of the silver variety. It was one of those things where you throw together some big names and some littler names and they all put on a show of Sondheim songs. I didn't know a lot of the folks on stage and some of the songs were new to me but it was fun nonetheless.

Various names wandered on and off to introduce the turns with the full orchestra filling the bacl of the stage. We had Julia McKenzie, Millicent Martin, Nicholas Parsons, Anita Dobson and others, all looking very glam.

Anita Harris (who I last saw singing an X-Ray Spex song at Polyfest a couple of years ago) did a song as did Rula Lenska (who will always be a star from 'Rock Follies' to me) along with some dancers jigging around her. Rula still has all that hair and her voice has become more smokey and reminded me a bit of Marianne Faithfull. Millicent Martin did a song and so did Daniel Evans (who I've seen in productions in London and Broadway). There were some lovely voices and some voices that have seen better days but it's good that they still get up there to belt out a song.

Special praise goes out to Bonnie Langford who, in a sparkly almost-nothing costume, danced and sang and didn't get out of breath even when picked up and twirled around by Anton Du Beke. She high kicked 180 degrees and did the splits on stage and got a huge ovation for the non-stop singing and dancing spectacular. Well done Bonnie!

At the end of the first half Ester Rantzen came on to explain what Silver Line was and to tell us the phone number (0800 4708090). At the start of the second half there was a spoken message from Sondheim who's sounding in good health and said he's working on a new show.

My favourite performances were from Lorna Dallas, Haydn Gwynne and Michael Xavier. Lorna sang a touching version of 'In Buddy's Eyes' from 'Follies', a tender love song by a mature person looking back. I've not heard of Lorna before so there's a name I will need to look out for again. Haydn did a lovely version of 'Send In The Clowns' singing to Daniel Evans, gentle and strong by turns. I last saw Haydn in 'Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown', the musical of the Almodovar film. She has a good voice and should do more singing.

The final performance was Michael Xavier's take on 'Being Alive' that kept in the dialogue from the show to help give it context and he was superb. It was a masterclass in how to deliver a song, building and building, with him moving slightly forward on the stage with each verse and that big 'ta-daa' ending having taken the audience along with him. Now, that's skill. I saw him in 'The Pyjama Game' a year or two back but I'll always think of him as the Prince in 'Into The Woods' singing 'Agony' and trying to out-agonise the other prince. He was also the Wolf, of course.

It was a very fun evening and it'll be interesting to see if any of the performances turn up on YouTube. One message I'll take away from this show, though, is to never book tickets in the vertiginous balcony of Drury Lane - never again!

Photos courtesy of Broadway World.com where you can find more.

'Censored Scenes From King Kong' at the British Film Institute

Never heard of it? No, neither had I until Chris mentioned it was a BBC telly play from 1973 by Howard Schuman with Julie Covington in the cast and then it was firmly on the radar. Is that enough of a clue as to why I might be interested? No? Well Howard Schuman wrote 'Rock Follies' in 1976 and 'Rock Follies of 77' in 1977 and Julie Covington starred in both series along with Rula Lenska and Charlotte Cornwall. I'm sure all three ladies are probably fed up with people keep harking back to 'Rock Follies' but it was a classic. Oh, and Andy McKay of Roxy Music wrote the music. Added cred points there.

The BFI has a series on at the moment about cinema/television techniques and this play was being shown as part of the series. This was (supposedly) an early example of the technique of having your actor in front of a green or blue screen and projecting whatever you wanted on the background. The BFI people explained it but it went over my head since I don't really care, I just wanted to hear from Howard (who was in the audience) and see it. Sadly, all I heard of Howard was him shouting out that the BBC exec in charge of the play series thought it was camp like 'Rocky Horror' and didn't want to show it. No introduction or anything.

It was part of a series of plays shown at 11:00pm on the BBC that was cancelled during power cuts or something. So it wasn't banned by the BBC, just a case of bad karma (man). It's only been screened two or three times before so only a hundred or two people have ever seen it. Including me.

'Censored Scenes' is a bit of fluff really. It opens with a bloke being all Buddhist in Japan and then he turns up in London after a few years of having vanished from his hospital bed. His friends somehow find him and they've become a singing group. In the meantime he searches for the missing film cut from 'King Kong' that show the ape making love to Faye Wray. He thinks he finds the film but it turns out to be a heroin stash (as you'd expect in his topsy-turvy world). None of it makes any sense and harks back to the late '60s rather than the early '70s but that doesn't matter (man). The main thing is that this was the playground that led to 'Rock Follies'!

Yes Julie Covington was in it but I got excited when I saw she was on the rehearsal stage with Beth Porter! Beth played Kitty Schrieber in 'Rock Follies'. And who was their manager? None other than Michael Angelis who was the manager of the Little Ladies in 'Rock Follies'! Three 'Rock Follies' stalwarts three years before that show was even written and I was thrilled. Every now and then were little tricks and phrases that reminded me of 'Rock Follies' and this was surely part of the inspiration for the later series (sugar mountain anyone?).

Derek Fowlds played three parts in it and it was lovely to see him from back then. He played Basil Brush's sidekick and then starred in 'Yes, Minister' and 'Heartbeat' but it was fun to see him do some 'arty' acting early in his career.

The wow factor of the afternoon was increased to stellar proportions by having Fenella Fielding sitting behind us - yes, *that* Fenella Fielding! The lovely Fenella is now 86 but still getting out to frequent cinema and television events. I didn't say anything, obviously, but I was secretly delighted.

There are exactly two bad photos of Howard Schuman on the internet (how can he be so invisible?) and none of 'Censored Scenes' so here's a photo of Fenella instead!