Expresso Bongo

Plot of the musical

Paul Scofield played Johnny, a slimy, small-time music promoter and talent scout who notices teenage girls going crazy for the singing and bongo playing of talentless and seemingly idiotic Herbert Rudge (played by James Kenney). Johnny rechristens Rudge as "Bongo Herbert" and signs him to a contract that gives Johnny a 50% share of the profits. With Johnny's help, Bongo rockets to stardom. Bongo's success attracts a host of sleazy music industry types intent on exploiting him. Johnny quickly finds himself outclassed in the sleaze department as Bongo turns out to be the slipperiest slime of them all.

Music

The writers of the 1958 musical were inspired by songwriters such as Noël Coward. (David Heneker said his musical career was inspired by reading the score of Noel Coward's Bitter Sweet). Their lyrics were clever, wordy and allusive: "The Gravy Train", for example, has Johnny quoting an apt line from Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, (Act 5, Scene X), while the unrepentant shopaholics in "We Bought It" describe themselves as "two eccentric socialites, dissipated sybarites". The tunes modulate all over the place and parody rock, Latin jazz, skiffle and trad.

Music historian John Snelsen writes,

Expresso Bongo opened in the West End in the same year as My Fair Lady. It did not run as long and has hardly been seen since, but its gritty cynicism, contemporary setting and pop score gained it many fans. It was voted Best British Musical of the Year in a Variety annual survey of shows on the London stage, with a ballot result far ahead of My Fair Lady, and was referred to in general as 'the other musical' to distinguish it from Lerner and Loewe's work.

The 1958 Original Cast Recording lists the following songs and singers:

1. Overture: Orchestra
2. Don't Sell Me Down the River: James Kenney
3. Expresso Party: James Kenney
4. Nausea: Meier Tzelniker
5. Spoil the Child: Millicent Martin
6. Seriously: Millicent Martin
7. I Never Had It So Good: Paul Scofield
8. There's Nothing Wrong With British Youth Today: Ensemble
9. The Shrine on the Second Floor
10. He's Got Something for the Public: Hy Hazell & Principals
11. I Am: Millicent Martin
12. Nothing is for Nothing: Meier Tzelniker, Hy Hazell & Paul Scofield
13. We Bought It: Hy Hazel & Elizabeth Ashley
14. Time: Hy Hazell
15. The Gravy Train: Paul Scofield
16. Finale: The Company

Film adaptation (1959)

In Expresso Bongo, Cliff Richard and the Shadows made their second screen appearance in a film released during 1959, the first being the much darker Serious Charge. The later film was made at Shepperton Studios, near London, with certain scenes shot on location in London's Soho district.

Plot of the film

Laurence Harvey plays sleazy hustler Johnny Jackson, who is always on the lookout for fresh talent to exploit, while managing his hectic life with his stripper girlfriend, Maise. Maise is looking to find a better life in singing.

Jackson discovers a teenage singer named Bert Rudge, played by Cliff Richard, in an espresso coffee shop and sets about sending him along the rocky road to fame. He changes his name to Bongo Herbert and soon gets him a record deal and a relationship with an ageing American singing sensation Dixie. Dixie (Yolande Donlan).

However, Bongo soon realises that his 50/50 contract with Johnny is not as great as he thought it was, and breaks from Johnny's contract with help from Dixie as Bongo is a minor.

Director Val Guest engaged Kenneth MacMillan to choreograph the strip-club dancers who appear in the film. Struggling at Shepperton Studios to get them to dance and sing to playback at the same time, MacMillan complained, "It's the simplest routine. They may have looks, legs and tits, but they have no co-ordination."

At first, Laurence Harvey was undecided on the kind of accent he would give his character, so Guest told him he was 'part Soho, part Jewish, and part middle-class' and that it might be an idea to model him on the writer Wolf Mankowitz. Harvey arranged a couple of lunches with the unsuspecting Mankowitz to study the writer at close hand, so the character Johnny Jackson in the film sounds something like the writer of the film. Harvey's character sports a melange of accents including his own South African. Wolf Mankowitz appears in the film's opening credit sequence, wearing a sandwich-board bearing his writer credit.

Soundtrack album

The music for the 1959 film was produced by Norrie Paramor. With the exception of one song, it was entirely different from the music that was used in the 1958 musical. The music and the plot were rewritten to downplay the satire and showcase Richard and his band. In the best ironic traditions of Tin Pan Alley, a satire became a tribute. Only The Shrine on the Second Floor — a song that was intended to drive a sharpened stake into the heart of all sentimental ballads about mother – made it into the movie, but Richard sang it straight.

Soundtrack EP

In January 1960, an EP made up of all the Cliff Richard and the Shadows' tracks from the album was released. On the tenth of March, Record Retailer published the first UK EP Chart with Expresso Bongo topping the chart. Prior to this, the EP had also made the UK Singles Chart reaching number 14.

Reception

According to Val Guest the film made "a lot of money and got us a lot of awards".