Details: Category: Musical Theatre; Published on Tuesday, 08 March 2011 22:34; Written by Super User; Hits: 297

KEEPING MUM

“A subtle and beautiful evocation of the dreams of Ginny relating to her mother and her childhood. I long for someone to pick this up and give it a full production.”

Musical Stages magazine.

After not writing any musical theatre for about seven years, I finally started work on a new piece in the early nineties and continued working on it, on and off, through the decade. With the chance to workshop another new piece at the Royal Academy of Music in the spring of 2002, I settled down to finish it and the workshops culminated in a rehearsed reading to a small audience towards the end of the term. Amongst the cast was Stephen Ashfield, a recording of whose performance of one of the songs was one of the first things to grace a website about him.

KEEPING MUM was suggested by the life of a dear friend and neighbour as I watched her cope with bringing up her five year old daughter at the same time as dealing with her mother-in-law’s increasing dementia. It’s a surreal fantasy, the memories of the daughter as she reaches a similar moment in her own life, with a life-size television set in the kitchen constantly throwing remembered figures from daytime television out into the mix.

Shortly afterwards, the piece was chosen for showcasing at the Musical Futures festival at Greenwich in May of 2002. Although it was too complex to show the surreal nature of the piece in a 25 minute showcase, a wonderful cast of Stefan Bednarczyk, Adam Goodman, Anny Tobin and Johanna Marshall rose to the challenge under the musical direction of Peter Corrigan. Joanna Mays, who had been in both JUST GOOD FRIENDS and HOMES AND GARDENS nearly twenty years earlier, brought the house down as Ellen, the Mum of the title.

True Romances

Details: Category: Musical Theatre; Published on Tuesday, 08 March 2011 22:29; Written by Super User; Hits: 307

TRUE ROMANCES

Between the two large-scale Cockpit shows, JUST GOOD FRIENDS and HOMES AND GARDENS, I worked on a piece for much smaller resources. TRUE ROMANCES had a cast of three with the pianist for the piece also contributing as a character.

TRUE ROMANCES was suggested by a rather boozy lunch I had had with a friend who was trying to split up with a married man to whom she was mistress (bizarrely, they had invited me along to referee). The action of the musical takes place mainly in a wine bar. The Dicksons have been married for 25 years with Marian totally unaware of the string of affairs carried out by her husband Richard. When Richard falls in love with Jane, the next in line, things become more complicated.

The piece was put into the bottom drawer for several years, only emerging for a rehearsed reading in Wellingborough in 1995.

When I joined what was then the Mercury Workshop and is now Mercury Musical Developments, I had the chance of a full rehearsed reading to an enthusiastic audience at the Musical Futures festival in May 2000. The roles of Richard, Marian and Jane were played by Mark Adams, Kirsty Bennett and Vivien Care with Mark Etherington as wine bar pianist and MD.

A demo of the piece was made under at Mark Warman’s Carleton Studio. Mark Adams and Vivien Care reprised the roles of Richard and Jane with Marilyn Cutts playing Marian and Mark Warman himself as musical director. (I sang the pianist’s song.)

Getting Help

Details: Category: Musical Theatre; Published on Saturday, 01 January 2011 00:00; Written by Joomla!; Hits: 914

There are lots of places you can get help with Joomla!. In many places in your site administrator you will see the help icon. Click on this for more information about the options and functions of items on your screen. Other places to get help are:

Just Good Friends

Details: Category: Musical Theatre; Published on Thursday, 24 February 2011 15:38; Written by Super User; Hits: 349

JUST GOOD FRIENDS

was performed at the Cockpit Theatre in September 1982.

“There are just so many good things in the show, that it’s difficult to know where to begin.” What’s On In London.

“Subtle and moving.” Time Out

“Knocks current West End offerings into a cocked hat.” Capital Gay

“Best thing I’ve seen for a long time.” Capital Artbeat (Capital Radio.)

“The show has everything good theatre should have.. Don’t miss it.” Morning Star.

“Many of the routines are marvellously theatrical, notably a sinister set-piece on the Burgess and Maclean spy scandal, a complex 16 voice ensemble on Hollywood that Sondheim would not blush to confess to and a sophisticated cabaret-style routine on sex.” Event Magazine.

The Cockpit had asked me in, in late 1981, to discuss the possibility of a commission for the summer of 1983. They were running a national competition to find a new youth musical to be the major summer project for the summer of 1982. I became so fired with my idea for what eventually became JUST GOOD FRIENDS that I wrote the whole piece and submitted it for the competition which it won. It opened on September 2nd 1982, directed by Ian Brown, choreographed by Karen Rabinowitz and with musical direction by Richard Sissons. The reviews were extensive and very complimentary, from the Sunday Telegraph through to the Morning Star, and by the middle of the second week, the entire three week run was sold out. For the last performance, a queue for returns formed at 5.30 and (I think it’s safe to admit now) the 120 seat theatre was packed out with 150 people. The wonderful, incredibly enthusiastic cast of 49 young people included several who would go on to careers on the stage, including John Dulieu, Lennie James, Sam Neophytou and Clifford Manley. At the end of the year, Jim Hiley, then critic for City Limits magazine, nominated the show for the Best New Musical of 1982 in the Plays & Players annual critics’ awards.

JUST GOOD FRIENDS told the story of the friendship between a gay man and a straight woman over a 50 year period, during which time they accompany one another to the theatre where what they see rarely reflects the reality of their lives. It was, as far as I can find out, the first major scale musical performed in London with a gay man as a central character. Towards Towards the the end of the piece, which is about his and Alice's relationship, Eddy has a solo in which he looks back over all the men in his life. Though there's no video of the original cast, which featured Carl Lewis as Eddy, there is a video here on YouTube of me performing the song.

Biography

Details: Category: Musical Theatre; Published on Saturday, 01 January 2011 00:00; Written by Joomla!; Hits: 838

MARK BUNYAN was born in Bristol in late 1949 and educated at St Andrews University. He intended to be an actor but, after a spell working in film distribution, was distracted by his ability to write music and lyrics and fall between media stools.