0:00:10 > 0:00:11The West End.
0:00:20 > 0:00:23Each year, 15 million people make the pilgrimage here to
0:00:23 > 0:00:25London's theatre-land.
0:00:28 > 0:00:31Every kind of drama is available, but when we talk about going
0:00:31 > 0:00:35to see a show, we really mean one thing -
0:00:35 > 0:00:37a musical.
0:00:38 > 0:00:42Taking 60% of London's box office receipts,
0:00:42 > 0:00:45musical theatre towers over all other types of dramatic
0:00:45 > 0:00:49performance and rakes in a third of a billion pounds a year.
0:00:51 > 0:00:53THEY SING
0:00:53 > 0:00:59# I think I'll try defying gravity
0:00:59 > 0:01:01# And you can't pull me down! #
0:01:01 > 0:01:04And while some shows are successful,
0:01:04 > 0:01:06there's long been an elite.
0:01:06 > 0:01:08Shows like Les Mis, Cats,
0:01:08 > 0:01:11Phantom Of The Opera, and now Wicked,
0:01:11 > 0:01:13that count their runs in decades.
0:01:13 > 0:01:14If you have your tickets,
0:01:14 > 0:01:17move along and join the end of the queue on the other side.
0:01:17 > 0:01:21So what is the foundation of this multi-billion-pound industry?
0:01:22 > 0:01:24HE PLAYS PIANO
0:01:26 > 0:01:31For me, a composer, it comes down to the songs.
0:01:31 > 0:01:33HE PLAYS: Consider Yourself by Lionel Bart
0:01:35 > 0:01:38Precision tooled, they tell stories,
0:01:38 > 0:01:40and work on us at the deepest level.
0:01:46 > 0:01:49Don't be misled by their popularity -
0:01:49 > 0:01:51musicals are an art form
0:01:51 > 0:01:54that can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with any other.
0:01:55 > 0:01:58In this series, I'm travelling to Broadway and back,
0:01:58 > 0:02:01exploring a century of musical theatre's history.
0:02:03 > 0:02:05I'll meet the composers...
0:02:05 > 0:02:08Lyrics come by you at the speed of music.
0:02:08 > 0:02:09..the innovators...
0:02:09 > 0:02:12And he sat down at the piano and he played me this...
0:02:12 > 0:02:14HE SCATS MELODY OF: If I Were A Rich Man
0:02:17 > 0:02:19..and the performers.
0:02:19 > 0:02:22# One singular sensation
0:02:22 > 0:02:24# Every little step she takes... #
0:02:25 > 0:02:27# He made a mixtape... #
0:02:27 > 0:02:31I'll be joined by the cream of British performing talent.
0:02:31 > 0:02:34# Ol' man river... #
0:02:36 > 0:02:39They'll help me recreate much-loved numbers...
0:02:39 > 0:02:41# Oh, what a beautiful day... #
0:02:41 > 0:02:45..and I'll reveal just how these songs work their magic.
0:02:45 > 0:02:52# ..feelin' Everything's goin' my way... #
0:02:52 > 0:02:56So, please take your seats, turn off your mobile phones,
0:02:56 > 0:02:58and enjoy the show.
0:03:22 > 0:03:25In this first episode, I'm going to chart the invention
0:03:25 > 0:03:29of the modern musical in the first half of the 20th century.
0:03:30 > 0:03:35We begin in the West End in 1900, where the comic operas of
0:03:35 > 0:03:39Gilbert & Sullivan and their imitators are well established.
0:03:42 > 0:03:45But almost as an antidote to all this Mikado business,
0:03:45 > 0:03:47a breezy alternative has emerged...
0:03:49 > 0:03:51The musical comedy.
0:03:53 > 0:03:58And 1900's big hit is a show called Florodora.
0:04:00 > 0:04:03Like all musical comedies, Florodora was a lively,
0:04:03 > 0:04:07romantic story whose scripted dialogue was punctuated by
0:04:07 > 0:04:09specially written songs...
0:04:10 > 0:04:15..preserved for posterity on this rare recording by the composer
0:04:15 > 0:04:17and original cast.
0:04:18 > 0:04:22Amid songs such as I Want To Be A Military Man
0:04:22 > 0:04:26and The Flowers Are Blooming So Gay was a number that was to become
0:04:26 > 0:04:29the musical theatre sensation of the early 20th century.
0:04:38 > 0:04:40# Tell me, pretty maiden
0:04:40 > 0:04:43# Are there any more at home like you?
0:04:43 > 0:04:46# There are a few, kind sir
0:04:46 > 0:04:49# But simple girls and proper too... #
0:04:49 > 0:04:51Doesn't sound much, does it?
0:04:51 > 0:04:55But there's a long-established rule of musical theatre
0:04:55 > 0:04:58that if things are getting a bit dull in the second half,
0:04:58 > 0:04:59you bring on the girls!
0:05:03 > 0:05:07What the record can't capture is the staging of the number,
0:05:07 > 0:05:11recreated as the climax of the early Technicolor film
0:05:11 > 0:05:12The Florodora Girl.
0:05:15 > 0:05:19Here we see Edwardian musical comedy's unpretentious
0:05:19 > 0:05:23winning formula - pretty girls, a bit of dancing,
0:05:23 > 0:05:26a hugely catchy, if mildly clunky, tune.
0:05:26 > 0:05:31# Tell me, pretty maiden Are there any more at home like you?
0:05:31 > 0:05:35# There are a few, kind sir
0:05:35 > 0:05:38# But simple girls, and proper too
0:05:38 > 0:05:44# Then tell me, pretty maiden what these very simple girlies do?
0:05:44 > 0:05:45# Kind sir... #
0:05:45 > 0:05:49Florodora's success wasn't just confined to the West End.
0:05:49 > 0:05:52Like many British shows, it transferred to Broadway,
0:05:52 > 0:05:54where it was even more successful.
0:05:57 > 0:06:01In the Edwardian age, London was a kind of musical comedy factory.
0:06:01 > 0:06:04Hit shows were prefabricated here...
0:06:04 > 0:06:07and then exported to New York.
0:06:07 > 0:06:10This transatlantic trade meant that there was plenty of
0:06:10 > 0:06:12opportunity for someone on the make,
0:06:12 > 0:06:16someone like Jerome Kern, a young American composer.
0:06:18 > 0:06:21Kern spent a lot of time in London's theatre world
0:06:21 > 0:06:23and, back in New York, he discovered there was quite
0:06:23 > 0:06:26a market for Florodora sound-alike tunes.
0:06:29 > 0:06:32When American producers came to stage these shows fresh from London,
0:06:32 > 0:06:34they were often disappointed.
0:06:34 > 0:06:36Musically, they could be a bit patchy,
0:06:36 > 0:06:40and Kern was in the perfect position to be a kind of show doctor,
0:06:40 > 0:06:44replacing the weaker tunes with songs much more to Broadway's taste.
0:06:44 > 0:06:49- # How'd you like to spoon with me? - I'd like to!
0:06:49 > 0:06:53- # How'd you like to spoon with me? - Well, rather! #
0:06:54 > 0:06:57But Kern was no hack.
0:06:57 > 0:07:00This son of a German Jewish immigrant had studied
0:07:00 > 0:07:02classical composition in Heidelberg.
0:07:04 > 0:07:06And he was a second generation New Yorker,
0:07:06 > 0:07:10a product of a modern city that had become a cultural melting pot.
0:07:12 > 0:07:15From these elements of the old and new world,
0:07:15 > 0:07:19Kern forged the sound of the 20th century musical,
0:07:19 > 0:07:21first heard in 1914,
0:07:21 > 0:07:24when he added songs to yet another imported British show.
0:07:25 > 0:07:29One song in particular set fire to everything that had come before.
0:07:29 > 0:07:33They Didn't Believe Me was intimate, romantic and beautiful,
0:07:33 > 0:07:36the first modern Broadway ballad,
0:07:36 > 0:07:39and as such, a template for the 20th century love song.
0:07:44 > 0:07:47# And when I told them
0:07:47 > 0:07:51# How wonderful you are
0:07:51 > 0:07:55# They didn't believe me
0:07:55 > 0:07:58# They didn't believe me
0:07:58 > 0:08:02# Your lips, your eyes your curly hair
0:08:02 > 0:08:06# Are in a class beyond compare
0:08:06 > 0:08:09# They're the loveliest thing
0:08:09 > 0:08:13# That one could see
0:08:13 > 0:08:16# And when I tell them
0:08:16 > 0:08:20# And I'm certainly going to tell them
0:08:20 > 0:08:28# That I'm the girl whose boy one day you'll be
0:08:28 > 0:08:31# They'll never believe me
0:08:31 > 0:08:35# They'll never believe me
0:08:35 > 0:08:38# That from this great big world
0:08:38 > 0:08:44# You've chosen me. #
0:08:49 > 0:08:52This is a wonderfully relaxed number.
0:08:52 > 0:08:54That 4/4 motif there...
0:08:58 > 0:09:02Like a buggy ride, we're jogging along with this song,
0:09:02 > 0:09:06and, at the time, most sort of declamatory love songs
0:09:06 > 0:09:08tended to be waltzes, they tended to be in three-time.
0:09:12 > 0:09:14It makes it much more intimate.
0:09:14 > 0:09:17It's like we're kind of listening in on a conversation,
0:09:17 > 0:09:19even including the lyric of,
0:09:19 > 0:09:23"And when I tell them, and I'm certainly going to tell them,"
0:09:23 > 0:09:24the implication being,
0:09:24 > 0:09:26"This is the best thing that's ever happened to me,
0:09:26 > 0:09:28"I wouldn't keep it to myself."
0:09:28 > 0:09:30That feels almost like, for the period,
0:09:30 > 0:09:34a kind of street slang thrown into the song.
0:09:34 > 0:09:36This is why the song is so revolutionary,
0:09:36 > 0:09:38it's because it's not declamatory.
0:09:38 > 0:09:43If anything, it's inviting us in and allowing us to feel its warmth.
0:09:43 > 0:09:47# And when I tell them
0:09:47 > 0:09:51# And I'm certainly going to tell them
0:09:51 > 0:09:58# That I'm the girl whose boy one day you'll be
0:09:58 > 0:10:02# They'll never believe me
0:10:02 > 0:10:06# They'll never believe me
0:10:06 > 0:10:10# That from this great big world
0:10:10 > 0:10:18# You've chosen me. #
0:10:26 > 0:10:29They Didn't Believe Me turned the romantic ballad,
0:10:29 > 0:10:35a love song in 4/4 time, into musical theatre's main event.
0:10:35 > 0:10:38It also helped to inspire a new generation of songwriters.
0:10:40 > 0:10:43One young man was so transfixed by hearing
0:10:43 > 0:10:46They Didn't Believe Me at his aunt's wedding that he quit his job
0:10:46 > 0:10:51as a song plugger and came here to Broadway as a rehearsal pianist.
0:10:51 > 0:10:53He was none other than George Gershwin,
0:10:53 > 0:10:58and he and so many other composers learned from Jerome Kern that
0:10:58 > 0:11:02musical theatre was capable of communicating sophisticated
0:11:02 > 0:11:03artistic statements.
0:11:04 > 0:11:09Up until the 1920s, New York's theatre-land was home to
0:11:09 > 0:11:10all kinds of music -
0:11:10 > 0:11:14European operetta, song-and-dance men, ragtime...
0:11:17 > 0:11:21But these were edged out by songs whose creators often shared
0:11:21 > 0:11:24Kern's Jewish immigrant experience.
0:11:24 > 0:11:29The melodies of Gershwin, Irving Berlin and Richard Rodgers
0:11:29 > 0:11:32are urban, urbane, quintessentially American,
0:11:32 > 0:11:34and still very much part of our culture.
0:11:36 > 0:11:39# I got rhythm
0:11:39 > 0:11:41# I got music
0:11:41 > 0:11:44# I got my man Who could ask for anything more? #
0:11:46 > 0:11:49# Picture me upon your knee
0:11:49 > 0:11:52# Just tea for two and two for tea... #
0:11:52 > 0:11:56# What'll I do
0:11:56 > 0:12:03# When you are far away...? #
0:12:05 > 0:12:09However, the greatness of the music wasn't matched by the shows,
0:12:09 > 0:12:11which were lightweight and disposable.
0:12:11 > 0:12:13The job of expanding the musical
0:12:13 > 0:12:16would fall yet again to Jerome Kern.
0:12:19 > 0:12:22In 1927, he composed Show Boat,
0:12:22 > 0:12:25a collaboration with lyricist Oscar Hammerstein.
0:12:25 > 0:12:29The agenda - to make song and story work together
0:12:29 > 0:12:31to produce a coherent work of art.
0:12:35 > 0:12:39This is a sprawling saga that follows the performers
0:12:39 > 0:12:42and crew of the Cotton Blossom, a show boat on the Mississippi.
0:12:43 > 0:12:46There's alcoholism, abandonment,
0:12:46 > 0:12:50and most provocatively of all, racism.
0:12:50 > 0:12:53Significantly, all the characters are treated with sympathy.
0:12:53 > 0:12:57Up until now, if black performers featured at all in musical theatre,
0:12:57 > 0:12:59it was as caricatures.
0:12:59 > 0:13:03Musically, too, Show Boat was a daring idea.
0:13:03 > 0:13:05A show boat was basically a box,
0:13:05 > 0:13:09into which Jerome Kern could cram as many varieties of
0:13:09 > 0:13:13early 20th century American popular music as he could think of, from
0:13:13 > 0:13:17bluesy ballads and work songs all the way up to high-flown operetta.
0:13:17 > 0:13:21Oscar Hammerstein was all too aware that this could prove
0:13:21 > 0:13:24a recipe for a baggy mess, so he worked intensively to see that every
0:13:24 > 0:13:28song served the narrative, and where possible, pushed the story forward.
0:13:28 > 0:13:31He's such a bad actor on the stage and he thinks he's...
0:13:31 > 0:13:35You can see how Show Boat uses songs as a storytelling device
0:13:35 > 0:13:40from this film version, adapted by Hammerstein himself,
0:13:40 > 0:13:45during the song Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man.
0:13:45 > 0:13:49# Fish got to swim Birds got to fly
0:13:49 > 0:13:53# I gotta love one man till I die
0:13:53 > 0:14:00# Can't help lovin' dat man of mine. #
0:14:00 > 0:14:01That's it.
0:14:01 > 0:14:05Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man is an early example of what musical
0:14:05 > 0:14:07theatre folk call an "I am" song.
0:14:07 > 0:14:10This is a song that introduces a character
0:14:10 > 0:14:11near the beginning of a show -
0:14:11 > 0:14:14not just who they are, but what's driving them.
0:14:16 > 0:14:19Here, the song reveals something about the identity of Julie,
0:14:19 > 0:14:21the Cotton Blossom's leading lady.
0:14:23 > 0:14:26When the ship's cook, Queenie, hears Julie singing the song,
0:14:26 > 0:14:29she remarks that, "That's a song that black folks usually sing."
0:14:29 > 0:14:31How come you all know that song?
0:14:31 > 0:14:33Why, do you know it, Queenie?
0:14:33 > 0:14:36Well, sure I does, but I didn't ever hear anybody but coloured folks
0:14:36 > 0:14:38sing that song. It sounds funny for Miss Julie to know it.
0:14:38 > 0:14:40Julie sings it all the time!
0:14:40 > 0:14:42Can you sing the whole thing?
0:14:42 > 0:14:45Course I can! What's so funny about that?
0:14:45 > 0:14:50This is a cue for the audience, for Julie is mixed race,
0:14:50 > 0:14:53passing as white, and she's married to a white man -
0:14:53 > 0:14:57a perilous situation under Mississippi's racist laws.
0:14:57 > 0:15:00The song isn't just a fantastic piece of music.
0:15:00 > 0:15:03It's a hint to the audience about the secret that Julie's
0:15:03 > 0:15:07carrying with her, and therefore a vitally important part of the show.
0:15:09 > 0:15:12Show Boat's political edge was a deliberate statement by
0:15:12 > 0:15:16Oscar Hammerstein, who not only wrote the song lyrics but
0:15:16 > 0:15:20also the spoken dialogue, known in musical theatre as the "book".
0:15:23 > 0:15:27The offspring of a distinguished theatrical family, Oscar Hammerstein
0:15:27 > 0:15:31liked to say that he'd been born with two gold spoons in his mouth.
0:15:32 > 0:15:36But he cared deeply about injustice and believed that, through music,
0:15:36 > 0:15:41he could make the moneyed Broadway crowd feel the cruelties of
0:15:41 > 0:15:43the Jim Crow South for themselves.
0:15:47 > 0:15:51You see this particularly in a song that recurs throughout the show,
0:15:51 > 0:15:55written for the character of Joe, a dock worker on the Mississippi.
0:16:00 > 0:16:05# There's an old man called the Mississippi
0:16:05 > 0:16:10# That's the old man that I'd like to be
0:16:10 > 0:16:16# What does he care if the world got troubles?
0:16:16 > 0:16:22# What does he care if the land ain't free?
0:16:23 > 0:16:28# Ol' man river
0:16:28 > 0:16:32# That ol' man river
0:16:32 > 0:16:37# He must know somethin'
0:16:37 > 0:16:40# But don't say nothin'
0:16:40 > 0:16:45# He just keeps rollin'
0:16:45 > 0:16:49# He keeps on rollin'
0:16:49 > 0:16:53# Along
0:16:56 > 0:17:00# He don't plant 'taters
0:17:00 > 0:17:04# He don't plant cotton
0:17:04 > 0:17:07# And them that plants 'em
0:17:07 > 0:17:11# Is soon forgotten
0:17:11 > 0:17:15# But ol' man river
0:17:15 > 0:17:19# He just keeps rollin'
0:17:19 > 0:17:24# Along. #
0:17:26 > 0:17:28In order to draw us into this number,
0:17:28 > 0:17:31Hammerstein does something really clever with the rhyme scheme.
0:17:31 > 0:17:36He gives us kind of half-rhymes that we know don't quite work.
0:17:36 > 0:17:39"He must know somethin' but don't say nothin'.
0:17:39 > 0:17:41Somethin' and nothin' aren't quite rhymes.
0:17:41 > 0:17:45But then he gives us exact rhymes that have terrific power.
0:17:45 > 0:17:48"They don't plant 'taters, they don't plant cotton,
0:17:48 > 0:17:52"and them as plants 'em is soon forgotten."
0:17:52 > 0:17:57That rhyme is so precise it lands exactly where we live,
0:17:57 > 0:18:02and suddenly this song isn't about Joe, it's about us.
0:18:02 > 0:18:07The universality of Ol' Man River is what makes it so powerful.
0:18:09 > 0:18:12# I get weary
0:18:12 > 0:18:16# And sick of trying
0:18:16 > 0:18:19# I'm tired of living
0:18:19 > 0:18:23# And scared of dying
0:18:23 > 0:18:27# But ol' man river
0:18:27 > 0:18:31# He just keeps rolling
0:18:31 > 0:18:39# Along. #
0:18:45 > 0:18:51In its scope, its seriousness and its blend of story and song,
0:18:51 > 0:18:53Show Boat was a first.
0:18:53 > 0:18:57The New York Times declared it, "One of those epochal works
0:18:57 > 0:19:01"about which garrulous old men gabble for 25 years."
0:19:07 > 0:19:10A song-writing pair who understood its lessons
0:19:10 > 0:19:14were Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart.
0:19:14 > 0:19:17In their run of hit shows from the '20s and through the '30s,
0:19:17 > 0:19:19their meticulously crafted songs,
0:19:19 > 0:19:22like The Lady Is A Tramp and My Funny Valentine,
0:19:22 > 0:19:25often served the story.
0:19:25 > 0:19:28# That's why the lady is a tramp
0:19:28 > 0:19:31# I like the free... #
0:19:31 > 0:19:34Richard Rodgers could off an unforgettable melody
0:19:34 > 0:19:36almost casually,
0:19:36 > 0:19:39while Larry Hart was arguably the most dazzling lyricist
0:19:39 > 0:19:42in musical theatre history.
0:19:43 > 0:19:45They remain a huge influence,
0:19:45 > 0:19:48as I found out when I met Stephen Schwartz,
0:19:48 > 0:19:51composer and lyricist behind shows like Godspell and Wicked.
0:19:52 > 0:19:56So in amongst a plethora of fantastic composers,
0:19:56 > 0:19:59we have the Gershwins, we have Irving Berlin,
0:19:59 > 0:20:03what makes Richard Rodgers and Larry Hart stand out,
0:20:03 > 0:20:04particularly Larry Hart?
0:20:04 > 0:20:09Obviously, he's very well-known for his wit and his cleverness,
0:20:09 > 0:20:14but it's a certain kind of wit in the way that he rhymes things
0:20:14 > 0:20:19and he always knew how to set up the rhyme that was the joke.
0:20:19 > 0:20:24One of the songs that I loved was a song called To Keep My Love Alive.
0:20:24 > 0:20:28Basically, in this song, a woman is singing about all the lovers
0:20:28 > 0:20:32and essentially how she bumped them off rather than divorce them,
0:20:32 > 0:20:36which is already a kind of funny idea, but she sings...
0:20:36 > 0:20:40# Sir Paul was frail He looked a wreck to me
0:20:40 > 0:20:44# At night he was a horse's neck to me
0:20:44 > 0:20:49# So I performed an appendectomy
0:20:49 > 0:20:51# To keep my love alive. #
0:20:51 > 0:20:52So clever.
0:20:52 > 0:20:55"Sir Paul was frail, he looked a wreck to me.
0:20:55 > 0:20:58"At night he was a horse's neck to me."
0:20:58 > 0:21:02Now, both of those are slightly clumsy, but they're good enough
0:21:02 > 0:21:06that you kind of get by it and then he hits you with,
0:21:06 > 0:21:10"So I performed an appendectomy," and you're so delighted.
0:21:10 > 0:21:14But I have to tell you that the thing that I respond to most
0:21:14 > 0:21:17about Larry Hart is not in fact the wit
0:21:17 > 0:21:23but the deep, sort of, well of sadness that's underneath it.
0:21:23 > 0:21:28I know that he was very unhappy, that he was gay and closeted
0:21:28 > 0:21:31and that he thought himself extremely unattractive.
0:21:31 > 0:21:36You know, My Funny Valentine, which should be a, sort of, happy song.
0:21:36 > 0:21:39# Is your figure less than Greek?
0:21:40 > 0:21:44# Is your mouth a little weak
0:21:44 > 0:21:48# When you open it to speak?
0:21:48 > 0:21:52# Are you smart?
0:21:52 > 0:21:57# But don't change a hair for me
0:21:58 > 0:22:01# Not if you care for me
0:22:01 > 0:22:04# Stay, little valentine
0:22:04 > 0:22:09# Stay
0:22:09 > 0:22:13# Each day is Valentine's
0:22:13 > 0:22:15# Day. #
0:22:17 > 0:22:21It's like, in the best sense, it's just like a knife in the heart.
0:22:21 > 0:22:23The pain of it.
0:22:23 > 0:22:26And what I love about a song like My Funny Valentine,
0:22:26 > 0:22:28both lyrically and musically,
0:22:28 > 0:22:31is that there's something heartbreaking about it
0:22:31 > 0:22:35even though there's nothing overtly heartbreaking,
0:22:35 > 0:22:37so what you have is enormous subtext,
0:22:37 > 0:22:40both musically and lyrically,
0:22:40 > 0:22:44and that's a fairly modern... erm, concept
0:22:44 > 0:22:46in terms of song-writing.
0:22:46 > 0:22:50It used to be, you just wrote what you were thinking
0:22:50 > 0:22:54and you basically just said it in a clever and new way.
0:22:54 > 0:22:59And I think Larry Hart brought to popular song
0:22:59 > 0:23:03and musical theatre songs the whole idea of subtext.
0:23:03 > 0:23:07It really wasn't there very much before from other writers.
0:23:12 > 0:23:15But after a decade and a half of success
0:23:15 > 0:23:19with clever, witty, subtextual songs, there was a problem.
0:23:19 > 0:23:22Hart was drinking heavily.
0:23:22 > 0:23:25By the early 1940s, there were just too many lost days
0:23:25 > 0:23:28in the bars of midtown Manhattan
0:23:28 > 0:23:32to allow the creative collaboration with Rodgers to function properly.
0:23:34 > 0:23:39Eventually, Rodgers hatched a plan to get Larry Hart into a sanatorium.
0:23:39 > 0:23:42Rodgers would check himself in and, while Hart was drying out,
0:23:42 > 0:23:45the two of them would adapt a play that Rodgers had his eye on,
0:23:45 > 0:23:47Green Grow The Lilacs,
0:23:47 > 0:23:50that he thought would make a wonderful musical.
0:23:50 > 0:23:52Well, Larry Hart was having none of it.
0:23:52 > 0:23:55He was going to go off to Mexico and drink himself to oblivion.
0:23:55 > 0:23:59Rodgers threatened to go off and write the show with somebody else,
0:23:59 > 0:24:01Oscar Hammerstein,
0:24:01 > 0:24:05and that's when Larry Hart called his bluff.
0:24:05 > 0:24:07"No better man for the job.
0:24:07 > 0:24:11"I don't know how you put up with me for all these years."
0:24:11 > 0:24:15And with that, the partnership was heading for divorce.
0:24:18 > 0:24:22On the face of it, the original play didn't seem promising material.
0:24:22 > 0:24:24It was set in Oklahoma
0:24:24 > 0:24:28and largely about who would take a girl to the local dance.
0:24:28 > 0:24:31Pretty soon, word got around the whole thing was a flop
0:24:31 > 0:24:33in the making.
0:24:34 > 0:24:36The producers were on the verge of bankruptcy,
0:24:36 > 0:24:40the production team were largely untested in musical theatre,
0:24:40 > 0:24:44nobody thought that Richard Rodgers could write without Larry Hart,
0:24:44 > 0:24:47when a New York gossip columnist managed to sneak his assistant
0:24:47 > 0:24:49into an out-of-town try out,
0:24:49 > 0:24:53she took one look at the show's homespun Frontier setting
0:24:53 > 0:24:57and cabled back, "No legs, no jokes, no chance."
0:25:04 > 0:25:08But with Oscar Hammerstein, Rodgers discovered a new way of working.
0:25:08 > 0:25:12Unlike Hart, Hammerstein wrote the lyrics first,
0:25:12 > 0:25:15then asked his composer to supply the music.
0:25:15 > 0:25:20Stylistically too, Hammerstein relied less on playing with words
0:25:20 > 0:25:23than on a more unselfconscious way with language.
0:25:23 > 0:25:27And from the very opening number, it was obvious
0:25:27 > 0:25:30that Rodgers and Hammerstein's first musical, Oklahoma!,
0:25:30 > 0:25:34was going to be different to anything that had come before.
0:25:38 > 0:25:42Traditionally, musicals had always started with a big number.
0:25:42 > 0:25:46Dancing girls, high kicks, all the zhoosh right at the top of the show
0:25:46 > 0:25:50so the audience knew they hadn't paid their money in vain.
0:25:50 > 0:25:53That was a real problem for Rodgers and Hammerstein
0:25:53 > 0:25:54with this particular show.
0:25:54 > 0:25:57They did try to find excuses to have dancing girls
0:25:57 > 0:26:01on the plains of Oklahoma but none of that was really going to work.
0:26:01 > 0:26:04What they needed was something simple and realistic -
0:26:04 > 0:26:07figures in a landscape.
0:26:07 > 0:26:09Eventually, in desperation,
0:26:09 > 0:26:13Hammerstein turned to the stage directions of the original play.
0:26:14 > 0:26:17"It's a radiant summer morning several years ago,
0:26:17 > 0:26:20"the kind of morning which, enveloping the shapes of earth -
0:26:20 > 0:26:25"men, cattle in a meadow, blades of the young corn, streams -
0:26:25 > 0:26:29"makes them seem to exist now for the first time..."
0:26:30 > 0:26:33Well, pruning some of that excessive verbiage,
0:26:33 > 0:26:36Hammerstein came up with a lyric which gave us the whole sense
0:26:36 > 0:26:40of the world of Oklahoma!, but more importantly the world
0:26:40 > 0:26:45of our leading man, Curly, the cowboy, massively in love,
0:26:45 > 0:26:47who we first hear singing offstage.
0:26:49 > 0:26:54# There's a bright golden haze on the meadow
0:26:55 > 0:27:01# There's a bright golden haze on the meadow... #
0:27:02 > 0:27:06We're going to like him a lot, largely because of this number.
0:27:06 > 0:27:09He has an imagination that can look out across a cornfield
0:27:09 > 0:27:11and see elephants standing in it.
0:27:11 > 0:27:18# The corn is as high as an elephant's eye
0:27:19 > 0:27:21# And it looks like it's climbing
0:27:21 > 0:27:25# Clear up to the sky
0:27:25 > 0:27:30# Oh, what a beautiful morning
0:27:30 > 0:27:34# Oh, what a beautiful day
0:27:34 > 0:27:38# I've got a beautiful feeling
0:27:38 > 0:27:42# Everything's going my way. #
0:27:46 > 0:27:49This song not only gives us an indication of where the show's going
0:27:49 > 0:27:52and where musical theatre's going, it's a wonderful breakdown
0:27:52 > 0:27:56of the relationship between Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein,
0:27:56 > 0:28:00because the way they work is that Hammerstein has written a folk song
0:28:00 > 0:28:03full of words like "meadow" and "yellow"
0:28:03 > 0:28:05and the "ol' weepin' willow",
0:28:05 > 0:28:09and the tune is quite simple that Rodgers has written.
0:28:09 > 0:28:11especially at the end of the first chorus
0:28:11 > 0:28:14where the whole line is on one note.
0:28:14 > 0:28:16HE PLAYS THE LINE
0:28:16 > 0:28:18A lesser composer might just do...
0:28:18 > 0:28:21HE PLAYS AN ALTERNATIVE
0:28:23 > 0:28:27But listen to what Rodgers does do with the accompaniment to that.
0:28:27 > 0:28:29HE PLAYS THE ACCOMPANIMENT
0:28:36 > 0:28:39He takes us into the chorus through pure Broadway.
0:28:39 > 0:28:41Listen to that lovely note...
0:28:44 > 0:28:46We don't expect that at all.
0:28:46 > 0:28:49It keeps us really interested in the song.
0:28:52 > 0:28:55That lovely climb there, a real sense of stretching
0:28:55 > 0:28:57towards a moment.
0:29:00 > 0:29:05Pure Broadway. And I might add that Richard Rodgers wrote this song,
0:29:05 > 0:29:08so they say, in ten minutes.
0:29:08 > 0:29:12Ten minutes to rewrite the rule book of the musical.
0:29:17 > 0:29:21# All the sounds of the earth are like music
0:29:21 > 0:29:25# All the sounds of the earth are like music
0:29:25 > 0:29:28# The breeze is so busy
0:29:28 > 0:29:30# It don't miss a tree
0:29:31 > 0:29:35# And an ol' weepin' willow
0:29:35 > 0:29:38# Is laughing at me
0:29:39 > 0:29:44# Oh, what a beautiful morning
0:29:44 > 0:29:48# Oh, what a beautiful day
0:29:48 > 0:29:52# I've got a beautiful feeling
0:29:52 > 0:29:56# Everything's going my way
0:29:57 > 0:30:04# Oh, what a beautiful
0:30:05 > 0:30:09# Day. #
0:30:18 > 0:30:22Never before had a show opened in such a naturalistic way.
0:30:24 > 0:30:27Oklahoma!'s choreographer, Agnes de Mille, remembered,
0:30:27 > 0:30:30"It produced a sigh from the entire house
0:30:30 > 0:30:33"that I don't think I've ever heard in the theatre.
0:30:33 > 0:30:35"It was just, 'Ahh.' "
0:30:47 > 0:30:50The first act ended with de Mille's dream ballet.
0:30:50 > 0:30:53It lasts a full 15 minutes
0:30:53 > 0:30:56and she beautifully recreated it for the film version.
0:31:03 > 0:31:08Dance had been used in musicals before but never like this,
0:31:08 > 0:31:12where striking choreography provides the audience with further
0:31:12 > 0:31:16insights into the psychological state of the characters.
0:31:19 > 0:31:23But the most radical aspect of all was the way the show integrated
0:31:23 > 0:31:27the key components of the musical into a cohesive whole.
0:31:28 > 0:31:29Lyrics...
0:31:30 > 0:31:32..music...
0:31:33 > 0:31:34..plot line...
0:31:36 > 0:31:38..choreography...
0:31:38 > 0:31:40costumes...
0:31:41 > 0:31:43..and stage design.
0:31:43 > 0:31:46All work seamlessly together,
0:31:46 > 0:31:49with no single element overshadowing the rest.
0:31:49 > 0:31:54This is the secret of Oklahoma!'s universal appeal,
0:31:54 > 0:31:57as Richard Rodgers' composer grandson, Adam Guettel,
0:31:57 > 0:31:59well understands.
0:31:59 > 0:32:03For one thing, it was a very well integrated musical, certainly.
0:32:03 > 0:32:05It was very...
0:32:05 > 0:32:07immersive.
0:32:07 > 0:32:10It wasn't a show that relied on associations
0:32:10 > 0:32:13or urbane, you know, currency.
0:32:13 > 0:32:17It was a place that the audience, sort of, could go into
0:32:17 > 0:32:19and live in these characters.
0:32:19 > 0:32:23Erm, sort of pull the proscenium around their ears
0:32:23 > 0:32:27and just really be in there, which is why they are done so much.
0:32:27 > 0:32:30They don't date like track lighting.
0:32:30 > 0:32:34They don't look like beanbag chairs, they look like universal stories
0:32:34 > 0:32:37because they are so immersive, the way a great opera is.
0:32:37 > 0:32:39It's a world we live in.
0:32:44 > 0:32:48After opening night, Rodgers and Hammerstein followed tradition
0:32:48 > 0:32:52and came here, to Sardi's, the famous Broadway restaurant.
0:32:54 > 0:32:57So many careers have been made and lost at these tables
0:32:57 > 0:32:59as nervous theatre folk
0:32:59 > 0:33:02waited for those first important reviews to appear.
0:33:04 > 0:33:06But the pair were here to celebrate.
0:33:06 > 0:33:09Critics were raving about Oklahoma!.
0:33:10 > 0:33:14And there were ways of ensuring that this blockbuster of a musical
0:33:14 > 0:33:17reached people who couldn't make it to Broadway
0:33:17 > 0:33:19or afford the ticket prices.
0:33:20 > 0:33:23This is the original cast recording.
0:33:23 > 0:33:27Every song in the show in the order in which it appears on stage.
0:33:27 > 0:33:29A first for a Broadway musical.
0:33:29 > 0:33:31It's kind of like a photo album.
0:33:31 > 0:33:34You can work your way consecutively through the songs
0:33:34 > 0:33:37and relive your experience in the theatre.
0:33:37 > 0:33:41Decca sold over a million copies of this recording.
0:33:41 > 0:33:43Pretty impressive in itself.
0:33:43 > 0:33:46But bear in mind that Rodgers and Hammerstein
0:33:46 > 0:33:49weren't just on royalties for a couple of hits from the show.
0:33:49 > 0:33:53Thanks to this, they were on royalties for every single number.
0:33:58 > 0:34:01In 1945, barely two years after Oklahoma!,
0:34:01 > 0:34:04Rodgers and Hammerstein returned with a darker work
0:34:04 > 0:34:07that many consider their masterpiece.
0:34:08 > 0:34:10Carousel.
0:34:13 > 0:34:16An ill-starred romance with a metaphysical twist,
0:34:16 > 0:34:19Carousel saw the pair testing just how far
0:34:19 > 0:34:21the integrated musical could be taken.
0:34:22 > 0:34:26You can hear the form being stretched early in the first act
0:34:26 > 0:34:29in what has become known as the bench scene.
0:34:29 > 0:34:33This has been described by no less an authority than Stephen Sondheim
0:34:33 > 0:34:36as probably the singular most important moment
0:34:36 > 0:34:39in the revolution of contemporary musicals.
0:34:39 > 0:34:41THEY WARM UP VOICES
0:34:44 > 0:34:48Working with students from the Bristol old Vic Theatre School,
0:34:48 > 0:34:52I'm trying to get to grips with this hugely influential scene.
0:34:52 > 0:34:55The brilliance of the bench scene is the way dialogue, song
0:34:55 > 0:34:59and musical underscore are woven together into a seamless whole.
0:35:03 > 0:35:05# I recall... #
0:35:05 > 0:35:09We've got a better chance of both of us coming in at the same time.
0:35:10 > 0:35:12And as I'm finding out,
0:35:12 > 0:35:15unpicking it is a particularly intricate challenge.
0:35:15 > 0:35:17- Well done. We're there.- Thank you.
0:35:17 > 0:35:18Oh, my God.
0:35:18 > 0:35:22This is the hardest musical thing I've had to do in about 15 years.
0:35:22 > 0:35:26Let's start with mill workers Carrie Pipperidge and Julie Jordan.
0:35:26 > 0:35:31Here, Carrie quizzes Julie about a fairground barker, Billy Bigelow,
0:35:31 > 0:35:35who is sweet on Julie after meeting her on his carousel ride.
0:35:36 > 0:35:38# Julie
0:35:39 > 0:35:42# Julie, do you like him?
0:35:42 > 0:35:44# I don't know
0:35:44 > 0:35:47# Did you like it when he talked to you today?
0:35:47 > 0:35:51# When he put you on that carousel that way?
0:35:51 > 0:35:53# Did you like that?
0:35:53 > 0:35:55# I'd rather not say
0:35:55 > 0:35:59# You're a queer one, Julie Jordan
0:35:59 > 0:36:02# You are quieter and deeper than a well
0:36:02 > 0:36:06# And you never tell me nothing
0:36:06 > 0:36:09# There's nothing that I care to choose to tell... #
0:36:09 > 0:36:12Carrie and Julie are very different girls
0:36:12 > 0:36:15and their characters are delineated in the music.
0:36:15 > 0:36:19You actually hear Carrie say that Julie is deeper than a well,
0:36:19 > 0:36:22which is not a good thing to be, in Carrie's world.
0:36:22 > 0:36:24Also, Julie sings in dotted notes.
0:36:24 > 0:36:26# Ya-ba-dum-ba-dum-ba-dum-ba-ram. #
0:36:26 > 0:36:29So there's a kind of freespiritedness about her.
0:36:29 > 0:36:31Whereas Carrie smooths everything out.
0:36:31 > 0:36:35# Ya-da-da-di, da-da-da-da-dum Ba-ra-ra-ra-di-di-di. #
0:36:35 > 0:36:38So you've got that delineation between them.
0:36:38 > 0:36:41# Always sitting by a window
0:36:41 > 0:36:45# I like to watch the river meet the sea
0:36:48 > 0:36:50# When we work in the mill
0:36:50 > 0:36:52# Weaving at the loom
0:36:52 > 0:36:55# You gaze absent-minded at the roof... #
0:36:55 > 0:36:59The other extraordinary thing is that Rodgers gives us the sound
0:36:59 > 0:37:02of the loom when they're talking about the loom.
0:37:02 > 0:37:04HE PLAYS RHYTHM ON PIANO
0:37:05 > 0:37:08But then when Carrie points out that Julie could lose her job
0:37:08 > 0:37:12because she's not concentrating, it moves into a kind of weird...
0:37:12 > 0:37:15# And half the time your shuttle gets twisted in the threads
0:37:15 > 0:37:18# Till you can't tell a warp from a woof
0:37:20 > 0:37:21# 'T ain't so. #
0:37:22 > 0:37:24It's as if their real lives
0:37:24 > 0:37:27are delineated in the music they're singing.
0:37:27 > 0:37:28Beautifully done.
0:37:28 > 0:37:31And we're taken so deep into these girls' characters.
0:37:32 > 0:37:36But the scene's most remarkable achievement is that we get to see
0:37:36 > 0:37:39Julie and Billy fall in love right in front of us.
0:37:39 > 0:37:42We don't just get their awkward conversation,
0:37:42 > 0:37:45there's also a simultaneous dialogue going on
0:37:45 > 0:37:47within the characters themselves.
0:37:48 > 0:37:52Say, tell me something, ain't you scared of me?
0:37:52 > 0:37:56I mean, after what the cops said about me taking money from girls?
0:37:56 > 0:37:57I ain't scared.
0:37:57 > 0:38:01Billy is deeply troubled and not a nice guy.
0:38:01 > 0:38:03He should be wrong for Julie.
0:38:03 > 0:38:07But we see how she slowly gets him to access his emotions,
0:38:07 > 0:38:10possibly for the first time in his life.
0:38:10 > 0:38:13- But you wouldn't marry anyone like me, would you?- Yes.
0:38:13 > 0:38:15I would if I loved you.
0:38:15 > 0:38:18How do you know what it would be like if you loved me
0:38:18 > 0:38:20or how you'd feel or anything?
0:38:20 > 0:38:22I don't know how I'd know.
0:38:27 > 0:38:31Just the same, I know how it would be if I loved you.
0:38:32 > 0:38:34# When I worked in the mill
0:38:34 > 0:38:36# Weaving at the loom
0:38:36 > 0:38:39# I gaze absent-minded at the roof
0:38:40 > 0:38:44# And half the time, the shuttle it tangles in the threads
0:38:44 > 0:38:47# And a warp would get mixed with a woof
0:38:47 > 0:38:51# If I loved you. #
0:38:52 > 0:38:56- But you don't.- No, I don't.
0:38:57 > 0:39:01In musical theatre, characters don't often sing, "I love you,"
0:39:01 > 0:39:03certainly not this early in the show,
0:39:03 > 0:39:05because where's the drama in that?
0:39:05 > 0:39:07You've got nowhere to go.
0:39:07 > 0:39:10But what Hammerstein created, and this song, If I Loved You,
0:39:10 > 0:39:13is the perfect example of it, is the almost love song.
0:39:13 > 0:39:18It's a love song where two people talk about loving each other
0:39:18 > 0:39:20without actually declaring it.
0:39:21 > 0:39:25# But somehow I can see
0:39:25 > 0:39:30# Just exactly how I'd be
0:39:32 > 0:39:36# If I loved you
0:39:36 > 0:39:41# Time and again I would try to say
0:39:41 > 0:39:45# All I'd want you
0:39:45 > 0:39:49# To know... #
0:39:50 > 0:39:51And it feels wonderful to us.
0:39:51 > 0:39:54We learn so much about them as characters
0:39:54 > 0:39:57and the fact that they have not declared their love
0:39:57 > 0:40:01makes us want that to happen so, so much.
0:40:01 > 0:40:05# Longing to tell you but afraid
0:40:05 > 0:40:08# And shy
0:40:08 > 0:40:15# I'd let my golden chances pass me by
0:40:16 > 0:40:19# Soon you'd leave me
0:40:19 > 0:40:23# Off you would go in the mist of day
0:40:23 > 0:40:26# Never, never
0:40:26 > 0:40:30# To know
0:40:30 > 0:40:35# How I love you
0:40:36 > 0:40:42# If I loved you. #
0:40:44 > 0:40:46You're right about there being no wind.
0:40:46 > 0:40:49The blossoms are just coming down by themselves.
0:40:52 > 0:40:54Just their time to, I'd reckon.
0:40:54 > 0:40:57Because of the way the scene is built,
0:40:57 > 0:40:59we end up rooting for Julie and Billy
0:40:59 > 0:41:04as they seize the moment and take life by the scruff of the neck.
0:41:20 > 0:41:23Carousel has moved on a million miles
0:41:23 > 0:41:27from the stories like Oklahoma! that had preceded it...
0:41:28 > 0:41:33..to embrace nothing less than life, death, the universe and everything.
0:41:34 > 0:41:37And what has bound that whole bench scene together
0:41:37 > 0:41:40is that cyclical sound.
0:41:40 > 0:41:42# Ya-da-da-da, ya-da-da-da Ya-da-da-da. #
0:41:42 > 0:41:46It's the sound of the carousel - the carousel we are all on.
0:41:47 > 0:41:49This is what makes this show so powerful,
0:41:49 > 0:41:53because at no time does it talk about anything less
0:41:53 > 0:41:57than every last one of us and, in this particular instance,
0:41:57 > 0:42:01how we might just possibly all get the chance
0:42:01 > 0:42:04to find that great music in our soul.
0:42:08 > 0:42:13Today, you don't have to go all the way to Broadway to get the real deal
0:42:13 > 0:42:16when it comes to a great Rodgers and Hammerstein show.
0:42:17 > 0:42:20Which is why I've come to soggy Sheffield,
0:42:20 > 0:42:24Britain's very own award-winning centre of musical excellence.
0:42:24 > 0:42:28Here at the Crucible Theatre, they are putting on Annie Get Your Gun,
0:42:28 > 0:42:32Rodgers and Hammerstein's next production after Carousel.
0:42:33 > 0:42:37But this time the duo would be producers, not creators.
0:42:38 > 0:42:41And keen to get other Broadway greats involved
0:42:41 > 0:42:45in their new model for the musical, they turned to Jerome Kern.
0:42:46 > 0:42:51Kern had been working in Hollywood and agreed he would write the music
0:42:51 > 0:42:54but he collapsed shortly into the project
0:42:54 > 0:42:58and died with Oscar Hammerstein at his bedside.
0:43:00 > 0:43:03In desperation, they turned to Irving Berlin.
0:43:03 > 0:43:07Like Kern, Berlin was a musical theatre pioneer,
0:43:07 > 0:43:11but up until now had largely stuck to high-kicking revue shows,
0:43:11 > 0:43:14the aptly phrased "tits-and-teeth productions".
0:43:16 > 0:43:20Berlin had several reservations about Annie Get Your Gun.
0:43:20 > 0:43:22His main one being that he didn't think he could write
0:43:22 > 0:43:25a Rodgers and Hammerstein style integrated musical,
0:43:25 > 0:43:29but Rodgers told him it was actually easier than trying to pluck ideas
0:43:29 > 0:43:31out of the sky, to write to a story.
0:43:31 > 0:43:34He said, "You should go home, have a think about it,
0:43:34 > 0:43:36"see if you can come up with any songs."
0:43:36 > 0:43:39And when he did, Irving Berlin realised
0:43:39 > 0:43:42that although Annie Oakley's story might be set in the West,
0:43:42 > 0:43:44it was actually about showbusiness,
0:43:44 > 0:43:48and what it needed was some great, big, toothy show tunes,
0:43:48 > 0:43:51exactly what Irving Berlin knew how to write.
0:43:56 > 0:44:00# All right. #
0:44:05 > 0:44:07In the Crucible production,
0:44:07 > 0:44:11Anna-Jane Casey plays the heroine of the show, Annie Oakley.
0:44:11 > 0:44:15Annie was the sharpshooter star of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show
0:44:15 > 0:44:18that toured America and Europe at the end of the 19th
0:44:18 > 0:44:20and beginning of the 20th century.
0:44:21 > 0:44:23In their version of the Annie Oakley storey,
0:44:23 > 0:44:27Irving Berlin and book-writer Dorothy Fields created a show
0:44:27 > 0:44:31of pure entertainment, where, to our enormous satisfaction,
0:44:31 > 0:44:34the actors never stop letting their hair down.
0:44:34 > 0:44:37Directing the fun is Paul Foster.
0:44:38 > 0:44:42The one thing I'd say about musicals is that they're often about joy
0:44:42 > 0:44:45and it's very nice to see this amount of joy in a rehearsal.
0:44:45 > 0:44:49There's laughter involved in the process
0:44:49 > 0:44:52and what the musical eventually will do
0:44:52 > 0:44:55is make people want to leave the theatre 25 feet tall.
0:44:55 > 0:44:58It starts here in the rehearsal room,
0:44:58 > 0:45:01it starts weeks before the show is even seen by an audience.
0:45:01 > 0:45:05# And with the sun in the morning and the moon in the evening
0:45:05 > 0:45:08# I'm all right
0:45:08 > 0:45:10# Got no butler, got no maid
0:45:10 > 0:45:13# Still I think I've been overpaid
0:45:13 > 0:45:16# I've got the sun in the morning and the moon at night
0:45:16 > 0:45:19# She's got the sun in the morning and the moon at night. #
0:45:19 > 0:45:23Dorothy Fields conceived Annie Get Your Gun as a star vehicle
0:45:23 > 0:45:27for her friend, the first lady of Broadway, Ethel Merman.
0:45:29 > 0:45:34Famously foul-mouthed and with a liking for raw meat and champagne,
0:45:34 > 0:45:37Ethel for Annie Oakley seemed perfect casting,
0:45:37 > 0:45:39and so it proved.
0:45:39 > 0:45:42# On with the
0:45:42 > 0:45:47# Show. #
0:45:47 > 0:45:50Ethel Merman has come blasting into the room.
0:45:50 > 0:45:54- Are you aware of Ethel Merman as part of the history...?- Of course.
0:45:54 > 0:45:56What I've found very interesting is,
0:45:56 > 0:45:58some of the songs are so soft and gentle.
0:45:58 > 0:46:02Moonshine Lullaby is a lullaby and yet you've got, "Moonshine lullaby!"
0:46:02 > 0:46:04But it's classic Ethel. She's genius.
0:46:04 > 0:46:08You can't fault that that woman had all the balls in the world.
0:46:08 > 0:46:09And a tremendous following.
0:46:09 > 0:46:12- I don't think she was ever in a flop.- No.
0:46:12 > 0:46:15If you go back to Girl Crazy, or Gypsy,
0:46:15 > 0:46:18or if you go back to Anything Goes or Annie Get Your Gun,
0:46:18 > 0:46:21to have her associated with the title was a mark of quality because
0:46:21 > 0:46:25I don't think she'd have wasted her time on something substandard.
0:46:25 > 0:46:28She had Gershwin writing for her, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin.
0:46:28 > 0:46:30She was renowned as quite a belter.
0:46:30 > 0:46:34Cole Porter said the great thing about her was you'd hear every word
0:46:34 > 0:46:37- wherever you were sitting in the theatre.- Which is no mean feat.
0:46:37 > 0:46:40And in the pre-microphoning of that time.
0:46:40 > 0:46:42And it wasn't just pipes, there's something more to it.
0:46:42 > 0:46:46I don't think Ethel Merman was a big woman. I'm five foot three.
0:46:46 > 0:46:48I don't think she was six foot or anything.
0:46:48 > 0:46:51The big presence that she had was that big voice.
0:46:51 > 0:46:55I'm the daughter of market traders. We can shout. "Four for a pound!"
0:46:55 > 0:46:56You've got to have oomph to it.
0:46:56 > 0:46:59I like when you go and see a show and you feel the hair is being
0:46:59 > 0:47:02pulled back on your face when somebody sings so loud.
0:47:02 > 0:47:05And to be able to mix it with the softer songs,
0:47:05 > 0:47:06hopefully that's what we'll get.
0:47:06 > 0:47:0944, two kids, still have abs, going to show them off!
0:47:09 > 0:47:12A barnstorming song that any performer playing Annie
0:47:12 > 0:47:16can revel in is You Can't Get A Man With A Gun.
0:47:17 > 0:47:21This is one of half a dozen Irving Berlin show stoppers -
0:47:21 > 0:47:25songs purpose-built to bring audiences to their feet.
0:47:27 > 0:47:31What greater enjoyment can there be than this rifle-toting raucous cry
0:47:31 > 0:47:34of protest all about the sacrifices Annie will have to make
0:47:34 > 0:47:36to get her man.
0:47:37 > 0:47:39# I'm cool, brave, and daring
0:47:39 > 0:47:41# To see a lion glaring
0:47:41 > 0:47:46# When I'm out with my Remington
0:47:47 > 0:47:49# But a look from a mister
0:47:49 > 0:47:52# Will raise a fever blister
0:47:52 > 0:47:56# Oh, you can't get a man with a gun
0:47:57 > 0:47:59# The gals with umbrellas
0:47:59 > 0:48:01# Are always out with fellas
0:48:01 > 0:48:05# In the rain or the blazin' sun
0:48:06 > 0:48:09# But a man never trifles
0:48:09 > 0:48:11# With gals who carry rifles
0:48:11 > 0:48:15# Oh, you can't get a man with a gun. #
0:48:17 > 0:48:20Anna-Jane knows this is one of the meatiest roles for a woman
0:48:20 > 0:48:22in musical theatre.
0:48:22 > 0:48:26The musical is 70 years old but this is a woman who shot like a man,
0:48:26 > 0:48:29did everything that a man could do, and there's a great quote, she says,
0:48:29 > 0:48:32"I ain't afraid to love a man but I'm also not afraid to shoot a man."
0:48:32 > 0:48:34Most women these days find that.
0:48:34 > 0:48:38# A man's love is mighty
0:48:39 > 0:48:42# He'll even buy a nightie
0:48:43 > 0:48:49# For a gal who he thinks is fun
0:48:50 > 0:48:55# But they don't buy pyjamas
0:48:55 > 0:49:00# For pistol-packin' mamas
0:49:00 > 0:49:04# For a man may be hot
0:49:04 > 0:49:10# But he's not when he's shot
0:49:10 > 0:49:13# Oh, you can't
0:49:13 > 0:49:15# Get a man
0:49:15 > 0:49:18# With a gun. #
0:49:24 > 0:49:28By the time of Annie, Broadway had entered what we now think of
0:49:28 > 0:49:31as a golden age for the musical,
0:49:31 > 0:49:35when every show seemed shot through with post-war optimism and energy.
0:49:38 > 0:49:40Cole Porter's Kiss Me, Kate...
0:49:41 > 0:49:44..Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific,
0:49:44 > 0:49:46the Americana of Paint Your Wagon,
0:49:46 > 0:49:49and my own favourite, Guys & Dolls.
0:49:51 > 0:49:54But during the first half of the 1950s,
0:49:54 > 0:49:58a show was being written, then set aside, then rewritten.
0:49:58 > 0:50:00Set in Edwardian England,
0:50:00 > 0:50:03it dealt with that most un-American of concepts,
0:50:03 > 0:50:05the British class system.
0:50:05 > 0:50:08What's perhaps most surprising is that this show was to become
0:50:08 > 0:50:11the ultimate product of golden age Broadway.
0:50:18 > 0:50:21My Fair Lady, as it would eventually be titled,
0:50:21 > 0:50:25was an adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion.
0:50:26 > 0:50:30This is the story of how, for a bet, professor of phonetics
0:50:30 > 0:50:35Henry Higgins attempts to pass off a Cockney flower girl as a Duchess.
0:50:36 > 0:50:40Book and lyric-writer Alan Jay Lerner had been educated in England.
0:50:41 > 0:50:44With a first-hand understanding of the British class system,
0:50:44 > 0:50:47he realised how he and composer Frederick Loewe
0:50:47 > 0:50:50could turn Shaw's play into a musical.
0:50:53 > 0:50:57Mary Martin, as stellar a name as Ethel Merman at the time,
0:50:57 > 0:51:01was asked to play Eliza Doolittle, the female lead.
0:51:01 > 0:51:03But Martin turned the role down.
0:51:04 > 0:51:07Then they happened to see an import from Shaftesbury Avenue.
0:51:07 > 0:51:11A comedy about the bright, young things of the 1920s.
0:51:13 > 0:51:17In The Boy Friend was a young British singer
0:51:17 > 0:51:19called Julie Andrews.
0:51:19 > 0:51:22As Lerner recalled, "She radiated an indefinable substance
0:51:22 > 0:51:25"that is the difference between talent and star."
0:51:27 > 0:51:31Lerner and Loewe obviously did see something in Julie Andrews
0:51:31 > 0:51:33and, by casting her as Eliza Doolittle,
0:51:33 > 0:51:37they were delivering the ultimate snub to Mary Martin.
0:51:37 > 0:51:40It was almost like they were saying, "We don't need you, Mary Martin.
0:51:40 > 0:51:43"We can take an unknown and make her into a star,"
0:51:43 > 0:51:47and that's what makes My Fair Lady so interesting.
0:51:47 > 0:51:50George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion wasn't just happening on stage.
0:51:50 > 0:51:54In casting Julie Andrews, Lerner, Loewe and the director Moss Hart
0:51:54 > 0:51:59were attempting their own Pygmalion transformation in real life.
0:52:02 > 0:52:06Eliza Doolittle is a challenging, demanding role,
0:52:06 > 0:52:09and in rehearsals Julie Andrews struggled.
0:52:09 > 0:52:11Her fellow performers began to notice.
0:52:11 > 0:52:15Co-star Rex Harrison said there wouldn't be a show
0:52:15 > 0:52:17unless they got rid of her.
0:52:17 > 0:52:20Andrews was convinced she would be replaced.
0:52:22 > 0:52:27Moss Hart, however, decided on one last throw of the dramatic dice.
0:52:27 > 0:52:30He dismissed the cast for 48 hours
0:52:30 > 0:52:34and proceeded to give Miss Julie the acting lesson of her life.
0:52:35 > 0:52:38SHE PRACTICES ENUNCIATION
0:52:38 > 0:52:39Aye.
0:52:39 > 0:52:43Erm... Oh, we are proud. Did you tell 'im I come in a taxi?
0:52:43 > 0:52:47"If this is going to achieve anything at all," Hart said to her,
0:52:47 > 0:52:50"it's going to be hurtful and difficult."
0:52:51 > 0:52:54For 48 hours, he bullied, chided, encouraged
0:52:54 > 0:52:58and eventually rebuilt her as a performer.
0:52:58 > 0:53:01"You're saying it like a school girl!" he yelled at her.
0:53:01 > 0:53:04"I want it angrier and louder!"
0:53:05 > 0:53:08After two days, the character of Eliza was there.
0:53:08 > 0:53:12Let's take, "Just you wait, 'enry 'iggins, just you wait."
0:53:12 > 0:53:15A television re-creation from a few years later
0:53:15 > 0:53:18gives us a vivid impression of these dramatic days,
0:53:18 > 0:53:21with Julie Andrews' dialogue coach taking on the role
0:53:21 > 0:53:23of the persistent director.
0:53:23 > 0:53:25And now the fury. You hate him!
0:53:25 > 0:53:27He's a bully. He's got you up all night.
0:53:27 > 0:53:30- Just you wait...- Bread and water. - All right, all right!
0:53:30 > 0:53:33- Just you wait, 'enry ' iggins, just you wait.- Good. Now...
0:53:33 > 0:53:37# You'll be sorry but your tears'll be too late
0:53:38 > 0:53:40# You'll be broke and I'll have money
0:53:40 > 0:53:42# Will I help you? Don't be funny
0:53:42 > 0:53:45# Just you wait, 'enry 'iggins just you wait. #
0:53:46 > 0:53:50Just You Wait comes at the point where Eliza is so frustrated
0:53:50 > 0:53:53with the amount of bullying and misogyny she's getting from Higgins,
0:53:53 > 0:53:57she just explodes with this wonderful torrent
0:53:57 > 0:53:59of vitriolic imagination.
0:53:59 > 0:54:02# Oh, 'enry 'iggins, just you wait
0:54:03 > 0:54:07# Oooh, 'enry 'iggins
0:54:07 > 0:54:10# Just you wait until we're swimmin' in the sea. #
0:54:11 > 0:54:16To understand what Julie Andrews had to do to get full-on Cockney,
0:54:16 > 0:54:18I'm honoured to be given a short lesson
0:54:18 > 0:54:22by the West End's leading vocal coach, Mary Hammond.
0:54:22 > 0:54:25There's a factor in a Cockney accent called twang
0:54:25 > 0:54:29that slightly protects your voice and I could hear that in her voice
0:54:29 > 0:54:32when she sang as well and that was quite natural to her, I think.
0:54:32 > 0:54:36So is the twang like the, "Just you wait, 'enry 'iggins"?
0:54:36 > 0:54:39Some people think it changes the shape of your vocal tract
0:54:39 > 0:54:42so it makes a slightly different sound.
0:54:42 > 0:54:44- COCKNEY ACCENT:- Like that. - HE IMITATES: Like that?
0:54:45 > 0:54:49When she worked with her teacher on the "Just you wait, 'enry",
0:54:49 > 0:54:53and the anger, she used an awful lot of consonants so you actually
0:54:53 > 0:54:56have to watch that you don't get tense when you do that.
0:54:56 > 0:54:59- EMPHASIS ON CONSONANTS:- But the ability better spit out words.
0:54:59 > 0:55:02Actually, if you say... I'm going to get you to do it.
0:55:02 > 0:55:04Put your hand just here, where it is soft,
0:55:04 > 0:55:07which is where your diaphragm is connected.
0:55:07 > 0:55:09- Say your own name.- Neil Brand.
0:55:09 > 0:55:12Neil... Say it strongly, Quite strongly here.
0:55:12 > 0:55:13Neil Brand.
0:55:13 > 0:55:16- Can you feel a little push?- Oh, yes.
0:55:16 > 0:55:19So consonants link with supporting the voice naturally
0:55:19 > 0:55:22so you're trying to find as many things you can do
0:55:22 > 0:55:25as part of a performance that come under the label
0:55:25 > 0:55:27of technique that your body already can do.
0:55:27 > 0:55:31Thinking about that song, "Just you wait, 'enry Higgins."
0:55:31 > 0:55:35The only thing is, you have to then watch that you don't divide it up
0:55:35 > 0:55:37so it doesn't make any sense.
0:55:37 > 0:55:41# Oooh, 'enry 'iggins.
0:55:41 > 0:55:45# And you get a cramp a little ways from me
0:55:45 > 0:55:47# When you yell you're going to drown
0:55:47 > 0:55:49# I'll get dressed and go to town
0:55:49 > 0:55:51# Oh, ho, ho, 'enry 'iggins
0:55:51 > 0:55:54# Oh, ho, ho, 'enry 'iggins
0:55:54 > 0:55:56# Just you wait. #
0:55:56 > 0:56:01For me, this is what makes a star performance in a musical.
0:56:01 > 0:56:03It's not just technical singing ability,
0:56:03 > 0:56:05it's not just acting ability,
0:56:05 > 0:56:09it's the ability to fuse the two into the moment.
0:56:09 > 0:56:13To use the music to rise up from the text you're working from
0:56:13 > 0:56:16and make every single one of us in the audience
0:56:16 > 0:56:18feel what you're feeling.
0:56:18 > 0:56:22And Julie Andrews does it with such charisma.
0:56:24 > 0:56:29# But all I want is 'enry 'iggins' 'ead. #
0:56:32 > 0:56:35For theatre-goers who remember the 1950s,
0:56:35 > 0:56:38the role of Eliza will always belong to Julie Andrews.
0:56:38 > 0:56:41Before she was Mary and Maria,
0:56:41 > 0:56:44Julie Andrews was Eliza Doolittle.
0:56:44 > 0:56:47Something forgotten by later generations
0:56:47 > 0:56:51because when the film was made, she lost the role to Audrey Hepburn.
0:56:53 > 0:56:58Julie Andrews' star status was sealed on the 30th of April, 1958,
0:56:58 > 0:57:01at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, when My Fair Lady had
0:57:01 > 0:57:05its London premiere with the same leads as the Broadway production.
0:57:06 > 0:57:09It was a glittering and regal affair.
0:57:10 > 0:57:13And this London run lasted for over five years -
0:57:13 > 0:57:17Brits loving it just as much as their American counterparts.
0:57:21 > 0:57:23In some ways, My Fair Lady represents
0:57:23 > 0:57:26the peak of the golden age of musical theatre.
0:57:26 > 0:57:29As the audience streamed out of here after the London opening,
0:57:29 > 0:57:33they must have thought musicals couldn't get any better than this.
0:57:33 > 0:57:35What they couldn't know was just over the horizon
0:57:35 > 0:57:39was a new generation of shows that would embrace the here and now,
0:57:39 > 0:57:43whose stories would be deeper, whose music would be more experimental.
0:57:43 > 0:57:46As it turned out, musical theatre was just getting going.
0:57:48 > 0:57:51Next time, I'll show how West Side Story...
0:57:51 > 0:57:54# Something's coming, something good
0:57:54 > 0:57:57..takes the musical in a new, contemporary direction...
0:57:57 > 0:57:58# Something's coming... #
0:57:58 > 0:58:04It looks real, the confrontation between these two gangs.
0:58:04 > 0:58:07There was some level of reality to it.
0:58:07 > 0:58:12..I'll tell the story behind the great British blockbuster Oliver...
0:58:12 > 0:58:15# I'm reviewing
0:58:15 > 0:58:17# The situation
0:58:17 > 0:58:21# Can a fella be a villain all his life? #
0:58:21 > 0:58:24..and I'll meet the artists who combined music and dance
0:58:24 > 0:58:26as never before.