THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, APRIL 2, 1960.
***** ****** ******♫
As the men who wrote 'Oklahoma!' and 'South Pacific' fly into London for their 'Flower Drum Song' opening..
INSIDE SHOW BUSINESS
GETS A UNIQUE TRANSATLANTIC Q, & A.
HOW WE MAKE A MUSICAL
RODGERS (MUSIC) AND HAMMERSTEIN (WORDS)
by RODGERS & HAMMERSTEIN and LERNER & LOEWE
IN London are the remarkable song- writing team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein ("Oklahoma!."
"South Pacific"), They are in Britain for the opening of their latest musical, "Flower Drum" Sang." In New York, the equally gifted Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe ("Gigi," "My Fair Lady")
are preparing their musical
HAMMERSTEIN:
"Camelot," starring Julie Andrews and Richard Burton for an autumn open- ing. And today, in a unique quiz, this prolific music-making foursome tell how musicals are made. Dinah Kerr put the questions to Rodgers and Hamerstein, Henry Lowrie in New York interviewed Lerner and Loewe.
LERNER:
ut
IN LONDON
think you would have been an s Kinglet RODGERS:
WORDS.... ALAN LENNIE
MUSIC
FREDERIGE LOKWE
coln-
that the best way to attempt it Is not to. Our primary alm is to Alobe neither of us would have serve the play. If a hit song get anywhere. We've been more results, It is a delirious successful together than with cidence. our other partners but there's which comes first. no telling what Hammerstein could have dene with Brahms, Jyrics or the music? LERNER:
HAMMERSTEIN:
4
collaboration
the
Page 13/
BY THE WAY
By Beachcomber
ON the second day of
the
morting rally' at Cherveley A tremendous snort shattered a window and blew « émell comi petitor off his feet..
An immediate investigation led to the discovery of a big farm-horse. The nog was taken away by two overseers, both at“ whom wero kicked as they edged the intruder into the street Several contestanta laughed so heartily that, in four cases, a guffaw was marked up to them as a snort. 'A. re-count hus cer demanded,
| Among the letters.
ONA wondre's what useful purpose is served by onecurag- ing these sorting contests. Such antics can hardly be deemed to prepare a young per- son of either sex for a career.
...It snorting rollies koop the young out of the coffee-bars It is a good thing. Snorting the harms nobody, and keepa addicts out of mischief. Io nothing Racred?
times
...CONSIDERING the grave in which we live, the spectacle of people making a tublic exhibition of themselves In this fashion in revolting. The parents are to blame.
the lyrics. speciße than music. It Pot luck
Arst, writes the melody. It's a atral-jacket to me. LERNER: With us the subject matter
ad while a show is on tour. We had the most trouble with "Pipe There are many artistic differ- Dream," which never did sell. ences of opinion in a collabora-
natural, lions. It's quite It ran one person, LERNER:
Tromehow In the end we always Boring as it may seem, our re- see it the same way,
been lationship has never be question. What do you consider the There is simply no way of Urually write, words are The American humorist Ring best song you have written knowing. In Lardner once wrote a zeeno together? The best musical? the combination of two different more Dick backgrounds, attitudes, and where a composer said to his RODGERS:
iastes products an artistic lyricist about a new melodie We've written too many songs-
could only occur line: "What a strain." Sald his to be able to pick out a favour-entity that
with these particular two partner: "Then why do you do it. But we both agree that our people. Had we been successful comes first, then the title, then
eparately there would have the music, then the lyrte, guess is that it comes out By that defintilon, I sup best musical was "Carousel. pose our greatest strain was "I
a different quality. It What even. It's enough for eating Could Have Danced All Night" LERNER:
criticism do Loowe's favourite composition may have been equally as is "Come To Me, Bend To successful, but It would not have of your partner?
RODGERS: favourite have been the same, Do you ever disagree on Me." Lyrically, my
Oscar's too tall. Grown Accustomed tax how a song should be treated? is "I've
LERNER: To Her Face." Who usually wins? RODGERS:
musical, it's always the one we are working on at the moment. wouldn't be working on it. It's we didn't think WO
What presents the biggest We've done nine shows, one nim who has the most left? problem in your relationship? and one TV show, We've made RODGERS: HAMMERSTEIN:
a lot of money but it goes
Finding a good story to work on,
We have no other problems, LERNER:
The only problem is where we work. Loewe iken Palm Springs in the winter and I'm not too mad about it. We usually solve it, as it says in our song, "and so rather than do either, we do something else that neither likes at all."
Q
llow
much money
you made Jolnily?
IN
inst we don't have time count it.
LERNER:
50 to
My
purposes. LERNER:
The The Government, We're in well Q define.
over the
When
90 per cent
was your partner- chip under the greatest strain und why?
It is difficult to Income from our works is one thing, but at the same time bracket. the works themselves create an equity which has a lasting Joint value. economic
Our royalties from the four years of "My Fair Lady"ploy music-la somewhere
£1,000,000 ol have grea
£1,500,000.
HAMMERSTEIN:
There is no winning or losing. We both want the same and We have an Alphonse
If one of Gaston relationship.
and
In
The Personally, there has been
10 strain. Professionally,
no
Us
we
go
through lot during rehearsals
other doesn't Be it, the leans forward, bows, and says: "We'll try it your way Arst,"
been
As for Ustomed Q.
It
a form of harmless but essential paranoia,
* LOVE, HATE, FEAR, COURAGE... THIS MAN'S NOVELS HAVE THEM ALL
An otter put him on the path to fame
IN 1921, the war to end wars had been over just three years. Britain, not yet geared to pro- viding equal opportunity for those equal to opportunity, was clogged with demobilised ex- soldiers vainly hunting non-existent peacetime jobs,
The gaunt, poorly dressed young man who walked into the office of the editor of the Sunday Express was one of them. His story was no sadder-and no gayer-than many.
Martin
Flow
successful do You
Is it harder to come up with a hit song now than when you began your partnership? HAMMERSTEIN;
you
Loewe wishes I wouldn't give him such difficult titles to sct. I wish he wouldn't write such difficult musle for which
to
it's no harder. It's always just write lyrics. He fecis it is most very hard, period.
inconsiderate of me to make LERNER:
him work so hard-and I feel the same about him,
It is always difficult to write a hit and we discovered early on
his
-London Express Šervica).
TT is not every day that a former Colonial Secretary
no
is asked whether his great- uncle was eaten by cannibals, He is reported to have replied In the negative. But busybodies are sure to say: "There is smoke without fire. If the story is untrue, how did I start? It is not the sort of thing onyone invents about a Colonial Secre- tary." Even the most hungry for publicity have not yet thought of this "gimmick," but
think many a film magnate would make a great deal of such a boast by his star. "My first two husbands were eaten by cannibals,"
London Express Service).
THE BOOK PAGE
by DEE WELLS
head; frst one direction reason of death; for not a tooth then the other, and opening his was left in the old jaws, but only mouth menacingly.
brown, stumpa level with the gums.”
The "baiting" palls. The dogs are too timid. But not the waiting men.
One grabs the gasping badger by the neck. Another goes to fetch a spade to bash his skal in. A third, draw his long
THE MESSAGE This really happened. Henry Williamson saw it happen, The terrifying badger that had taken so many men so long to
hunting knife, But, before he get the terrible Bloody Bill can strike, weird thing that had frightened them to the happens.
very, end, was just trtold "A strange creaking noise was decrepit crock ot a badger. One coming from the badger's throat, that was dying. Not from their He gave a prolonged shudder, 4 spades or knives. But from feeble groan, and fell on his side. skow starvation, because his
"The Master pushed the limp
with
body with his foot, and the head, teeth had gone.
filmy eyes, rolled loosely. Darn me if he isn't misses dead, said the Master.
Henry Williamson lightly dis- his animal stories as "thumbnail sketches," Today,
"When the business of taking with more than 30 books to his the trophies--the sporting term credit
he is at work on the
for hacking off head and pads eighth novel of a series that was done, Mr Tinker, before deals with the First World War. But it is for the "humb- throwing the trunk to the dogs.
null skotches," the animai thought he would try and find had caused the
masterpieces, that he will be the badger's neck in long, iron cut what
death. He found,
longest remembered.
has them that ho It is in He had enlisted as a private Tarka the Olter is more than Badger, and Chakchek the Pere- teeth, has broken the legbones
tongs. Then, because this is the badger's
among other things, a piece of at 17. By 21 he was a captain. the crisis-studded skelch of a grine in THE HENRY WIL of any hound that got too close.
dreadied, hated Bloody. Bill, the hedgehog skin with the prickles made his most widely read plen He had won the M.C. But the giddy wild
ANIMAL SAGA animal's happy-go- LIAMSON
drag him to a clearing for a old. Now the badger is
on it, the feet of a wood plycon, for love and gentleness. They {alent survival that had seen lucky, yet peril-ridden and kill Macdonald, 21.).
some say. And
spot of "balling."
and the core of an apple all carry, most vividly, fur grown- Twenty years, him safely through the horrors or-be-killed life. A life thal These painstakingly detaled while
children alike, the Every terrier is set loose at unchewed and undigested, ups and tho farmers admit that of war had now, in pence-time, enda brutally when he sinks his glimporn of wildlife are - no
these dogs know "Colic, he said.
message he has struggled no badger, even Bloody Bill, tunnel. And brave old Brock him. But deserted him. He was jobless, teeth into the neck
"And when he opened the long to spread. They carry It of the milder word will do superb. does much harm, they are out does what no badger has ever Bloody Bill as well as the men. Penniless. Hungry.
triumphantly irving hound that No wiser, more compassionate or to get him. They know hla six- done he lumbers to his tunnel. They daren't get too close, mouth of Bloody Bill Brock, the far and proud. As li deserves And he only thought he could has mortally wounded him, and more moving andanal stories
The aged badgar holds off the unconquerable, whose bite all his to be carried. write.
toed paw print well. They track opening to frighten them off.. ever been written. And. in down. drags the dog to share his deall have
Cruelly, the sportsmen grip whole circle simply by turning enemies had feared, he saw the In the muddy river.
they are, each of them, sume- than just animal thing more stories.
The busy had seen many like him before. he knew from experience there was only one thing to do - glance over the hopeless young man's scribblings, say
Sorry, and get rid of him,
newspaper editor
The editor gave the sicat,
While Tarka lived, he lived
with gusto. Always a four- mund, he would crunch eraba
The dialogue is scrappy, and in their shells. Or ki so
occasional many cels that he need take exists only when an
on the
scene, only a bite or two from each, human intrudes
And when he fell in love, he but these dumb creatures' stories
close-written sheets a cursory, fell hard. Finding his giri as are novels. appraising scan-through. Then coy as a debutante, he did what
he did for an editora rare men--and otters, apparently THEY ALL KNOW
thing. He did a doubletake. And read the plece agala, slowly and carefully.
A NEW NAME
a strategic Grand-scale novels with love
aways have done. He made on advance, and then retreat,
and hate, painful birth and painful death, happiness and "... He had gone a few yards fear playing as important parts when he turned to see if she in the wordless lives of an otter, That day in 1001 a new name were following him. fler head a salmon, an old badger, and a was added to the alphabetic was turned, she was watching. roster of Express employees, lie was so thrilled that his small hawk as they do in eples
of human struggles, Way down on the 1st, it was whistle--a throat sound like the
inlect in between a typist curlew's was low and flute- Through cach page Henry named Willing and a night he. She answered. He was in Williamson - whose whole life love with White-tip, and as in and thinking has been coloured watchman named Willis,
all wild birds and animals, his by the sensticas butchery be emotions' were as intense as they náw in the First World War
The new entry was William- But, Williamson, Henry.
Seven years later that name Was no longer merely a back hunger wariis-listedet Hem on long alect. It was a name beginning he was weak
were quick. He felt neither mice. a ples. A plen so FLOT fatigue, and he heartfelt as to be nearly tearful. would have fought for her until yet a simple one. A plea for
love.
to be talked about-frontwards HE WONDERED
-in fur grander circles.
That year it was the name
out
read
ilo bere for love to triumph over cruelly. For
the creature endowed with tho resoundingly by Tackn's story won written by
power to reason, to stop kill- novelist John Galsworthy to a the light of a flickering oli lamp
Ing. Eliber hls' fellow-nien,' or distinguished sather, ig of in DUR isolated Devonshire
---unnecessarily—any oresture." London's most luminous literary cottage. Written, mainly, while lights,
Henry Williamson held his sick Brock the Badger is not the To Henry Williamson, the and fretting baby in bin arms best Williamson atory. Written Hawthornden Prize for lera- and wolkiered where the £4-a- before the more stylish Tarka, ture...",
year rent was coming frem, It is the writing of a young
Tarka
A was re-written 17 mon. very young
Man.
The applause roared up. And it has never died down. Today, times, but since then it has horrided by war and appalled nearly 40 years after #lency never been out of print. And it by cruelty called "sport"" Williamson hold his next akotelt has more than paid the rent, The old badger called Bloody Bill Brock by the loenlan
over.
Yet
on animal life to the Exprem, his nama is erukwa, and his Aga Penguin, Tarka sold half been hunted for years, Men wrliing applauded the work a million copins. It has been have tried to dy him from his translated,, retranslated, and doep earth tunnels, Dógs have Much of his famo· ho owen: Exprinted more than 40 times. been sent in, after lum. to the silm, slook-furred, Now, tie startling ofter Brock has outsmarted them all. weksel-like creature he obris- raises his head again. This time Living his precarious life, the tened Tarku, “And who serned wish false the Salmon and the : great badger füs stúded the mea him that 100 prise in 1980. less well-known Brusk-silbe ›und, with a map of his great
The hounds
dive into his
FRY'S
FRY
FR
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THE MAKERS OF QUALITY CHOCOLATES
-(London Express Service).
CREAM FILLED
Easter Greetings
FROM
FRY'S
New exciting Fairground Game will be presented by leading stores
with the compliments of
1. Fry & Sons Limited
FAZ
50