Flanders and Swann
Flanders and Swann | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Flanders (left) and Swann in 1966 | |
| Background information | |
| Origin | Westminster School |
| Genres | Comedic songs |
| Years active | 1956–1967 |
| Labels | Parlophone, Angel |
| Members | Michael Flanders Donald Swann |
Flanders and Swann were a British
comedy duo and musicians. Michael Flanders (1922–1975) was a lyricist, actor, and singer. He collaborated with Donald Swann (1923–1994), a composer and pianist, in writing and performing comic songs. They first worked together in a school revue in 1939 and eventually wrote more than 100 comic songs together.[1]
Between 1956 and 1967, Flanders and Swann performed their songs, interspersed with comic monologues, in their long-running two-man revues At the Drop of a Hat and At the Drop of Another Hat, which they toured in Britain and abroad. Both revues were recorded in concert (by George Martin). The duo also made several studio recordings.
Musical partnership
Flanders and Swann both attended
Ian Wallace and Joyce Grenfell
.
In December 1956, Flanders and Swann hired the New Lindsey Theatre,
poliomyelitis in 1943).[3] The show was successful and transferred the next month to the Fortune Theatre, where it ran for over two years, before touring in the UK, the United States, Canada and Switzerland.[3]
In 1963, Flanders and Swann opened in a second revue, At the Drop of Another Hat, at the
Haymarket Theatre.[3] Over the next four years they toured a combination of the two shows in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, the United States and Canada, before finishing at the Booth Theatre on Broadway in New York City. On 9 April 1967, they performed their last live show together.[3]
Ten days later, they moved into a studio and recorded the show for television.
Over the course of 11 years, Flanders and Swann gave nearly 2,000 live performances. Although their performing partnership ended in 1967, they remained friends afterwards and collaborated on occasional projects.
Timeline and venues of the revues
| Date[4] | Venue[4] |
|---|---|
| 1953 | Royal Court Theatre, "Airs on a Shoestring" |
| 1954 | Saville Theatre, "Pay the Piper" |
| 1956 | Comedy Theatre, "Fresh Airs" |
| 1956 | New Lindsey Theatre, Notting Hill |
| 1957–59 | Fortune Theatre (suspended one month because of Flanders' pneumonia) |
| 1959 | Edinburgh Festival "At the Drop of a Kilt"
|
| 1959–60 | Golden Theatre, New York |
| 1960–61 | 12-city tour of United States, plus Toronto, Canada |
| 1961 | Switzerland |
| 1962 | 9-city tour of UK, plus Toronto, Canada |
| 1963 | 9-city tour of UK |
| 1963 | Haymarket Theatre
|
| 1964 | 4-city tour of Australia, 5 New Zealand plus Hong Kong |
| 1965 | 3-city tour of UK |
| 1965 | Globe Theatre (now the Gielgud) |
| 1966 | 9-city tour of USA, plus Toronto |
| 1966–67 | New York |
Discography
Their records were originally released on the
Parlophone label; CD reissues are on EMI
.
45s
- 1957 – "A Gnu" b/w "Misalliance"
EPs
- 1957 – More out of the Hat! (EP)
- 1959 – Excerpts from at the Drop of a Hat (EP)
- 1959 – More Excerpts from at the Drop of a Hat (EP)
- 1962 – The Bestiary of Flanders & Swann (EP)
- 1964 – Favourites from at the Drop of Another Hat (EP)
- 1964 – More out of the New Hat (EP)
LPs
- 1957 – At the Drop of a Hat (Parlophone PMC 1033 mono) (Recorded live at the Fortune Theatre, London, 21 February 1957.
- 1960 - At The Drop Of A Hat (1959 Stereo re-recording) (Parlophone PCS 3001) (Recorded during the final performance at the Fortune Theatre, London, on 2 May 1959. Parlophone's first stereo LP release.)
- 1961 - The Bestiary Of Flanders & Swann Parlophone PMC 1164 (mono)/ PCS 3026 (stereo)
- 1964 – At the Drop of Another Hat (produced by George Martin) Parlophone PMC 1126 (mono) / PCS 3052 (stereo)
- 1975 – And Then We Wrote...
- 1977 – Tried by the Centre Court[3]
Cassettes
- 1996 – EMI Comedy Classics (Hat and Another Hat on two cassettes)
- 1997 – More out of the Drop of a Hat – Again! (double cassette)
CDs
- 1991 – The Complete Flanders & Swann (first three albums, in stereo in a boxed set)[3]
- 1994 – A Transport of Delight: The Best of Flanders & Swann
- 1999 – The Flanders and Swann Collection
- 2000 – A Drop of Hilarity from Flanders & Swann
- 2007 – Hat Trick: Flanders & Swann Collector's Edition
Bibliography
- 1977 – Songs of Michael Flanders and Donald Swann (Michael Flanders & Donald Swann, scores)
- 1991 – The Hippopotamus Song: A Muddy Love Story (Michael Flanders & Donald Swann, children's book)
Videography
- 1992 – The Only Flanders & Swann Video (recorded New York, 19 April 1967, 10 days after the close of At The Drop of Another Hat)
- 1998 – Flanders & Swann (recorded in New York, 1962 & 1967)
Songs
Flanders and Swann's songs are characterised by wit, gentle satire, complex rhyming schemes, and memorable choruses. Flanders commented during the recorded performance of At the Drop of Another Hat,
The purpose of satire, it has been rightly said, is to strip off the veneer of comforting illusion and cosy half-truth. And our job, as I see it, is to put it back again.[6]
They wrote over a hundred comic songs together. The following selection gives an indication of their range.
- "All Gall"—a political satire based on the long career of Liberty's in, the next we're down at Heal's"."The Hippopotamus" is among those
- "First and Second Law"—a jazzy setting of the first and second laws of thermodynamics. "Heat is work and work is heat..." "Heat won't pass from a cooler to a hotter / You can try it if you like but you far better notter / Cos the cold in the cooler will get hotter as a ruler..." "Heat is work and work's a curse / And all the heat in the universe / is gonna cool down / because it can't increase / so there'll be no more work / and there'll be perfect peace" / [Swann] "Really?" / [Flanders] "Yeah, that's entropy, man."
- "The Gasman Cometh"—a verse-and-chorus song in which a householder finds that no tradesman ever completes a job without creating another, related job for another tradesman. The melody quotes from "Dashing Away with the Smoothing Iron".[7] The title may have been inspired by that of The Iceman Cometh (1946).
- "The Hippopotamus"—one of Flanders and Swann's best-known songs (because of its memorable chorus, "Mud, mud, glorious mud"), and one of a range of songs that they wrote about different beasts, including:",
- "The Rhinoceros",
- "The Warthog" (both with the message that beauty is only skin deep)
- "The Armadillo".
- "The Sloth"
musical parody: it deftly parodies the style of the English Sea-Song popular in the early 20th century.) which are often performed together.- "The Wompom"—a tale about a fictitious all-purpose plant each of whose parts is an excellent raw material of a different kind.
- "Twosome: Kang & Jag" (Kangaroo and Jaguar)—two more animal songs sung as a pair. The title recalls two operas "Cav and Pag" (i.e. Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci
A very rare song, "Vendor Librorum Floreat" (Let the bookseller flourish), was released as a single in 1960. It was written for the annual American Booksellers Association, the only known time Flanders & Swann accepted a private commission.
Monologues
Flanders' comic monologues include:
- "By Air"—about the vogue for air travel. "I agree with the old lady who said, 'If God had intended us to fly, He would never have given us the railways.'"
- "Tried by the Centre Court"—a Miss Joan Hunter-Dunn, as told by an exasperated umpire. "They are bashing a ball with the gut of a cat".
- "Greensleeves"—about the background to the composition of the famous English air. An annotated version explains all the jokes.[14]
- Los Olividados— a satire on bullfighting, about "the almost unbearable drama of a corrida d'olivas, or festival of olive-stuffing". "A cruel sport: some may think it so. But this is surely more than a sport, this is more than a vital artform. What we have experienced here today is total catharsis, in the acting out of that primeval drama, of man pitted against the olive." The title is a reference to Los Olvidados, or The Forgotten Ones, a 1950 movie by the director Luis Buñuel.
- "Built-up Area"—a prehistoric inhabitant of Salisbury Plain complains about a new development: Stonehenge.
Homage and parody
The British comedy
bawdy, often being mock-censored for comedic effect.[15]
British singer-songwriter Frank Turner covered "The Armadillo" in his "Mittens" EP.[16]
See also
- List of songwriter tandems
- List of people educated at Westminster School
References
- ISBN 1-904041-96-5.
- ^ "Hat Shows". Donaldswann.co.uk. Retrieved 3 September 2019.
- ^ ISBN 1-85227-745-9.
- ^ a b Sleeve notes to the CD box set "The Complete Flanders & Swann"
- ^ a b c Program
- ^ "Michael Flanders and Donald Swann". Iankitching.me.uk. 13 August 1995. Retrieved 17 April 2009.
- ^ "Dashing Away with a Smoothing Iron by Traditional". Songfacts.com. Retrieved 13 April 2013.
- ^ "Ian Wallace: Bass baritone celebrated for his 'buffo' roles – and for his rendition of 'The Hippopotamus Song'", The Independent, 15 October 2009, accessed 26 December 2019
- ^ Ian Wallace's narrative during 'An Evening with Ian Wallace' on Radio 4 on 3 August 1982
- ^ Track 9 on the LP 'The Bestiary of Flanders and Swann'
- ^ Shepherd, Marc. "Flanders & Swann's "In the D'Oyly Cart" (1974)", A Gilbert and Sullivan Discography (1999)
- ^ Amis, John (25 March 1994). "Obituary: Donald Swann". The Independent. Retrieved 26 April 2012.
- ISBN 0-7230-0068-9.
- ^ ""Greensleeves" monlogue explained to death". Beachmedia.com. Archived from the original on 16 May 2011. Retrieved 16 May 2011.
- ^ Davies, Serena (20 October 2007). "The Armstrong & Miller Show". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 7 November 2012.
- ^ "Mittens EP". Frank-turner.com. Retrieved 3 July 2019.
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Flanders and Swann.
- Flanders and Swann at h2g2
- Flanders & Swann Online (archived)
- An Evening of Flanders and Swann tribute act (archived)
- Flanders and Swann: At the Drop of a Hippopotamus tribute act
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