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[0:09] Andrew Child: Hi, I'm Andrew Child and welcome to Fifty Key Stage Musicals, the podcast, a companion piece to the Routledge Press publication 50 Key Stage Musicals, which is available for purchase by going to Routledge.com or clicking the link below in today's description.

[0:28] Andrew Child: Today's episode is going to focus on Gilbert and Sullivan's HMS PINAFORE.

[0:34] Andrew Child: Here with me right now, I've got Richard Holmes, who is a fixture of the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players for 40 years.

[0:42] Richard Holmes: He recently performed H.M.S. Pinafore's Captain Corcoran for the 215th time and has earned kudos in 31 principal roles in all 13 Savoy operas across the United States and England.

[0:58] Richard Holmes: He made his stage debut in the Metropolitan Opera Children's Chorus, and his extraordinary half-century career at the Met was recently highlighted in the acclaimed film The Opera House.

[1:09] Richard Holmes: He has additionally played 160 major roles at such venues as Glimmerglass Opera, Chicago Opera Theater, Virginia Opera, countless others, and soloed at major festivals across Europe and Russia.

[1:24] Andrew Child: Hello, Richard, how are you doing?

[1:26] Richard Holmes: Hello, I'm fine. Thank you for having me here.

[1:28] Andrew Child: Yeah, I'm super excited to chat with you about PINAFORE. So because of the title of the book and thus the title of the podcast, I want to just start by having you sort of summarize for our listeners what makes HMS PINAFORE a key musical.

[1:47] Richard Holmes: Well, uh, in my opinion, it's the beginning of, even though it was a British musical, obviously a British comic opera. It was, um, on the other hand, it started the ball rolling for the American musical theater, as far as I'm concerned. Uh, I'm sure there are people who are more expert on what was being written in America in the 1850s or 1860s, but there was such a huge crap for PINAFORE when it came over here. Uh, it was, it actually made Gilbert and Sullivan into world stars. And, uh, I think that it seemed to me that it had a level of creative genius in it and a level of proficiency that had never been seen theretofore, but before that time in an American piece or in a piece playing in America.

And so it created a demand and an expectation for a higher level, uh, more interesting plots, not just, um, not just a silly plot, not the songs were the songs have an, uh, a classical operatic quality to some of them, and then a very lively, uh, hummable quality to other ones. And, uh, I think that the more that that happened, um, uh, then the audiences it caught on like wildfire here. And so the audiences were became enamored of this. And from this, you know, it's not that there was no talent in America, it was that there was no need for it at that point. There were people weren't asking for this kind of a show. And suddenly with the Gilbert and Sullivan's, which all became popular in the United States, um, there wasn't it was, I'm sure American composers, young American composers at that time, were saying, Well, why don't I try my hand at this? And from this grew, you know, the Victor Herberts and then and then eventually the Kearns and Gershwins and things like that.

[3:49] Andrew Child: So would you say that, you know, when you talk about HMS PINAFORE, you talk about this artistic superiority, you talk about this higher level of art. Would you put PINAFORE on a level above other Gilbert and Sullivan pieces, either that predate it or those that followed it?

[4:11] Richard Holmes: Well, it's difficult to say that. I it's not it, it is not for me the absolute pinnacle of what they wrote, but that doesn't mean that it's not at a very high level. It's just that being that it was early in their collaboration, I think both of them developed as writers a little bit as it went along, um, as their careers, uh, jointly went along. But it is very high up there because the thing is is that Gilbert, uh, it combines Gilbert's wonderful wit and, uh, and his, uh, marvelous sense of humor and absurdity too. There's a, uh, which is a very, very, very strong part of Gilbert's, um, uh, writing, of the makeup of all of his writing is is a sense of, uh, something being either turned on its head or, um, taken to its ridiculous extreme.

Sullivan, of course, was an aspiring classical composer, and he was a classical composer. He composed, uh, a great many wonderful classical works, many of which are only being really rediscovered now in our time. But, um, he had he had the chops, so to speak, to write well beyond one one or two chords per song. And, um, so musically, um, I would always I always feel that PINAFORE is in rather in primary colors it is not the most adventurous later on he became more adventurous in his style but it's an extremely tuneful piece and the for example the two finales well especially the first act finale is developed with, uh, little bits of sections that will come that will recur and that are not just, uh, and now I'll sing a tune for two minutes and that's it it's it's a it's really wonderfully developed piece so there was, um, it is it's one of the one of the great favorites it's one of the the top three favorites the top three being the Pirates of Penzance, the Mikado and and HMS PINAFORE and they've never lost their popularity, uh, and it's it's well up there in terms of creativity, um, whether you find it the absolute top or maybe the third from the top is your own opinion you know I mean yeah everybody looks for slightly different things so it's like it's like saying you know there are there are people who feel that, uh, um say Allegro was because it was, uh, there they won't necessarily say it was a better work than Oklahoma but it was perhaps a more adventurous work than Oklahoma you know so, uh, and, uh, the same thing with, um, with, uh, Gilbert and Sullivan Pinafore is it's a great I find it's a great starter show to, uh, to introduce people to Gilbert and Sullivan too.

[7:02] Richard Holmes: It, uh, it doesn't overstay its welcome. It's about runs just a little over two hours. And, uh, in that time it packs a good deal, uh, a good deal of parody, thought, humor, and, uh, absolutely gorgeous music.

[7:16] Andrew Child: So when you say that this would be like a good starter show, the introduction for you, what do you think that the Gilbert and Sullivan aficionado, the fanatic, the, uh, avid audience member, what are they building up to? What is their Allegro?

[7:35] Richard Holmes: Um, well, I mean, the thing is is that probably for me, the height of their collaboration, and many, many people agree with me, is Iolanthe, which is like right about midway in their in their works. Um, it's because it's hauntingly beautiful, it's got a great deal more heart than some of the other ones. Pinafore, on the I will say, I mean, it does have, um, this is one of the things that perhaps appealed to audiences was that it has a real situation with the lovers where they are really star-crossed lovers who don't seem like as if they're going to get together. Right. And it seems like it's going to be a terrible, terrible shame, you know. So and, um, Josephine the heroine has a, uh, a real predicament that she's dealing with in act two, which comes, uh, comes to a, uh, climax in in her big, um, big aria.

Uh, I would say that on an even higher level artistically is Iolanthe because the music is, uh, uh, less basic, less, uh, more harmonically developed. Okay. Um, uh, Sullivan's use of themes, uh, of small themes that recur is, uh, more sophisticated, and Gilbert's, uh, humor and wit are at their very, very peak. Um, they went on, they tried, uh, Yeoman of the Guard, I think is probably the one that is the closest to trying for something a little grander, a little more serious in tone. And, um, for many people it's their favorite. It's not quite for me, but it's not that I don't like it. It's just I, I like Iolanthe better.

[9:17] Andrew Child: So okay. And as a performer, would you say, are you drawn more to the big three? Are you drawn more to HMS PINAFORE?

[9:28] Richard Holmes: Well, I, I think it's interesting. When you if you do, I've done, um, you know, I've performed Gilbert and Sullivan for 40 plus years. Actually, starting from the very first Gilbert and Sullivan I did was when I was still in high school, and then so it was 50 years ago. Wow. Um, but, uh, it's been a long time. You after a while, you, you know, as with anything, you, you tend to get a little bit jaded with the ones that you do more frequently, you know. I mean, I don't mean to be ungrateful, but, uh, you know, but it is it does happen. I'm sure that that happens with Broadway performers, like oh, another Gypsy, you know, so, uh, something for for me, um, I personally it's the show I've done the most in Gilbert and Sullivan, and I never get tired of it.

It's the one that I never get tired of. Um, I love doing some of the ones that are less frequently done for that reason because they're they're fresher, you know, they're just you know, but with PINAFORE, I've had a lot of time to think over, especially the character of Captain Corcoran, which I've done a lot. And he's become a real person to me. And I see new facets in him and new sides in him every time I do it.

[10:43] Andrew Child: So what are the moments in the libretto for Captain Corcoran that you know audiences are going to love? What are the moments that you look forward to delivering time and again?

[10:57] Richard Holmes: Well, uh, it's there's a very wonderful opening song. I am the captain of the PINAFORE. He's a great entrance song, very bright and very cheery and everything like that. Uh, and um it's frankly, it's not that difficult to sing. I mean, it's not, it's not, you know, it's it's very nice if you're when if you're like, um, getting your nerves under control or anything like that. You just go out there and do it. And, um, it always gets a nice hand. Um, uh, for the other characters, the other characters have them too. Sir Joseph has when I was a lad, his story song where he tells about his career and his rise to his, uh, position of prominence, and, uh, that always goes down very well with the audiences.

Probably the height for everybody, uh, all three performers in it and, um, the audience as well is the bell trio, uh, never mind the why and where for in act two, pardon me. And, um, it's, um, uh, because the it comes just at the right time in the show. The show has been act two is a little starts to get a little bit dark and a little bit worrisome in terms of the plot, but it's not doesn't go on for very long, but it's just one of those things like, hmm, how is this going to work out? Everything seems to work out, and then Sir Joseph gets to be usually very usually gets to do a lot of physical comedy in that number. It's a very, very infectious tune. You once you hear it, you can't stop hearing it, you know.

And, uh, so, uh, that's that's really a great number that, uh, you know always catches the audience, and and the soprano too in her big what's called the Shana, uh, the hours creep on a pace. That's a that's a full operatic aria. So if you have I've had some many wonderful Josephines that I've performed with who have marvelous voices, and, um, what's great about that is is that they can really shine there and they can bring down the house with this numbers.

[12:58] Andrew Child: Wow. So one of the things I thought was so interesting in the chapter that, uh, you and Rupert wrote is talking about this lack of copyright restrictions, which allowed PINAFORE to become so popular in the United States. So sort of thinking about the moments that you know in a contemporary sense are those big audience-pleasing moments, those big joyful, exciting, thrilling moments.

[13:31] Richard Holmes: Do you think that when this show first premiered in America were audiences latching on to those same moments?

[13:40] Andrew Child: I think so.

[13:41] Richard Holmes: Uh I I'm almost old enough to know. Uh I I wish I had been there, but uh no, but I I can't imagine that that they didn't love all those moments. Uh certainly there, you know, there's the big catchphrase in um HMS PINAFORE, uh, where he says, uh, I'm never never sick at sea. What and the chorus says, What never. No, never, says the captain. What never says the uh chorus. Well, hardly ever. And uh that that swept not just England but the United States, as a matter of fact, I think there was one newspaper editor who had to forbid his writers from using that the hardly ever uh catchphrase uh in their writing because it was used so much. So that clearly was one of them. Uh the bell song has always I I've literally never seen a performance uh outside of my own that I've been in.

I've never seen a performance where the bell trio in act two didn't fail to go off like a firecracker. It's just one of those foolproof numbers. You you really have to work hard to kill it. So, you know. And uh things like I'm called little buttercup, which don't bring down the house, it's a very gentle number, actually. It's a lovely, lovely Walt song. But you know, it's a it's a great, great little tune there, and it comes, you know, within the first five minutes of the show. And uh, you know, it's one of those ones where the audience just sits back and relaxes and said, says, Oh, isn't that lovely? You know, isn't that great? And uh, and from then on, the uh defenses of the audience are down. They're they're they're uh up to taking it. I'm sure that the audiences back in those days were were going crazy for all of those numbers. I really do.

[15:26] Andrew Child: And you feel like when you're in the audience as well, are you still getting wrapped up in the same way? Are your defenses down, or are you a little bit more reserved?

[15:38] Richard Holmes: Well, of course, I'm sitting there, I'm I'm hyper-critical at this point. You know, I'm saying, hmm, she didn't sing that very well. No, uh no, the thing is is that uh usually as each character is introduced, you get to know the personality of the singer too, or the performer, rather. And uh, and you start saying, Oh, I'm going to love that that little bit with them when it's when Sir Joseph comes on. You're looking for what he's going to bring to that that character and uh the uh snobbish and uh you know very uh self-righteous character that he is. Um, and uh so I would say I do, yes, honestly, and I look forward to if the Bell Trio, every production that you do has different, um it's it's a big encore number.

It usually has at least a couple of encores to it. Um, and um the encores are part of the fun where the where something weird goes wrong, Sir Joseph falls overboard uh off the ship or something like that. And so uh it's kind of like okay, now what are they gonna do with this? You know, so it's great fun.

[16:42] Richard Holmes: So these are works that you obviously know inside and out, left and right. What draws you as a performer to keep coming back to the works of Gilbert and Sullivan?

[16:54] Richard Holmes: I I just adore them. And the reason I do is is that it's it's I've always wanted to be a comedian. I've always wanted to make people laugh. And uh the scripts themselves, uh leaving the songs aside are wonderfully funny. I can you can you know you I know that I'm making the audience enjoy themselves, or I hope that I'm making the audience enjoy themselves, we all hope. And uh, but on the other hand, you actually get to sing something and not just sing any old little little nothing song. These are some of them are absolutely beautiful. Um, I've always said that for the captain, um, I I've done Sir Joseph as well, but I've done the captain much more. For the captain, uh, he begins Act Two with a song called Fair Moon, which is as beautiful as anything in the in 19th century Italian opera.

It is a beautiful uh legato song to sing a serenade to the moon, um uh telling his troubles to the moon and it's it's heaven now, you know, in opera uh in grand opera, for example, you don't sometimes get to be funny. On the other hand, uh in some musicals, you don't get to sing anything that where you feel you're exercising your voice. And so as a performer, I love that combination. I love being able to make people uh get into you know a romantic mood or a a uh sentimental mood but also to make them laugh and I think that for performers the these are just these works are just heaven because they they give you so many different opportunities uh and nowadays you you get to dance in them I'm not a particularly great dancer but but I mean there are people who who do tremendous amounts of dancing in these things too so it's um it's it's it's such an amalgam of the of um of the arts you know of what you want to do as a performer and uh it's like why why does one want to go into music theater you know well I mean you can break somebody's heart you can touch somebody you can also make them laugh and you can maybe make people say God what a beautiful tune or what a beautiful voice that is and uh you know that's I'm sure that's what Broadway people go into it for you know so right no it's so funny.

[19:15] Andrew Child: The um the next episode after this one in the podcast um we'll be talking about the Merry Widow.

[19:22] Richard Holmes: Oh, yes.

[19:23] Andrew Child: So it's exactly what you're talking about this idea that yes, it's musical comedy, yes, you're going to laugh, but the score is this rich, beautiful sound.

[19:35] Richard Holmes: I've done quite a few Merry Widows too. So I I feel just it's a privilege to get to do this that kind of work. It really is, because you're not surechanging either the audience or yourself as a performer if that is what you like to do. I mean, if you if you are purely a comedian, then but there are roles in Gilbert and Sullivan that are purely comic where the vocal, the great vocal quality doesn't matter so much. As a matter of fact, sometimes if you sing them with too much of a great vocal quality, it it tends to get in the way. It sounds it it it will first of all, the words sometimes aren't quite as forward and as clear. And the other thing is is that sometimes if if the audience is sitting there saying, Boy, that guy's got a great voice.

What's he doing during this comedy comic comic ball? You know, it's why is he uh, you know, concentrating that that shouldn't be in the audience's mind. That shouldn't that thought should never cross their mind, you know? They should just be concentrating entirely on the character. So um uh but but really you there's something for everybody in Gilbert and Sullivan, both as a performer and and I think I think as an audience.

[20:45] Andrew Child: Yeah, no, I definitely have to agree with you on that. I'm also just happen to be a big Gilbert and Sullivan fan. Um but I'm wondering now do you think that there are do we have Gilbert and Sullivan's working today who are kind of duly prioritizing this grand, beautiful sound, but are also really getting to the heart of things and making us laugh?

[21:13] Richard Holmes: Do we have that?

[21:15] Richard Holmes: Well, I think I think so. Although I think I think the trend in uh I'm not I don't mean to denigrate anything, but I think the trend in recent years has been to darker and darker musicals. Uh I I think that that the lighthearted musical that that makes makes one laugh, um that first and foremost makes one laugh, is a little bit out of fashion right now. Not to say that there's no humor in in uh today's musicals, but they become more as the concept musical, I think has developed. This is purely my own opinion, you know.

[21:50] Andrew Child: Right, yeah.

[21:51] Richard Holmes: You know, but um I think actually, I think my brother actually achieved that very well in the mystery of Edwin Drood. It's a very, very high level of music, uh, with an enormous amount of um wonderful rhyme and and words and great laughs in it too. Uh and uh so it it depends on the combination of of who's doing it. I I'm sure there are others, certainly, certainly, you know, I've it's not like I sat there stone faced during a little night music or something like that. I laugh all the way through that.

[22:30] Andrew Child: So, you know.

[22:32] Richard Holmes: Do you think that were Gilbert and Sullivan alive now, looking at current trends, um, do you think they'd be meeting this same level of success?

[22:44] Richard Holmes: Um probably, yes. I mean, it's always dangerous to look into the future and say, well, a hundred years from now they would be doing this. Um, but both of them did evolve. Sullivan, I would say, more than Gilbert, perhaps. Um composer, and he was a success at it, but I think more and more he wanted to let the music, you know, have free reign. Whereas um writing to Gilbert's plots, which are a little bit on the absurd side at times, um, and they certainly always usually have an absurd Deus Ex Machina at the end of the show, um uh may have hampered him a little bit in that aspect. Um, but uh, but he did it so brilliantly that you know who can complain. Um Gilbert actually was evolving too, in that oddly enough, the very last thing that he wrote just before that was produced, that uh produced just before his death was a a serious and I believe one character play that was very Dickensian in terms of uh it was about a an imprisoned man who was on like death row in England, it's called the Hooligan, and uh it was very dark and very serious, and uh uh how he had been how this character had been pushed into a life of crime through a childhood of poverty.

And so I always think I look at that and I say, hmm, you know, I wonder it's hard to sort of imagine Gilbert not tickling everybody's ribs, right? But on the other hand, he might have evolved as well, too. He clearly he felt his more serious plays, this plays that had a little bit more either romantic or paradistic side to them, were going to be the ones that were going to remain and the uh in in the future, and he tended to think that the Gilbert and Sullivan, the the Savoy operas were, as they're called, were probably just of their time and were going to go away. So which is you know certainly not the truth. Um I have a feeling he would have it it's interesting. He's they're both Gilbert and Sullivan are such Victorian characters.

They lived in such a Victorian world. It's hard to imagine them dealing with the modern world and its rudeness and its uh lack of politeness. But on the other hand, had they lived another hundred years, there would have been, they would have evolved too, no doubt. So uh so I think that they would have both been writing. I think Sullivan was getting more and more tired of writing light opera, and I think he would have written more operas. Um but um uh or more, or perhaps Labretti uh for operettas that had a more serious bent to them. Um and Gilbert, I don't know. I really I have to say, you know, I just can't imagine him ever being uh but uh this I'll say about Gilbert. Gilbert skewered the um uh the follies of his of his time and of his day uh and surely God knows there's enough to skewer nowadays politically and uh socially.

And most many of his many of the Savoy operas and and some of his other ones, his plays, his straight plays, are um absolutely skewer the mores of the day. And um it just seems to me that he would have had a boundless field for uh uh uh of targets nowadays to write things so uh he would have been writing that kind of work i think satirical works.

[26:23] Richard Holmes: Oh that makes that makes sense because they are when you start looking at them beyond uh surface level these pieces even the Savoy ones you know they are kind of cutting they are a little vicious you know oh yes absolutely absolutely yes and the thing is is that I think one of the reasons they have survived and still thrive in this time uh even though they were they're very very Victorian works in their own way is is that uh the things that they're skewering for the most part don't go away.

[27:08] Richard Holmes: Um you know uh people who were rise to a position like Sir Joseph in PINAFORE with no qualifications will we see that in our day I mean you know didn't we didn't we just have uh you know housing housing secretary who you know wasn't no knowledge of housing or something like that right and various things I mean it would it's perfect because it's exactly what Gilbert wrote and uh so those things are universal pomposity is universal stupidity is universal said and uh and so even though uh even though perhaps the specific instances have uh have gone away um there are there's always there's always something there to skewer uh on um in London if you there's a very small memorial to Gilbert right on the Thames at um Hungerford uh bridge, which uh crosses the Thames, and uh it's very near the theater district.

[28:08] Richard Holmes: So I see it like whenever I go to London, I see it every day. And it it says um the it's a plaque with Gilbert's um, you know, um uh uh uh carved engraving of of Gilbert. And the uh quote on it is um his foe was folly and his weapon wit. And I think that sums him up perfectly. He was he was there to puncture the balloons of people who did loony things without thinking them through. Um, you know, and he was he he would tilt those windmills. So I think that he was essentially that's what modern writers do too, you know.

[28:47] Andrew Child: So up next, I'm chatting with Rupert Holmes, who is the first person in Broadway history to solely win Tony Awards as author, composer, and lyricist of a musical, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, which also won the Tony for Best Musical. Add identical Drama Desk awards, plus their additional category for best orchestration. He received the best book Drama Desk award for Curtains and Tony nominations for book and additional lyrics. For Say Goodnight, Gracie, he received a Tony Best Play nomination and won LORT’s National Broadway Theatre Award, twice a recipient of MWA's Edgar Award. His novels are Where the Truth Lies, Swing, and The McMaster's Guide to Homicide. For TV, he is the creator and writer of AMC's Remember When. Welcome, Rupert and thanks for chatting with me today.

[29:46] Rupert Holmes: It's a pleasure to be with you.

[29:47] Andrew Child: All right, so we are gonna be talking a little bit about Gilbert and Sullivan, specifically HMS PINAFORE, and I'm really interested to hear about how HMS PINAFORE, how Gilbert and Sullivan's work influenced you and your own work. But I'm kind of starting asking every guest uh to tell me a little bit about what makes HMS PINAFORE a key musical. Why do we want to write about this? Why do we still care about this show? Why is this still being done? So I'd love to know. Could you sort of highlight any thoughts you have along those lines for me?

[30:28] Rupert Holmes: Well, I there's a myriad reasons. The first that springs to mind when you ask the question is the fact that um it it was one of the first works to say that a silly subject could be tackled in a in a beautiful way. In other words, um there's something marvelous about the fact that the entire show hangs on the silliest of premises, the way a Monty Python routine would hang on such a premise, and yet they are true to the spirit of opera. They considered themselves to be writing operas, they didn't call them operettas. And you have so you what you have is completely giddy entertainment, a delight to anyone, easy to understand, simple issues. You you don't have to, you don't need a um a play bill to figure out who's who in the story. And remember, this is their first complete opera that they ever wrote, a major length opera, two act opera.

[31:26] Rupert Holmes: And uh, and yet it's instantly um easy on the uh uh on the um easy to take in, and yet the score is would pass for a distinguished score were not the lyrics so daft at times. In other words, Sullivan and and and sort of that's the premise of any good farce uh is that you take a ridiculous premise you know Fay Dill would have a premise like a man has accidentally married his wife's mother and not his the woman who's supposed to be his wife but then you must follow it with absolute logic and and be stay true to it don't just say well it's a farce so nothing matters and so the songs the music that that that Sullivan composed for HMS PINAFORE and the lyrics that Gilbert wrote when they were matters of passion they can pass for they could pass for the most passionate songs uh that were being sung at that time in serious stories so there's something about having dessert and your um and your cabbage in the same course um that makes it very palatable and uh I I am I was really astounded in researching it I I mean I always knew it was one of their two three most um famous most performed most beloved works um but I didn't understand until I started researching um for the for uh 50 major musicals uh how out of control popular it was in the in the United States it was instantly popular and suddenly you had and we we tacked we touch upon this in in in our chapter of my brother and I um you had countless productions all pirated by the way none of none of them paying Gilbert and Sullivan a penny.

[33:18] Rupert Holmes: You know, 15 productions within a couple of city blocks. Can you imagine if Westside Story opened and then there were 14 more Westside Stories running on the West Side? So it's um so it it would it's uh a very easy shoehorn into a wonderful world of operetta and opera and soon to be musical theater, musical comedy. Well, we like to think of as musical comedy.

[33:45] Rupert Holmes: Okay, um, you know, we've we forget that for long before we had um this this wonderful term of musical theater, which I function in. Right. Um it was called musical comedy. Right. And and and I I you know when you had a tragedy um and it opened as a musical, I guess they just said musical, but but pretty much pretty much people would say, I'm gonna go to New York, I want to take it in a musical comedy. Well, here was shoe here is the easiest uh entry level into for its time, um uh, which is the end uh the last decades of the 1800s, easiest entry level into something that people sometimes go to and sit very seriously and say, I take some opera every week, you know?

[34:31] Rupert Holmes: Uh-huh. This wasn't medicine, this was soda pop. So uh uh I think that may be one of the reasons why it's so significant. It showed people that you can walk into a into something resembling a formal theater and uh hear music of uh uh that is truly uh intelligently and uh uh and uh composed and uh distinguished in every way. This is the same composer who wrote the um the hymn onward Christian Soldiers. So you know how much more respectable uh respectable can you get?

[35:07] Andrew Child: Right.

[35:08] Rupert Holmes: Um, but it said you can walk into a theater, sit down, not worry about your job or the worries of the world, and be completely entertained, and yet at the same time, your intelligence will never be underestimated.

[35:22] Andrew Child: So let's talk a little bit about what that legacy does for you and for your compatriots, the contemporary or the more contemporary uh musical theater writers.

[35:38] Rupert Holmes: So you've got this very silly idea. You've got let's do a musical based on an unfinished Charles Dickens story, right? But then you write these beautiful songs, the writing on the wall, the moonfall song, you know, all these songs.

[35:56] Andrew Child: No uh yeah, can you talk a little bit about how your experiences with your familiarity with Gilbert and Sullivan informed your process, maybe specifically in creating The Mystery of Edwin Drood?

[36:11] Rupert Holmes: Well, yes, uh there were and it's interesting because so many Gilbert and Sullivan thoughts occurred to me as I began to write the work. Uh when I originally started to write The Mystery of Edwin Drood, um it's it's as somber, it's as dark a novel as Dickens ever wrote. And uh, and I found myself kind of being crushed by the weight of it because it was so dark. I I couldn't figure out any way that anyone could enjoy themselves with in the story. It was just so I mean, if you wanted to s see um, you know, uh a uh horror story, uh it would work just fine. But I thought that this is this is unnatural.

[36:53] Rupert Holmes: It's on uh it's the it is the human condition to try to make jokes in rough situations. I always say that um tragedy is what we inherit as human beings, but our lives are inherently tragic, um, because one way or the other, it's not gonna go on forever, and there are gonna be things that we lose along the way, including people we love. So there's this tragedy that we are given as a birthright. And I always say that comedy is what we invented as a species to cope with that.

[37:26] Rupert Holmes: And um, I remember Woody Allen's uh I I know I'm branching off here a moment, but Woody Allen uh made a film called Interiors, and it was his attempt to make a very serious uh film, and it was very much a kind of a Bergman uh Bergman type of film. Okay. And I and and because he was trying to say to the world, I can make something other than a silly comedy, um uh he allowed not one iota of humor into the story.

[37:54] Rupert Holmes: And as I'm watching it, about a third of the way in, I said, you know, this is unnatural. It is unnatural. Even in Hamlet, there is a gravedigger who's funny. And Hamlet himself has a kind of dry wit.

[38:06] Rupert Holmes: Right. He gets some pretty good one-liners. Um he says that the funeral baked meats did uh furnish the uh wedding uh cold the cold wedding buffet, basically.

[38:16] Andrew Child: Yeah.

[38:17] Rupert Holmes: Uh one the funeral of his father uh follow was followed hard upon by the wedding of his mother. And he says, No, it was it was thrift. It's thrift because that way the the the meat, the hot warm food at the at the funeral can uh be served in the morning as a buffet.

[38:32] Andrew Child: So that's Hamlet being funny within a tragic situation.

[38:35] Rupert Holmes: Right. And I thought, I thought, how can I how can I make sure that in telling this story and and doing this very silly thing, which is to say, well, I think there's a way I can complete a story that's gone unfinished for a hundred years. I think there's a way we can finish it. What a silly notion to do. Um, how can I make that be entertaining as well as kind of challenging and interesting and full of bravura emotion and passion?

[39:07] Rupert Holmes: And I I thought to myself, well, um, the idea came to me all in in one day, and I wrote the words Victorian vaudeville um at the top of the page. And I thought to myself, what if I don't tr what if I do not attempt to write Rupert Holmes's 1985 version of Charles Dickens' novel?

[39:31] Rupert Holmes: Right. What if instead I have a Motley music hall company who are absolute hams and live only to steal a scene in 1895, and they've picked up the unfinished novel, which is set some 30 years earlier, and put it in a music hall where yes, they are going to play all the blood and thunder moments to the very best of their ability. They're gonna take all the melodrama and and make it far from mellow. They're gonna make it very intense.

[40:03] Rupert Holmes: Um but at the same time, it's a little funny that they're trying to do this thing at all. Oh let me put a chairman in charge who talks with the audience from the outset. We break the fourth wall instantly, and let me have the the first number sung by uh a person who could easily be um the uh tormented hero in a Gilbert and Sullivan novel, John Jasper, and have him do exactly what Gilbert and Sullivan used to do so well.

[40:31] Rupert Holmes: And this this gets us uh I'm gonna get back to that in a second, but absolutely yeah, okay. But the idea was uh in The Mystery of Edwin Drude, uh that um that uh I I thought to myself, okay, so as a composer, let me not say it's 1985, which is when I wrote it, and you're a guy who's been a singer, songwriter for about 10 years and written for Streisand and all like that. Now what are you gonna write? How are you gonna continue that vein of writing? Uh and instead, imagine that via time travel, you were portaled back to 1895, and now you find yourself in 1895 as the resident composer for this music hall company, this Motley Crew, and uh not my current Motley Crue, the old Motley Crew, and uh and how would I write for them without getting burned at the stake because of all the things that I know that have gone on in music since 1895?

[41:29] Richard Holmes: Right.

[41:29] Rupert Holmes: How can I write in that milieu? And I thought, well, 1895, you know, you Gilbert and Sullivan were still writing their last operettas. And as it happens, the ultimate fate of the mystery of Edwin Drude, my musical, was that it ended up debuting in London uh after it uh was um um uh hit on Broadway, it debuted in London at the Savoy Theatre, which is where Gilbert and Sullivan debuted all of their great musicals after um Pirates of Penzance. Wow. And so there I was in the very kind of venue that I was imagining trying to write for in 1985, when I'm saying, How can I write back to 1895? And so I basically said, Well, why don't you approach it as if you're sort of an admirer of Gilbert and Sullivan, which you are, and you're going to try to fit this story and the kind of music you want to write, modern music you'd like to write, but do it translate it into Gilbert and Sullivan terms.

Write what, at least for the first initial part of the show, write what Gilbert and Sullivan would have been allowed to write harmonically. Remember, this is before Rebel, this is before Ravel, this is before Debut C, this is before the big band era, this is before modern jazz. So you have a vocabulary that is Sullivan was um a deft uh and I don't mean deaf D-E-A-F, I mean D-E-F-T. He was a deft composer, and he could stretch his harmonic structure as as well as most people of his time, but he was not a groundbreaker harmonically. Most of his stuff was very acceptable, very proper, and a lot of it is more in the tradition and nature of Handel and uh sometimes even Bach, Mendelssohn. Um, can you write through that filter at least for the first third of the show?

[43:18] Rupert Holmes: And so um one of my favorite things about Gilbert and Sullivan that I loved was that often a character would step onto the stage and with no preamble, just they'd feel that it was appropriate for them to explain to you exactly who they are and how they got to where they are right this moment. Right. And that you do so well in Drude. There are so many of those moments. Well, it was there, HMS PINAFORE starts uh as my brother was uh pointed out very adroitly in in in the chapter we co-wrote. Um they basically, after the opening number of Here We Are Men at Sea is over, three people come out, and one after another, and they both say, Here's who I am, here's how I got to where I am, this is what I'm about. Now let's see what happens. You know, Bertolt Brecht would probably not think that this was a good idea, or maybe actually you'd probably think it's a fabulous idea. But but that's what they did.

[44:16] Rupert Holmes: And so, for example, the first song that we really hear after the opening number, There You Are in the Mystery of Edwin Drude, uh they we introduce Clive Padgett as John Jasper. John Jasper is brooding very much, and uh the audience applause. He immediately drops his brooding mode, takes a bow, and then drops back into character, and then sings this song called A Man Could Go Quite Mad, which could be a Gilbert and Sullivan song. Oh, absolutely. The about the quant uh the dark chords of it, um uh to me evoke um uh the uh aria, Am I alone and unobserved from Patience? Uh uh in which someone's going to sing a relatively lighthearted song, but it begins with great uh multo furioso. It's very the strings are uh pegiating away like crazy.

And um uh it said so. I wrote a typical GNS revelation song, uh, whereby a character arrives and immediately confides for some reason he why he's telling us this and feels free to tell us this, and and who are we, by the way, at the moment, as he's telling us this, because what are all the other people on stage doing? Um but he they tell you um he tells you uh about the current state he's in. Buttercup says, This is who I am, and this is what I'm about. The captain says, This is my station, and this is what kind of fellow I am, don't you all agree? And then out comes Sir Joseph Porter, who then tells you the entire story of his life and how he got to the exact exalted position he's in right now. Right, there we go. That I mean, that whole the first third of that show is just people telling us who are.

[45:53] Richard Holmes: Yeah, I love that.

[45:54] Rupert Holmes: And in their next show, here comes the modern major general. And what's the first thing he does? He tells you what he is. And he does it in a delightful way. Yeah, it saves us a lot of exposition. I'm, you know, instead of telling us how we got into this position where we're robbing a bank, let's just have the bank robber step forward and explain this, give us the story of his life in three minutes. And even to a point where they've got, you know, the ensemble just tagging on the and we are his what cousins and his sisters.

[46:22] Richard Holmes: Yeah, yeah.

[46:23] Rupert Holmes: They are there. You know, in in Japan, it there used to be this strange thing where uh I did a lot uh had a number of hit records in Japan, and I would do a lot of TV over there, and there would be one person who would host the show, usually because of the times. It was a man, and there was a woman at his side who was um his co-host. But because of the way genders were uh considered in the 1980s uh in in Japan, her sole job seemed to be to affirm everything that the man just said. So he would go, something about the dots, she'd go, hi, hi, and so that's her only job is to stand there and say what he's saying is true. I agree. And that's and and and Gilbert and Sullivan do that uh constantly, where both men and women, yes, you you are the captain of the PINAFORE, and we agree. Yes, you're very, you know, with every a chorus is there to confirm what you've just said.

[47:18] Richard Holmes: There we go.

[47:19] Rupert Holmes: He is the very model of a modern major general. Yes. There we go. Yeah, absolutely. Uh uh they they repeat it three times. Right. Whatever he says he is, they say, Well, we'll we'll echo that three times and confirm it. And uh it would be a lovely thing if in life we could have a bunch of people come around wherever we go. And they would say, That's right, he sure is uh executive of the year. So it'd be a wonderful thing. Should we should we be bringing that back in musical theater, you think that idea of these immediate affirmations?

[47:55] Richard Holmes: I don't, you know what?

[47:57] Rupert Holmes: I I let me do that.

[47:59] Richard Holmes: Okay.

[48:00] Rupert Holmes: I'll do that in all my shows, and I'll be the one doing something that silly. Um it's but it it it's um it was it's a wonderful device in lots of ways. Um he uh uh uh Gilbert would have spouted out a ton of information in a verse, and it would be clever, it would rhyme, the rhymes would be in ingenious. Uh the payoff of the verse would be some kind of delightful uh spin on something, and then almost as if to give us a moment to rest, the chorus steps in and echoes stuff that we don't as uh uh that we don't really need to pay any attention to because it's just repeating what was said.

[48:41] Richard Holmes: Right.

[48:41] Rupert Holmes: It's almost like a couple of breathers in between each time you're assaulted in a patter song by the next verse that comes along. It's a it it works very well. So they were very um audience friendly. They they really uh it reached out to their audience and tried to make it easy for them to follow their dazzling minds, both of them.

[49:06] Rupert Holmes: So, and I promise, because you know, you have this huge body of work. We're not just gonna talk about Drude, um, but this book is uh and this podcast, uh, one of the key audiences uh is going to be students of musical theater. So I do feel like it warrants talking about Drude. Just it doesn't get one chapter in this.

[49:29] Richard Holmes: No objection on this on this end of the beautiful.

[49:32] Rupert Holmes: But so you've got, you know, you've got the Patter songs in there, you've got the I Am songs in there, and you've got this music hall style going on. So I'm kind of curious about you know, the music hall that's contemporary with Gilbert and Sullivan. Um, but they are like you talked about, it's a little more what they're doing, high brow, it's a little more refined. What is their opinion of the music hall? Do you imagine? What is their relationship to the music hall, the English vaudeville of their day?

[50:08] Richard Holmes: Um, when you say there, who is the they uh who is the they're sorry, uh Gilbert and Sullivan. What would their uh uh attitude be towards the music hall?

[50:16] Rupert Holmes: Yeah, is that what you're saying?

[50:18] Richard Holmes: Yeah, okay.

[50:19] Rupert Holmes: So in order to do, you know, when you're uh hopefully a creative person, there's what you want to do, and then there's the um rationale for it.

[50:31] Richard Holmes: Okay.

[50:32] Rupert Holmes: So um I wasn't going to do an entire show without delving into some of the kind of harmonies and chromatics uh the chromaticism that I love. Um certain sections of uh the Mystery of Edwin Drude um musicians come to me and strangle me because they the if we change the key changes every two bars, and if you don't have a key signature to refer to, uh it's hard to keep track of what who's sharp and who is flat at a certain point. It's actually a very difficult score, even though it sounds like it's a lot of fun.

[51:02] Richard Holmes: Right.

[51:02] Rupert Holmes: It piano players come at me a lot and say, could could you have just given me a couple of put on a happy face doesn't sound surprising. I'm sure to anyone who knows the sound of this show, that doesn't sound surprising at all. But what I did is so the uh uh Gilbert and I stretch a little bit. In other words, the music hall sound that I am evoking is quite late, Victorian into what we think of in America as the as vaudeville. So the the music hall royale might have existed, but it probably wouldn't have been quite as showy.

[51:46] Richard Holmes: Right.

[51:46] Rupert Holmes: Okay uh uh as as what I I was not going to not acknowledge the rest of musical theater history when I'm writing in 1985, right and only limit myself to 1895. So what I did the rule that I made was this up until there's a uh a scene in The Mystery of Edwin Drude where Jasper has a an opium dream uh and there's a ballet that goes with it. And until that moment in the show, most of what I composed could have been part of Gilbert and Sullivan's uh style. It would have not if it if if mo maybe Moonfall Moonfall stretches it a little bit because Moonfall goes into a kind of passionate bridge that is not harmonically part of the Gilbert and Sullivan vocabulary. But I I had two rules. One is that emotion, when some emotion became when especially romantic emotion or or dark, sinister emotion, when that was overtaking a character, I let that break some rules of Gilbert and Sullivan and could dial in some more modern touches because I'm not saying it's modern, I'm saying it's just they're going way out there on a either a romantic limb or on a um psychotic limb.

[53:02] Rupert Holmes: And the the thing that clinched the deal for me is the opium uh ballet, opium den ballet in the mystery of Edward Druid, because he's hallucinating, and in the novel he's hallucinating and seeing all kinds of strange Asian processions and um and and and so I thought, well, he's hearing the music of the spheres. That can be any music in the world. I can break all the rules in that ballet, and because I'm not writing in 1895, I'm not writing in 1985, I'm writing inside his head, and it's dilute and he's it's surreal and and and delusional. After that, I felt I I had broken the ice and could deal in some other flavors. So there's a song called Never the Luck, um, which is really a Richard Rogers type of waltz.

[54:05] Rupert Holmes: And it also that I was just thinking about totally turns the I am uh trope on its head, kind of oh, absolutely, absolutely, and and uh where uh wherein I was able to make the actor singing the song have the same dilemma that the character he's portraying has, and so that when they when they both when when Philip Bax sings never the luck, he's singing on his own behalf and he's singing on behalf of the character.

[54:32] Rupert Holmes: I'm sorry, when Philip Bax sings never the luck, he's singing as two people.

[54:35] Rupert Holmes: So it's not only an I am, it's a we are.

[54:38] Rupert Holmes: And I also do that in both sides of the coin, where um John Jasper is singing about the his dual uh personality, and the chairman is singing about the fact that he's having to play two roles in the show.

[54:53] Rupert Holmes: He's having to be the chairman, but he's also having to play the mayor of uh uh uh of um uh cloistrum.

[54:58] Rupert Holmes: And so each of them are suffering with their own duality.

[55:00] Rupert Holmes: So you have a duet for two people singing about being four people.

[55:04] Rupert Holmes: Uh so there are a lot of games like that going on in Drude.

[55:07] Rupert Holmes: But the second I realized that I would cast um Edwin Drud, I would have Edwin Drude be played uh by a woman who is a male impersonator.

[55:15] Rupert Holmes: I thought, oh, the glorious thing about that is I can write a Gilbert and Sullivan-like lyrical duet, love duet, but it will be the first love duet of its nature ever written for two sopranos.

[55:27] Rupert Holmes: In 19, even in 1985, we did not have love songs for two sopranos in love with each other.

[55:32] Rupert Holmes: Uh, but uh now that wouldn't be uh out of the ordinary at all.

[55:37] Rupert Holmes: But back then that was a rule breaker too.

[55:39] Rupert Holmes: Um anyway, uh to get way back to your your question, um, I think that Gilbert and Sullivan would have enjoyed going to a music hall.

[55:48] Rupert Holmes: Okay, and I think they would have enjoyed the the rowdiness of it and the sentimentality of it, and I think that they allowed those that that to seep into their own work, but I think they would have viewed their own work as um serious fun, as opposed to music hall would have been shameless fun.

[56:10] Rupert Holmes: Uh so um I have a song called The Wages of Sin that's sung by Puffer, and she sings about how poor, bad her life is.

[56:19] Rupert Holmes: That is the it is really patterned after songs from the English music hall, like she was poor but she was honest.

[56:27] Rupert Holmes: These heartbreaking songs about girls who fell into the wrong uh way of life, uh left at the altar betrayed, uh all that.

[56:37] Rupert Holmes: And Gilbert and Sullivan, I think, did not mind uh mining that type of song for their own songs like I'm called Little Buttercup, uh confessional songs that they would have characters sing.

[56:51] Rupert Holmes: Um but I don't think they would have viewed themselves as writing for music hall.

[56:56] Rupert Holmes: They would think that music hall was that was completely populist art of the people, pub, just slightly above pub sink pub shows, you know.

[57:06] Rupert Holmes: Okay.

[57:06] Rupert Holmes: Um so so I let both worlds kind of coexist side by side by setting a Gilbert and Sullivan style work in um a tatty music hall where anything goes, and uh if it gets a laugh, um we're keeping it in the show.

[57:22] Rupert Holmes: So I I I I think that Gilbert and Sullivan would have uh had a lot of fun going to a music hall and might have sung along with some of the songs and thought, you know, we could do something like that in one of our shows, one of our proper shows, one of our well thought out, one of our well thought out shows, one of our beautifully orchestrated shows, not with a an accordion and a and a piano.

[57:44] Andrew Child: Right.

[57:44] Rupert Holmes: But there is that influence there.

[57:46] Rupert Holmes: That's not something that you had to invent.

[57:49] Rupert Holmes: Okay.

[57:49] Rupert Holmes: Yep, yep.

[57:50] Rupert Holmes: So we've got Gilbert and Sullivan, who sort of are predecessors to a long line of these duos who are writing musical theater, who are creating musical theater, all the way to Rogers and Hammerstein, to Aaron's and Flarity, to Lerner and Lowe, whoever you love.

[58:11] Andrew Child: You know, there are all these duos.

[58:13] Andrew Child: So I'm curious, can you talk a little bit to us about uh your role as book writer for another great duo uh Cander and Ebb on Curtains?

[58:24] Rupert Holmes: Uh you know, it's uh uh Cander himself um first of all, I I uh uh one of the great joys of my life was uh was to to work with uh John Cander and Fred Ebb.

[58:40] Rupert Holmes: Um and uh as a matter of fact, uh on on the opening night of the mystery of Edwin Drude, before Drew Edwin Drud went to Broadway, um it ran at the Delacourt Theater in Central Park.

[58:53] Rupert Holmes: It was every year um there's free Shakespeare in in Central Park in New York City, and um and Joe Pap said this year you're gonna be Shakespeare uh to me.

[59:04] Rupert Holmes: And we the and the very first performance of the Mystery of Edwin Drude in Central Park, the it was a huge um went over went over very, very well.

[59:18] Rupert Holmes: Great.

[59:18] Rupert Holmes: And and and and but uh I'm leading to the point of this as I'm standing there loving what's happening in front of me, the audience cheering and and and all the mechanics of the show work somehow.

[59:30] Rupert Holmes: Um uh suddenly I'm assaulted by somebody.

[59:34] Rupert Holmes: Someone's beating me with their fists, beating me.

[59:37] Rupert Holmes: And I turn, and it's John Cander.

[59:40] Rupert Holmes: John Cander, composer of cabaret, Chicago, uh Kiss of the Spider Woman, uh, the song New York, New York, my coloring book, and he's hitting me, he's pummeling me with his fists.

[59:52] Rupert Holmes: And he shakes me, he said, You did it.

[59:54] Rupert Holmes: And he said, he said, musical theater, there's no money in it, but isn't it wonderful?

[59:59] Rupert Holmes: And I thought, your John Candor, if there's no money in music.

[1:00:03] Rupert Holmes: Oh no.

[1:00:05] Rupert Holmes: No.

[1:00:06] Rupert Holmes: Yeah.

[1:00:06] Rupert Holmes: No.

[1:00:06] Rupert Holmes: Yeah.

[1:00:07] Rupert Holmes: So we had a very pleasant acquaintance, um acquaintanceship.

[1:00:11] Rupert Holmes: Uh, and uh I was um they finally turned to me and asked me to take a look at um something they had been working on for years, um, which was their attempt to write a murder mystery musical.

[1:00:25] Rupert Holmes: And um and uh I've always felt that um my own background as a composer and a lyricist makes me different from the majority of book writers that are out there.

[1:00:44] Rupert Holmes: Okay.

[1:00:44] Rupert Holmes: Because I think most book writers, whether they want to or not, there's a slight tendency for them to think of the composing team, the songwriting team, as those people who interrupt constantly interrupt the wonderful play they're writing.

[1:00:58] Andrew Child: Right.

[1:00:58] Rupert Holmes: Okay.

[1:00:59] Rupert Holmes: You know, that I would have a hit, I would have a Pulitzer Prize winning play here if you didn't keep writing songs.

[1:01:04] Rupert Holmes: Ruining these.

[1:01:05] Rupert Holmes: Yeah.

[1:01:06] Rupert Holmes: Yeah.

[1:01:06] Rupert Holmes: Yeah.

[1:01:07] Rupert Holmes: Whereas uh I like to think that unlike some book writers, I know where I need to get the characters so that there would be no reason for the book to continue because they will have to say what they have to say in song.

[1:01:24] Rupert Holmes: Okay.

[1:01:25] Rupert Holmes: I I in other words, I it's it's like saying you can lead a horse to water so that he the horse finds the perfect place to drink.

[1:01:33] Rupert Holmes: Okay.

[1:01:34] Rupert Holmes: You know what I'm saying?

[1:01:35] Rupert Holmes: There's an expression you can't lead a horse to you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.

[1:01:39] Rupert Holmes: I think just the opposite.

[1:01:41] Rupert Holmes: I'm trying to get the characters, the story, the situation to a point where only a song, where only people bursting out into into vocalizing their emotions.

[1:01:52] Rupert Holmes: That's the only next step that could be possible.

[1:01:55] Rupert Holmes: And that is the goal of in a musical that the characters have to get to a point and I this is a rule that someone caught a five years ago and uh I I I'm I should know whom, but I don't but it's simply that you get to a point where their emotions are so strong that they have to burst into song.

[1:02:11] Rupert Holmes: And um and so I like to think as a book writer I am um I'm I have a great um desire to enable the songwriters rather than say okay now you take over I'll just go in the other room and have a cigarette you know okay so um so in terms of writing with uh other people I am always the uh uh other songwriters I I'm always thinking what would they love to write what situation can I get the characters into where they would get the chance to write um just the right song a song that they might not have otherwise uh written um and I I I I for example um wrote a musical um with Alan Zachary and uh Michael Weiner called Second Hand Lions.

[1:03:02] Rupert Holmes: And there's uh I invented a subplot um out of sort of Arabian nights where there's the Sultan, except that I decided that the Sultan should not be a bloodthirsty Sultan.

[1:03:11] Rupert Holmes: He should be the most articulate erudite character in the show because he's had an Oxford education.

[1:03:17] Rupert Holmes: And so while he's fighting the man from the uh from the French Foreign Legion, he should be 20 times as intelligent as the foreign French.

[1:03:25] Rupert Holmes: And I said, So I'm gonna have him come out, and he's got to say, here's my empire, and unfortunately, all I have to export is sand.

[1:03:34] Rupert Holmes: And you should write a Gilbert and Sullivan Patterson at this point and go into all the problems in when the only natural resource you have is sand, and how you have to become a mastermind of crime simply to keep your nation fed.

[1:03:51] Rupert Holmes: And um they wrote a song that I uh called Sand, it's a fantastic song, and which I don't think they would have written if I hadn't led them up that hopefully not blind alley.

[1:04:02] Rupert Holmes: Um when you when you work with uh other songwriting teams, the the idea is to say uh the thought is what are the what do they do uh better than anyone as as a songwriting uh songwriter or songwriting team, and how can you draw that out of them?

[1:04:20] Rupert Holmes: How can you set them up perfectly?

[1:04:21] Rupert Holmes: Kind of like the you know, in uh every year the all-star game, there's a thing called the home run derby.

[1:04:27] Rupert Holmes: And it's it's where people see who can hit the most home runs.

[1:04:31] Rupert Holmes: Well, it requires a pitcher being willing to say, where do you like the pitch?

[1:04:36] Andrew Child: Right.

[1:04:37] Rupert Holmes: And and and the batter will say, You gotta give it to me right about there, and throw it about, you know, the faster you throw, the harder I can hit it.

[1:04:45] Rupert Holmes: And it's sort of a an agreement between the picture.

[1:04:48] Rupert Holmes: This would not happen if it was a game where the outcome of the game was at stake.

[1:04:52] Rupert Holmes: But instead, it's just a a an attempt to see how many home runs someone can hit.

[1:04:57] Rupert Holmes: So my job is one of the jobs I have as a book writer is to ask the songwriting team or to intuit of the songwriting team, where do you like the pitch thrown?

[1:05:07] Rupert Holmes: Where do you want me to set you up so that you can hit more home runs than you've ever hit before?

[1:05:12] Rupert Holmes: The the most the happiest collaboration I ever had as a book writer was with Marvin Hamish.

[1:05:17] Rupert Holmes: Um I wrote a musical with him called The Nutty Professor, and because of the death of Marvin and because of the death of Jerry Lewis, upon whose movie uh it was based, the legal rights to it have been kind of hung up for a dozen years.

[1:05:29] Rupert Holmes: It's finally it's finally coming clear, and we're finally gonna have a production of it soon.

[1:05:34] Rupert Holmes: Oh yeah, I'm very excited about it.

[1:05:37] Rupert Holmes: And in this case, I was the book writer, but I was also Marvin Hamish's lyricist.

[1:05:42] Rupert Holmes: And half the time I would write him pattern lyrics, knowing that he, like Arthur Sullivan, would always come up with a tuneful way to treat my pre-existing comic lines.

[1:05:54] Rupert Holmes: Uh, because it might be interesting to your listeners to know that in most cases, the majority of case vast majority of cases, Sullivan wrote music to fit um Gilbert's lyrics.

[1:06:06] Rupert Holmes: Uh it was not two men in a room saying, Oh, well, what about this for a next line?

[1:06:11] Rupert Holmes: And what about that?

[1:06:12] Rupert Holmes: And what about that?

[1:06:12] Rupert Holmes: Uh Gilbert would write basically the libretto.

[1:06:16] Rupert Holmes: He'd write the script, but also the lyrics, send it to Sullivan, and Sullivan would say, Well, how can I make this musical?

[1:06:22] Rupert Holmes: How can I take these?

[1:06:23] Rupert Holmes: And luckily, Gilbert wrote in such a beautifully rhythmic way, and his his his rhythms were so precise, that a good a great composer like Sullivan could manage to to do wonderful things, even with the precondition that whatever you write musically has to fit the scan of of of these lyrics.

[1:06:43] Rupert Holmes: Uh but in in in so in the case of writing with Mar uh Marvin Hamlish uh there were instances where I said this is going to be a passionate song it's a song called uh while I still have the time I said why don't you write we know what the title is we know that the first line of the chorus is gonna be and while I still have the time we know that why don't you just compose what you want to compose and and let that speak and I'll be saddled with the job of saying okay to express the sentiment in words I'm gonna have to hang them like cris ornaments on a Christmas tree.

[1:06:43] Rupert Holmes: I'm gonna have to make it feel interesting melody.

[1:07:18] Rupert Holmes: But then on other ti other times we'd have a song where I knew it was gonna be a a kind of a patter song, a comedy song.

[1:07:24] Rupert Holmes: And it was gonna require an awful lot of lyrics and I said so shall I just how about I write the lyric and you'll set it to music.

[1:07:32] Rupert Holmes: With some composers, especially some not talented composers, that's very hard to do. They can only write what they're gonna write.

[1:07:41] Richard Holmes: Right.

[1:07:41] Rupert Holmes: A good composer can look and say, okay, so it goes, and they'll come up with... I'm doing Pirates of Penzance.

[1:07:59] Richard Holmes: Yeah, modern media, there we go.

[1:08:02] Rupert Holmes: Yeah, it's so incredible to hear about the workflow, the way it goes, whether you have the songwriting team or with the book writer involved. And I'm thinking of, you know, famously Lerner and Loewe said we start with the title, you know, which you just kind of hit upon doing once with Marvin Hamlisch, you know, that we're just gonna start not with the music, not with the lyrics, we're gonna start with the title, the key line of the song, which obviously with Lerner and Loewe has given us some of the most famous standards of all time, you know. Um, I'd love to hear a little bit about where it sounds like whenever you work on a show, Gilbert and Sullivan and their influence are certainly coming into the room with you, whether you are doing it all, whether you are the book writer for a songwriting team, whether you're doing the lyrics, it just sounds like you're bringing them in with you.

[1:08:59] Rupert Holmes: Uh, where do they sit in the room with you when you're working on your pop music, when you're working on things that are not directly for musical theater, for musical comedy?

[1:09:10] Rupert Holmes: Well, Gilbert and Sullivan sit on thrones.

[1:09:12] Richard Holmes: Oh, beautiful.

[1:09:14] Rupert Holmes: And I'm on my knee, genuine.

[1:09:17] Richard Holmes: Okay.

[1:09:18] Rupert Holmes: Um, but look, there are many influences. Uh, they are not the only composer, composer songwriting team that ever affected my work. My work was very, very influenced by Rodgers and Hart. Not so much Rodgers and Hammerstein, but Rodgers and Hart. Hart was one of the most, not making a pun here, he was a heartbreaking lyricist. He could write lyrics that just wound you.

[1:09:45] Richard Holmes: Absolutely, absolutely.

[1:09:47] Rupert Holmes: You told me I was mistaken that I'd awaken with the sun and order orange juice for one. It never entered my mind. I mean, you know, how you have what I lack myself, and now I have to scratch my back myself. Um, so just wonderful lyricists. So a lot of people walk in the room. It is interesting to me that, um, you know, long before I recorded a song and wrote and recorded a song called Escape, which is known as the Pina Colada song, which is unfortunately my best-known song. Um, and it is a story song, and Gilbert and Sullivan had lots of good story songs. Um, but interesting, the song that got my career as a singer-songwriter started was a... I was supposed to record a couple of bubblegum-type singles as a myth non-existent group. I had been doing a batch of that in my early 20s, where I would be the voice, I would be the voice of a group that didn't exist and singing a song that someone had hired me to sing and or something written with me.

[1:10:49] Rupert Holmes: And I decided, you know, if you don't write a song, record a song, uh, even though this contract is supposed to be for very, very mindless stuff, um, you've got to record a song that you can say, well, if you want to know anything I stood for in the 70s, uh, this is what I was about. And I wrote a song called Terminal, and it starts by a person saying, Here I am this morning, um, uh, in this terminal where the buses arrive, and he narrates who he is and how he got to where he is now and where that has left him. It's a... it wasn't a... it was a huge hit record in the Philippines, by the way. If you go there, I sell out. But, uh, this song Terminal, uh, when I was all done with it, I thought, well, that's interesting.

This is almost a poignant version of a Gilbert and Sullivan. Here's who I am, here's what I did to get to where I am, and here's the fate I'm stuck with. And I thought that's interesting that they really did. The record label heard that song and said, We don't want you to do this as an anonymous pop group, we want you to do an album like this, and we want to be Rupert Holmes. And so that actually landed me my first LP deal. And out of that, Barbara Streisand heard the album and said, I want to record your songs and I want you to come out here and arrange and conduct them. So, but that first song was the one that sort of turned the trick. And it was because I wrote a song where a person steps out and without introduction or preamble says, Here I am this morning where love had asked for the dance, here within this terminal where I passed on the chance.

[1:12:47] Rupert Holmes: Whether or not, and usually it's some sort of a send-up or spoof. But I make the point in the chapter, uh, in the book that, um, that they invented, they sort of anticipated rap, and that Henry Higgins would probably not have said, Why can't the English teach their children how to speak if Gilbert and Sullivan hadn't told people that a person in a musical can speak the way Henry Higgins is now speaking? Um, I know that sounds rather convoluted, but they made a lot of things possible. You certainly see their influence any time you watch a Danny Kaye movie, there will be a patter song in it, uh, written by his wife, Sylvia Fine, a song like Anatole of Paris, and it is really an updated version of what Gilbert and Sullivan would have supplied for Danny Kaye.

So, you know, a lot has... other elements have come into musical theater which make it the world that we now know. Um, I don't know what Gilbert and Sullivan would have made of West Side Story. I don't know what they would have made of that. I think Sullivan would have been envious of the score. I think Gilbert would have said, I think Gilbert would have said the only funny song is Officer Krupke. What... how can I do a song Tonight, Tonight won't be just any night? What is... what's that? Anyone can write that.

[1:14:14] Rupert Holmes: Um, so, um, but they facilitated the idea that people will have a moment. I mean, I wonder when I... I should know the answer to this. I should know more about Shakespearean history. But when Hamlet comes out alone on the ramparts of his castle and suddenly says to himself, because it's supposed to be a soliloquy, uh, to be or not to be, that is the question. I wonder how common it was prior to Shakespeare, and probably the answer is common, very common, but the idea that somebody comes out on a stage and talks to themselves, uh, sort of with the knowledge, with an understanding between the actor and the audience that the character kind of senses someone is out there listening to what they're exp... what of their feelings they're exposing.

It's just... there are moments in artistic history where people make decisions and you never think about them. For example, there was a moment probably during the making of the film King Kong, where somebody said, I think we should have music playing underneath all these action sequences. And someone probably... I think someone once raised the question, won't the audience wonder where the orchestra is? I mean, we're in the middle of the jungle. Here comes King Kong, he's gonna wrestle with a dinosaur. Where's the orchestra? I don't understand where the string section just came from. It was this transition from days when movies had musical accompaniment because they were silent, so something had to fill that off.

And yet suddenly now we have sound. Well, when sound first came in, it was not automatically assumed that there would be underscore, that there would be musical underscore below the dialogue. And in the early silent pictures, uh, sorry, in the early talkies, they talk, but they don't play music underneath. And sometimes if there was music, it was they were saying, well, you know, we have sound movies now, so we can do anything. So they would have a string quartet play in the next room. But it was what we call source music, meaning it's music supposedly coming from the image you're seeing on screen. But somebody at some point said, um, uh, you know, why don't we just put music underneath the whole movie?

And the audience knows there's no orchestra there, but it's exciting. It's more exciting when we do that. Well, I'm saying that Gilbert and Sullivan sort of, if they didn't invent, they sort of nailed permanently the idea that a character can come out on stage and say, Am I alone and unobserved? I am. Then let me confess I'm an aesthetic sham. And then sing all about it. Now, now, so who's that person talking to? Am I alone and unobserved? I am. Then let me confess I am an aesthetic sham. So who's he confessing to? Himself. But it's with the wink at the audience that we know you're there, and I know you, I, the character, sort of know you're there. I know somebody's paying attention to this and caring about my plight.

[1:17:26] Rupert Holmes: And so there are a lot of those theatrical conventions that Gilbert and Sullivan came up with, um, that we now just... we don't even think about them. We don't think it's... we don't think that it's odd that suddenly everybody sings territory folks should stick together, territory folks all the cows.

[1:17:43] Richard Holmes: Right.

[1:17:44] Rupert Holmes: There we go. No, excuse me, I was talking here. Why are you all shouting? I was saying his cousins and his aunts. There we go. Exactly. There we go. But by the time it got, uh, by the time that, um, Rodgers and Hammerstein said, you know, um, this story about Oklahoma might be a success, and it might be an even better success if we wrote a song called Oklahoma, which was one of the last songs written for the musical Oklahoma. Apparently, they were watching the show in previews, and Hammerstein turned to Rodgers and said, you know, we better have a song called Oklahoma. And then they wrote it. But anyway, um, we don't notice it anymore when, when, uh, people say there is nothing like a dame in, uh, and they all agree with each other, right?

Um, but I'm not saying that certainly these were operatic conventions that existed well before Gilbert and Sullivan, in terms of our perception of what musical theater can be, um, they sure laid out a beautiful playing board for us. You know, it's like somebody, whoever it was that decided that there should be a secret passage from the billiard, from the study to the library in the board game of Clue. That person was a genius. The person who decided there's a ballroom and this, and oh, we'll put secret passage. So if someone hands us a board, and most of the thinking has been done for us. We just have to move Colonel Mustard into the room that contains the wrench.

[1:19:10] Richard Holmes: Right.

[1:19:11] Rupert Holmes: Right. Okay, am I free associating here like crazy?

[1:19:14] Richard Holmes: No, that's excellent. That's beautiful.

[1:19:16] Rupert Holmes: No, and I mean, it's like you said, even if Shakespeare is not the inventor of the soliloquy, when we talk about the soliloquy, the first thing that comes to mind is going to be this great speech, to be or not to be. So even if Gilbert and Sullivan aren't inventing these conventions, the great examples of them are in their finest works, are in their earliest works. And, uh, I think any listeners who are not familiar with the works of Rupert Holmes as well, even though we don't have a chapter here about your musicals, I would definitely encourage people to check them out. I personally think there are lyrics, I think there are moments, I think there are musical motifs that Gilbert and Sullivan, if I may say so, would be jealous of. I think there's so much wit going on here that they are something that we should be studying when we talk about key musicals as well.

[1:20:09] Andrew Child: So thank you so much, Rupert, for joining us today.

[1:20:12] Rupert Holmes: Well, it's been a pleasure. Thank you.

[1:20:13] Andrew Child: You're very kind. I appreciate it, and I appreciate your knowledge of some of the things I've done. I really, that's very nice. Thank you as well. It's been a lot of fun talking about these people.

[1:20:23] Rupert Holmes: Really, I'm so glad.

[1:20:25] Andrew Child: And to our listeners, please make sure to purchase a copy of 50 Key Stage Musicals by visiting Routledge.com or by clicking in today's show description. If you want to learn more about HMS PINAFORE, please also review the links in the below description. I am Andrew Child, and thank you for listening to 50 Key Stage Musicals, the podcast.