THE SILLY CONCERT TO END ALL SILLY CONCERTS

3rd June 1978 was a sweltering hot day, when Selwyn Tillett gave his last "silly concert" in the Music Room of Peterhouse, Cambridge, among a halo of brick dust from nearby rebuilding. It was a suitably zany end to a series of zany concerts. It cerebrated the feast of St.Kevin of Glendalough, the National Day of Tunisia, and the centenary (more or less) of H.M.S. Pinafore. Selwyn Tillett presided genially through the evening (getting more and more inebriated as it wore on) and assisted by Stephen Perrins. The proceedings were in fancy dress, Selwyn in Egyptian garb, yours truly as a Chinese mandarin, Tony Pitcairn as a fish, Charles Nettleton in drag, James Owen & Robin Angus as assorted clerics, Robert Ball in a frock coat, Bill Hanna in fencing gear, Stephen Perrins and Joe Firth as Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men, John Lotherington as Dracula, Adrian Mathias as an Indian houseboy, Nicolette Ebsworth as a flapper, Peter Read and his girlfriend as Caesar (or Anthony?) and Cleopatra, etc., The concert began with the singularly uninspired Tunisian National Anthem, then Jane Lumbard sang "When Jack and I were children", with Stephen as “Jack” doing his trick of standing on a chair to make himself look taller. The song alludes to the singer being taller and shorter than Jack at various periods of their adolescence, and as Jane is tall and Stephen short, it was very funny. Ann Luff and Selwyn Tillett performed the hilariously funny "Balcony Scene" from In Town by Osmond Carr (of His Excellency fame). This piece deserves to be better known; who could resist such lines as: “It is hard to be standing like this, my love, Eight feet and a quarter from bliss, my love”. I sang "Pansy faces" accompanied by Stephen. It isn't a very good song, but we sent it up, Stephen playing up to me marvelously. In celebration of the centenary of H.M.S. Pinafore Stephen & Selwyn had done an arrangement of the Overture for instruments that happened to be available, which were: flute, recorder, clarinet, bassoon, violin, 'cello, trumpet, euphonium, toy drum, triangle, toy cymbals. The resultant melee was fun, if not quite what Sullivan intended. Ralph Searle and Adrian Mathias performed one of the latter's compositions "Tribute to a Vegetable" 'with words by Ogden Nash' the words were 'Parsley is ghastly' sung at the end of an interminable piano intro and vocal cadenza. Anna Russell would have loved it. James Owen sang "Time was when love and I" very amusingly. We then had a trio from that curious Savoy opera The Lucky Star, based on Chabrier's L'Etoile, but virtually rewritten. The trio is for a man and two girls but the man is played as a 'trouser' alto, and in this version it was done by Jane Lumbard as the alto and John Lotherington and Stephen Perrins, singing falsetto, as the two girls. Stephen then sang the Fish Song from Merrie England, with the Passmore interpolations as on the record (ex "The Art of the Savoyard') and then followed one of the highlights of the evening as John Lotherington launched into the funniest by far rendering I have heard, of "A tenor all singers above" with cadenzas in a soprano falsetto going up to a top B in alt. When sent, back for an encore, he remarked "Do you want to destroy my voice?" so of course we all yelled "Yes", and Stephen even had the temerity to say "What voice?" In the encore John managed a final rather squashed top C. It must have been difficult to follow that, but the programme was well arranged, and the next item was another "high". This was the "High Priest's Song" which Adrian Mathias had dug out of a Cambridge undergraduate review called Egyptian Ecstasy that he had written years ago. The song was sung by Selwyn with Adrian at the piano, accompanied by slide projections of Egyptian tombs, mummies and so on. After a solo by Ann Luff from Ivan Caryll's opera Dandy Dick Whittington, we had the serious culturespot of the evening the last movement of the Grand Duo Concertante for Clarinet and Piano, by K. M. von Weber, played by that superb clarinetist, Charles Nettleton, and that Gerald Moore the second, Stephen Perrins. Peter Read (countertenor) led in the part-song "In the gloaming" and then we had Noel Coward's "I wonder what happened to him?" from Sigh No More. Stephen Perrins (the ubiquitous Stephen Perrins) played and sang the verses, while Selwyn and I spoke (a la Western Brothers) the two bibulous Indian Army blokes. We had rewritten the refrains so that they took off various other performers and members of the audience. James Owen sang the delightful ballad "Love, could I only tell thee" by J.M. Capel, in the sort of way that only James Owen can. It was after this that "Come into the garden Maud" was inserted. Stephen, who was playing, began the now familiar intro, when who should jump up but Robin Angus, making a very welcome, unannounced “guest” appearance. This majestic personage, imposingly dressed in clerical garb, bore down upon the unsuspecting Stephen and launched into an evangelical tirade "Are you playing that lewd song, 'Come into the garden Maud'?, tremble rash man …" Stephen nearly fell off the piano stool with surprise, and his accompaniment tailed off as Robin went on "Enticing a young lady into a garden, at night, ALONE ... etc. etc … And you expect me, a minister of the Church of Scotland to follow you into the paths of Unrighteousness”. A voice from the audience yelled "Well yes, that's the idea". Robin abruptly dropped the act. "It's great fun, isn't it?" he observed "Come on, Stephen." Stephen began the intro again and Robin sang the song in his richest and fruitiest voice. After that Adrian Mathias performed that marvelous piano dissertation "The Arrival of the British in Delhi" by John Pridham. Predictably, this was encored, and Adrian obliged with “The Teddy Bears Picnic” during the course of which various members of the audience stole up quietly and placed teddy bears on the grand piano, culminating in Stephen Perrins being lifted bodily up and placed beside them. This was followed by a song called "The Twiddley Bits" from Howard Talbot's A Chinese Honeymoon, with Jane Lumbard singing about them, and (perhaps predictably) Stephen playing them. Selwyn Tillett then sang "Why can't a woman be more like a man?" from My Fair Lady, and "TitWillow". Stephen returned for “Vespers” from When We Were Very Young by H. FraserSimpson and then we had "An Italian Salad" (the finale to any Italian opera) by Richard Genee, a remarkable piece, the words consisting entirely of musical terms set to music. It was funny, but unfortunately goes on a bit too long, the joke is really over before the piece is. Charles Nettleton was the soloist. After this, Selwyn made what he thought was his closing speech, and it was after this that Stephen and I sprung our little surprise on him. We had written a song about him (I wrote the words and Stephen the music) and we both sang it to him, with Stephen accompanying. Selwyn was a bit stunned but managed to make another short speech, after which the proceedings closed with the college song, "Carmen Petrinum", and then Andrew Smith jumped up and made another speech in which he gave three cheers for Selwyn so with a series of protracted finalettas the meeting finally closed well after midnight. MICHAEL WALTERS

THE MAUD CLUB

Readers who have seen the accounts of the zany goings on at Cambridge recorded in these pages may be interested to know that a Club called the Maud Club has been instituted for those who have taken part in Selwyn Tillett's silly concerts. Membership is restricted to those who have. The Maud Club is socalled because at every meeting it is obligatory for Balfe's song "Come into the garden, Maud" to be sung. The Editor of Gilbertian Gossip is also the Chairman of the Maud Club, and editor of its own private journal, "The TwiddleyBits" which comes out intermittently, and contains mainly "in" club news.

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Web page created 3 January 2001