DON'T CRY ELAINE, MY BAMBINA
The Times, June 25, 1978
The RUSSELL DAVIES Column (parody review)

Our theatre correspondent Brinley Mortlake writes: At last, it is with us. The months of ballyhoo are over, a new British musical burst triumphantly on to the London scene this week. Yes, Elaine, the heart-rending story of a small-time showgirl who rose from nothing to become a big-time showgirl. Before co-authors Tim Lloyd and Andrew Rice-Pudding came up with their idea, most of us had never heard of Elaine Paige, nor of the way she once enslaved a nation; but the signs are that few of London's theatregoers are going to be left in ignorance by the end of the decade--and I mean the Eighties of course!

Opening night was a personal triumph for hitherto unknown soubrette Sue Brett, 21, who plays Elaine with a magnificent combination of teeth and more teeth. Appearing in the opening scene as the unknown Elaine, a down-at-heel broom-pusher at a seaside theatre, she captures the audience's hearts with her very first number, the palpable hit 'Don't Queue for Me, I'm the Cleaner.'

The rags-to-riches story quickly unfolds, and within a couple of scenes during which Elaine's little belowstairs companion, Buttonez, begs her to stay with him--this with the second hit song of the night 'Don't Fly from Me, Large Señora'--Elaine is off to the big city, there to have her fateful meeting with the all-powerful Igor Prince, known to his adoring people as The Director.

At first, Elaine resists his clumsy advances ('Don't Try for Me, Urgent Feeler'), but during the long and terrifying audition scenes, The Director becomes increasingly impressed with her talent and in a touching scene, we see The Director himself calling on Elaine at her barely furnished flat to serenade her with a sure-fire success 'Don't Shy from Me, Spartan Teaser.' Soon, he is showering her with gifts of flowers, clothes, jewellery--even property and the interval arrives amid storms of applause.

Opening with the established chartbuster 'Won't You Come Home, Che Guevara,' the second half picks up pace with a hilarious quarrel scene between two Jewish agents, one of whom feels he is being bullied out of the chance to sign Elaine by the other's tough Mediterranean business tactics. This rousing comedy hit, 'Don't Haifa Me, Arthur Wiener,' brings us to the final palpitating audition scene--and you've guessed it, Elaine gets the part.

Immediately, she becomes Prince's right-hand woman, representing his regime at all public functions and delighting the Press and public with her rapier-like teeth. By now a decidedly up-at-heel figure, she is careful to keep all other women out of the picture ('Don't Spy for Me, Mata Hari'), except her mother, whom she summons from her distant seaside home. This shadowy, controversial figure is played with power and resource by the hitherto unknown Gladys Bickerstaff, celebrates with her own hit feature number 'Bye Bye from Me, Bognor Regis.' And so the stage is set for the thrilling climax of Opening Night, where Elaine's magical hold over her enraptured public is gloriously confirmed in the gigantic world-wide hit we all know and love, 'Don't Drive a Mean Tartan Vivi' may not have much to do with the plot, but it certainly wows the debenture-holders in the stalls.

But Elaine, at the very height of her fame, is struck down with a mystery ailment. A choir of doctors clusters round her bedside with every appearance of concern, but their smoothly harmonised diagnoses are either dangerously scoffing ('Don't Cry for Mere Emphysema') or fatally casual ('Won't Die--Could Be Scarlet Fever').

Elaine sinks lower and lower and from the lush depths of her bed croaks out a moving last request, the tragic 'Throat Dry--for Me, a Ribena.' At last, the midnight bell tolls and Elaine turns into a pumpkin, and it is left to the faithful Buttonez, half Chorus, half Fool, to enjoin us to respectful silence with his last lonely melody (a hit if I ever heard one) 'Don't Ply Your Green Concertina.'

Can one have reservations about a show that is booked so far ahead? Not easy, perhaps. But there will be those who will wonder quite what the authors' attitude is to their actress-heroine. Are they in love with her, or merely besotted? Is Elaine just a symbol of the struggling chorine made good, or should we see her as a little-known song-and-dance artiste who achieves an unexpected success? Politically, is she to be regarded as neutral, or as unaligned? Whose camp is she in? Everybody's camp? Well, perhaps they are, but it will be a long time before you'll get the British musical admitting it. All I know is, I shall have 'Go Climb a Tree, Dalai Lama' echoing around my head until the next Noel Coward revival comes around.

After the show, I asked Lloyd and Rice-Pudding what their next project would be. 'Several other subjects suggest themselves,' Lloyd told me, as he brushed away the swirling cheques from his lapels. 'But most of all we are fascinated by the story of Julie Covington. She was sort of a saint. She gave it all away. A medieval figure, really, like Joan of Arc, a little bit beyond our modern comprehension. You just can't walk out on 15 million quid like that. Yet here was a woman who did it. I think we should make her legend live on.'

Neither Lloyd nor Rice-Pudding would comment himself as to whom they had in mind for this exacting role; so I asked them for a World Cup Final prediction instead. 'No Cruyff? Ah me! Argentina,' they said, just like that.



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