Le monde des musicals

Musical (1960)

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Musique: Anthony Hopkins •
Paroles: Peter Powell •
Livret: Peter Powell •
Production à la création:

One of the most fascinating of 'real-life' British musicals, JOHNNY THE PRIEST told the story of a young vicar's attempt to improve the lives of teenagers living in a run-down London dockland. Acknowledged as one of the most innovative and inventive scores of the period, this terrific score with its superb big band arrangements by Gordon Langford emerges refreshened in Alan Bunting's immaculate sound restoration. Antony Hopkins' remarkable score catapulted the British musical into new territory, offering not only the best songs ever about ping-pong and wallpaper, but moments of great beauty.

In Maybury, somewhere in London's dockland, a young priest, the Revd. Richard Highfield (Jeremy Brett), does his best to put the youth of the district on the straight and narrow. The amount of energy he uses in his crusade concerns the church council, but his wife Mary (Stephanie Voss) supports him in his endeavours.
A young delinquent, Johnny (Bunny May), is one of the vicar's successes. Highfield gets Johnny into the Navy, but then the boy steals a telescope. He asks Highfield to give the police a false alibi, but Highfield cannot find it in his conscience to do so, and Johnny is thus put back to an uncertain future.

1 Johnny The Priest peut-être considéré comme un Flop musical

Adapted from 'The Telescope' by R. C. Sherriff.

Johnny the Priest was the first and only musical to be written by the 'serious' composer Antony Hopkins. The librettist, Peter Powell, had directed Sherriff's play The Telescope at Birmingham, and co-directed Zuleika at the Saville in 1957. Johnny the Priest was his first attempt at book and lyrics. The director Norman Marshall was an intelligent choice, with a reputation for 'people's' theatre. His involvement showed the Players management meant business, just as they had when they brought Jean Meyer from France to direct their production of The Crooked Mile. The resident designer and co-director (with his partner Don Gemmell) of the Players Theatre, Reginald Woolley, had also designed The Crooked Mile. As the programme stated 'Johnny the Priest has, as you will see, presented even greater problems, and he walked around the dock area of London with a camera before starting work on the designs'. Woolley's designs tended to be gloomy, and there is no doubt that he was the perfect choice for Johnny the Priest.

1. Doing the Bump
2. The Little Box
3. Vicarage Tea
4. Be Not Afraid
5. I'm Your Girl
6. Beyond the Narrow Streets
7. Rooftops
8. The Foggy Foggy Blues
9. He'll Let You Down
10. Ping Pong
11. Johnny Earn Peanuts
12. A Tanner's Worth of Tune
13. Charge Me
14. A Boy Called Johnny
15. Stormy Evening

Aucun dossier informatif complémentaire concernant Johnny The Priest

Aucun dossier informatif complémentaire concernant Johnny The Priest

• The theatre programme for Johnny the Priest carried an advertisement from Decca announcing the imminent appearance of the original cast recording. Unfortunately, Decca had Malcolm Arnold, not Hopkins, as the composer! Anyway, the recording, once made, was not issued, but put in the Decca archives. Only many years later was the recording issued in a limited edition.
• The 'teenagers' that make up the chorus are a patently bogus bunch, with thinly veiled RADA accents. The second female lead, Frances Buckeridge, is very East End until she has to go into her head voice, when she becomes very 'cut glass'
• Antony Hopkins does not list his score for Johnny the Priest among his works.
• Johnny the Priest was Jeremy Brett's last appearance in a musical play. It was Bunny May's only starring performance in a London musical (although he was one of the gaggle of young boys in Passion Flower Hotel a few years later). It was also Frances Buckeridge's one and only London lead.