Flanders and Swann
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The British duo "Flanders and Swann" were the actor and singer Michael Flanders (1922–1975) and the composer, pianist and linguist Donald Swann (1923–1994) who collaborated in writing comic songs. Between 1956 and 1967 they performed some of their songs in their long-running two-man revues At The Drop Of A Hat and At The Drop Of Another Hat.
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The partnership
Flanders and Swann both attended Westminster School but went their separate ways during the Second World War. However, a chance meeting in 1948 led to a musical partnership writing songs and light opera; Swann writing the music and Flanders writing the words. Their songs were performed by artists such as Ian Wallace and Joyce Grenfell.
In December 1956, Flanders and Swann hired the New Lindsey Theatre, Notting Hill, to perform their own two-man revue At The Drop Of A Hat, which opened on New Year's Eve. Flanders sang a selection of the songs that they had written, interspersed with comic monologues, and accompanied by Swann on the piano. An unusual feature of their act was that, due to Flanders' having had polio in 1943, both men remained seated for their shows: Swann remained behind his piano, and Flanders used a wheelchair.
The show was successful and transferred next month to the Fortune Theatre, where it ran for over two years, before touring in the UK, the USA, Canada and Switzerland.
In 1963 Flanders and Swann opened in a second revue, At The Drop Of Another Hat. Over the next four years they toured a combination of the two shows in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, the USA and Canada, before finishing up at the Booth Theatre on Broadway. On April 9 1967 they performed their last live show together. Ten days later, they moved into a studio and recorded the show for television.
Over the course of 11 years, Flanders and Swann had given nearly 2,000 live performances. Although their performing partnership ended in 1967, they remained friends afterwards and collaborated on occasional projects.
Timeline
| Date | Venue |
|---|---|
| 1956 | New Lindsey Theatre, Notting Hill |
| 1957–59 | Fortune Theatre (suspended one month because of Flanders' pneumonia) |
| 1959 | Edinburgh Festival |
| 1959–60 | Golden Theater, New York |
| 1960–61 | 12-city tour of USA, plus Toronto |
| 1961 | Switzerland |
| 1962 | 9-city tour of UK, plus Toronto |
| 1963 | 9-city tour of UK |
| 1963 | Haymarket Theatre |
| 1964 | 4-city tour of Australia, 5 NZ, plus Hong Kong |
| 1965 | 3-city tour of UK |
| 1965 | Globe Theatre (now the Gielgud) |
| 1966 | 9-city tour of USA, plus Toronto |
| 1966–67 | New York |
source: Sleeve notes to the CD box set "The Complete F & S"
Songs of Flanders and Swann
Flanders and Swann's songs are characterised by wit, gentle satire, complex rhyming schemes, and memorable choruses. They wrote over eighty comic songs together; the following selection gives an indication of their range:
- "All Gall" — a political satire based on the long career of Charles de Gaulle. At the time of writing, de Gaulle had recently vetoed the UK's first application to join the European Economic Community.
- "First and Second Law" — perhaps the only comic song ever written about thermodynamics.
- "Ill Wind" — Flanders' words sung to a slightly cut version, with cadenza, of the rondo finale of Mozart's Horn Concerto in E flat major, K. 495. Image:Ltspkr.png An excerpt from "Ill Wind" Help with listening to audio
- "Madeira M'Dear" — a song full of complex word-play, including three oft-quoted examples of syllepsis.
- "Misalliance" — a political allegory concerning a love affair between a honeysuckle and a bindweed.
- "P** P* B**** B** D******" or "Pee Po Belly Bum Drawers" — a song comparing the use of profanity among the intelligentsia to playground swearing.
- "Slow Train" — a nostalgic song about the railway stations closed by Dr Beeching.
- "The Gasman Cometh" — relating the visits of a succession of tradesmen, each coming to repair the damage done by the previous tradesman.
- "The Hippopotamus" — one of Flanders and Swann's best known songs ("Mud, mud, glorious mud"), and one of a range of songs that they wrote about different beasts, including "The Gnu", "The Warthog" and "The Armadillo".
- "The Reluctant Cannibal" — an argument between father and son (Son: "Eating people is wrong", Father: "Must have been someone he ate" — "he used to be a regular anthropophaguy").
- "A Transport of Delight" — with an increasing refrain about the "London Transport, diesel-engined, ninety-seven–horse-power om-ni-bus".
- "20 tons of TNT" — possibly the catchiest song ever written about thermonuclear weapons.
- "The War of 14–18" — a translation of a French song by Georges Brassens, this song 'celebrates' World War I.
- "The Wompom" — a tale about a fictitious creature and the British Industry that stems from it.
- "In The Desert" ("Верблюды", lit. = "camels") — a "traditional Russian" song, performed by Donald Swann. He helpfully interpolates a spoken line-by-line translation, which makes the song excruciatingly dull, thereby showing that music in other languages is occasionally best left untranslated.
Monologues
Flanders' comic monologues include:
- "By Air" — about the vogue for air travel.
- "Greensleeves" — about the background to the composition of the famous English air.
- "Los Olividados" — describing a festival akin to bull-fighting, where the bull is replaced with an olive.