Full of the joys of early May,
Winter is so far away
Many years ago, a friend of mine suggested we went to see a new musical by Stephen Sondheim. At the time I had not heard of him (unaware that Sondheim had written the lyrics to West Side Story, the only musical I had/ve ever 110% enjoyed).
My friend, I discovered that night was dyslectic. The musical we had bought tickets to see turned out to have book, music and lyrics by somebody called Steven Sydney (something like that anyway - we're talking c 1965 here). It was terrible. Abomninable. A cast of no more than ten pranced around on a hollow stage, shaking a flimsy, badly painted set. Dreary song followed dreary song, all set to variations of the same jolly thumpy tune. The only pleasure to be had was to revel in its camp awfulness.
We should have guessed. The play was staged in the Westminster Theatre, at the time the home of a puritanical neo-religious sect called Moral Rearmament. In the interval we had to go next door to the pub, because the theatre, on principle, had no bar. It's only then we bought a programme and discovered my friend's hero Sondheim was in no way involved.
(Why did we stay? Maybe we reasoned that it couldn't get worse and it might end with an unexpected ironic twist. Hey, we were young, we were optimists... we were wrong)
All I can remember now is the couplet at the beginning of the first song of the show. I often recall it at this time of year, as if it contains some universal truth.
And today the sun was out, the sea looked brilliant, everybody seemed to be smiling... And I smiled, too. Partly because of the weather and other reasons I had to be happy - and also because I remembered, x million years ago, the cast singing in boisterous chorus words that were not Stephen Sondheim's:
Full of the joys of early May,
Winter is so far away.....
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