Michael Law on bringing Coward’s songs to the English Music Festival
Michael Law (photo: David Lewis)
This month, a whole concert of Noel Coward songs will featured as part of the English Music Festival for the first time in its history. Ahead of bringing his concert to Dorchester Abbey on Sunday 29th, we spoke to Michael Law about the event.
The hour-long concert contains many favourite Coward songs and one or two surprises. It is a rare opportunity to hear the ‘lost’ cut verse from Mad About The Boy, intended to be sung by a businessman in the New York production of Words and Music, including the following lines:
Mad about the boy / I know it’s silly
But I’m mad about the boy / And even Dr Freud cannot explain
Those vexing dreams / I’ve had about the boy
“I’ve also put in one song that he recorded, but didn’t write,” says Law, “which is It’s Only You, by Carroll Gibbons”.
Carroll Gibbons was one of the biggest bandleaders of the time, and was resident at the Savoy during the Second World War. In his autobiography, Coward recalled:
Three days after I had moved into the Savoy, Gladys and Bill Taylor and I were dining in the Grill, which was crowded. The usual Alert had sounded and we were half-way through dinner when two bombs dropped near-by, the second of which blew in one of the doors of the restaurant. There was dead silence for a split second after the crash and then everyone started talking again. With gallantry, tinged, I suspect, with a strong urge to show off, I sprang on the orchestra platform where Carroll Gibbons was playing the piano, and sang several songs before anyone could stop me. The startled diners had little chance, anyhow, because Carroll was on my side and I had the microphone. Faced with the limited choice of staying where they were or rushing out into the blitz, the majority resigned themselves to the inevitable and we had quite a little party.
“I heard that story from Judy Campbell”, says Law, “Gibbons asked Coward to come up and sing and he said ‘I’m here with a talented young actress, she could sing her Nightingale song’: A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square.”
Law is currently considering which Coward numbers to include in a forthcoming album of English songwriters for his own dance band, The Piccadilly Dance Orchestra “I’ve been thinking about The Younger Generation or Mad About The Boy,” he says.
Is there something distinctly English about Noel Coward’s songs and performances? “In a way, he represents more of a ‘style’ than his ‘Englishness’”, says Law, and it’s that classic style that he will bring to his performance at Dorchester Abbey. “I think people will enjoy the incongruity of some of Coward’s lyrics in that setting... It’s an hour show so you can have a nice meal and a cocktail before coming to the concert!”
Michael Law’s concert of Noel Coward songs is on Sunday 29th May, 9.30pm to 10.30pm at Dorchester Abbey, Dorchester-on-Thames:
https://www.englishmusicfestival.org.uk/2022-may-festival/box-office/001-box-office-full-price.php
