London lads: Clive Barnes, Anthony Newley…and Danny

Two lively London lads are in the news this week: Clive Barnes, the dance and drama critic, who died in New York on Wednesday; and Anthony Newley whose songs and shows are celebrated in a new musical, The Fool Who Dared to Dream, in a Highgate pub.

They were both fairly basic fellows, and Barnes was always proud of the fact that he alone championed Newley’s signature work, Stop the World — I Want to Get Off, when it opened in 1961.

Newley sent him a note when his review appeared: “I only hope you’re right.” And he was. But he changed his mind when Sammy Davis Jr led a disastrously updated Broadway revival in 1978: “This is a musical that would have been far better kept in the archives.”

Barnes was renowned in his days as drama critic on the New York Times for always championing British writers on Broadway, though he must have done something to upset Alan Bennett. When Barnes was given the CBE for services to drama in 1975, Bennett wryly commented that this was akin to decorating Goering with the DSO for his contribution to the war effort.

Critics are not supposed to be liked, but Barnes was generally liked because he was never personal in his reviews, though he took everything personally as a writer, and this gave his style its freshness and clarity. He never beat about the bush.

He was tireless in zipping between London and New York, and the pressure sometimes took its toll. He slept soundly through a big West End show and an irate producer rang the New York Times offices to complain.

The producer was told to hold his horses while a patient editor informed him that Barnes had already filed his notice and it was a rave. Fine, said the producer, withdrawing his complaint on the spot. 

In private, Barnes was kind and softly spoken, and it was always a great pleasure to meet him in a theatre foyer or one of the Broadway watering holes. One of his greatest achievements, perhaps, was his part in launching the series of magazines devoted to the arts in London in the early 1950s. He was most closely involved in Dance and Dancers and Plays and Players among the seven titles which alsoincluded Films and Filming and Books and Bookmen, and many critics owe their careers to the start they had on these sadly defunct publications.

The playwright Snoo Wilson (who once wrote for Plays and Players under the pseudonym Andy Boyle and subsequently obituarised Boyle when he tired of his company; Boyle was run over by a bus on his way to collect another rejection slip at the Royal Court) suggested we start another title for gay butchers called Mince and Mincing. I demurred:  I thought that market was already well covered, somehow.

The Newley show at the Upstairs at the Gatehosue would not have pleased Clive. The impersonation is bland and the songs are delivered without any of that spotlight hugging strangeness and sheer charismatic appetite that characterised Newley. There’s one brilliantly original touch, though: we never hear Newley’s most famous song, “What Kind of Fool Am I?”

This is like presenting the complete works of Shakespeare without Hamlet, or a Beethoven retrospective without the Moonlight Sonata. Nice one. But what a great catalogue of songs. Clive was right about Newley first time round.

The Gatehouse opening was full of Newley fans who cheered valiantly at the end, but only because of the material. Honor Blackman looked slightly distressed in the company of Nickolas Grace, but Newley nut Danny Baker, the radio presenter and all-round Cockney, was enjoying himself so much that he joined in most of the songs and chatted incessantly between them.

Danny was with his friend, producer Alex Armitage, who runs the Noel Gay agency. Alex tells me that Danny has always wanted to write a show about Anthony Newley, and now could be the time. He hasn’t been gazumped by this one.

One of Alex’s hottest properties is Me and My Girl, and there’s a lot of interest at the moment in a major revival. Alex asked me if the production of the new La Cage aux Folles was okay at the Playhouse, and I said most certainly it was. So maybe we should be standing by for an announcement any day soon from the Menier Chocolate Factory…