The Biograph Girl

Imperial Opera presents the British Hollywood musical

The Biograph Girl

In London: 10 & 11 November at 8pm; 11 & 12 November at 4pm.
at Hoxton Hall, 130 Hoxton Street.
In Budleigh Salterton: Saturday 2 December at 2.30pm and 7.30pm.
at The Public Hall, Station Road.

The Biograph Girl salutes Hollywood's glorious era of silent pictures. Parading the movies' earliest heroes, heroines and clowns, it takes a refreshing look at the birth of the "flickers" and that memorable age of stardust and stars, of tinsel glamour and scandals, of sky-rocketing salaries and tremendous vitality. It is a nostalgic reminiscence of the silent movies seen through the eyes of four famous figures: Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish, both of them great silent film stars; D. W. Griffith, the most famous of all the American silent directors and Adolph Zukor, one of the studio bosses who laid the foundations of the movie industry we know today.

The show is written by Warner Brown and David Heneker, writer of Irma La Douce, Expresso Bongo, Half a Sixpence and Charlie Girl. It will be directed by David Phipps-Davis, with musical direction from newcomer Anna Tetsuya and choreography from Christiane Docking.

Review by Matthew Smith

Having seen "Mack and Mabel" in the recent run at the Criterion I wasn't sure if I needed to see another silent-movie era musical. Indeed, this show seems a rather poor cousin to Mack and Mabel, with a less memorable score and very similar plot. Whilst the material might not be the greatest this was a fine production in the minimal style that David Phipps-Davis seems to prefer.

The small cast featured many familiar faces and some good performances. Shannon Holmes was very entertaining and surprisingly masculine as Adolph Zukor. Alex Young, Kate Feldschreiber and Ashley Mercer were all engaging. The chorus numbers produced a fine sound for a relatively small group.

The production worked particularly well in Hoxton Hall. Black box staging was a good decision on the relatively small stage. There was plenty ofinterest provided by costume and performance so the production still felt quite full. Overall I found this an enjoyable and well executed production that did well with middling material.

Review by Wendy Norman

On a rather gloomy Sunday afternoon we ventured forth from Old Street Tube in search of Hoxton Hall, the venue for Imperial Opera’s latest production, "The Biograph Girl". Hoxton Hall was a new venue for Imperial Opera. It is a restored music hall and is a charming, small theatre which is a good size for the company.

The Biography Girl (Warner Brown and David Heneker) is a musical which follows some of the characters of the early years of film making, featuring in particular the contrast between the commercial and the idealistic aspirations of the early directors. This show ran for 57 performances in the West End in 1980, however Director David Phipps Davis thought it worthy of a revival.

Most of the cast of 11 took more than one part which involved some intriguing gender swaps, Shannon Holmes was particularly convincing as an early movie moghul. The four main characters were played convincingly, we were particularly impressed by Kate Feldschreiber as Rose Smith and Ashley Mercer as DW Griffith.

The production overall was very slick and smooth. The chorus was well drilled and the musical numbers were performed well, accompanied by the Musical Director, Anna Tetsuya on solo piano. The unrelieved piano as always is somewhat dull and the overall show would have benefited from some instrumental variation. My favourite number was the quartet "Put it in the Tissue Paper" which was sung beautifully by Jo Webber, Richard Chatwin, Kate Feldschrieber and Alex Young.

Was the show worthy of revival? The tentative and ambiguous relationship between Lillian Gish, played by Jo Webber and DW Griffith is at the heart of the piece, yet the inability of both to express any feelings does not endear them to the audience and slows down the pace frustratingly. On the whole I was left feeling that I would have preferred to see this very competent team performing more engaging material.

Review by Tim Brierley

Diary of a Nobody: Sunday, 12th November

To Hoxton on a soft afternoon of turning colours and falling leaves (after a fine lunch by Columbia Road market) to the Music Hall where, in the deep well of the old auditorium – all scarlet swag and black wrought ironwork – there played The Biograph Girl, being the story of the golden age of the silver screen as seen through the eyes of its luminous personalities, and as presented by the grandly titled "Imperial Opera" company.

Here was an entertainment of nostalgic affection and gentle amusement apt for an autumn Sunday afternoon, performed by a small, versatile ensemble to the energetic and protean accompaniment of solo piano. Such exuberant role-doubling and cross-dressing challenged all assumptions about gender, class and age while delivering a gallery of characters from performer to producer to pressman, at the heart of which – most notably – stood Ashley Mercer’s splendid DW Griffith, all James Stewart etched into his face; the feline steel and guile of Alex Young’s Gladys Smith behind the face and curls of "America’s sweetheart", Mary Pickford; the touching emotional integrity of Jo Webber as Lillian Gish. All embodied the eternal conflicts between principle and pragmatism, ego and vision, art and money, never more sharply engaged than in the birth of the twentieth century art form that married art and technology in ways never previously imagined.

Here in the end was a light-hearted show wearing its heart on its sleeve but keeping the head engaged with some searching questions about a world beyond language, the nature of reality and ways of seeing. At times simply a play with songs, the show works best when narrative, character and feeling are conveyed through pure musical form as epitomised by the strong stage presence of Kate Feldschreiber who, as Rose Smith – Griffiths' assistant - constantly engaged the audience with eye, word and music.

But this was a true company show with an infectious energy smartly and expertly directed by David Phipps-Davis and his MD Anna Tetsuya. This was a group who clearly enjoyed playing together, who were glad to be there and glad you were there too to share their fun. On an afternoon of sombre news in the world outside, "Imperial Opera" put a smile on your face. And that, as they say, is showbiz.

Review by Gus Paul

The Biograph Girl is the story of the flickers - film making in the early 20th century. Based on real people from the world of film (the Biograph Girl herself is Mary Pickford), the story centres around film making David Warwick (D.W.) Griffith and his stars Pickford and Lillian Gish.

This is clearly fertile ground for a musical as Jerry Herman penned Mack and Mabel at around the same. Although both shows feature Mack Sennett (played here by the enthusiastic Richard Chatwin on his Imperial Opera debut), they are musically very differernt pieces. Mack and Mabel's slight more jazzy score reflecting Sennett's desire to "make the world laugh", where as The Biograph Girl is much more reflective of the more serious Griffith.

The Biograph Girl is, however, more focused on the business of making movies - D.W. Griffith's battle with the money men against his grand ideas and the stars and their battle to be properly rewarded by the fat cat studio owners. Although generally effective, the book is fairly slow in places and I found the score didn't grab me on the first listen, except in a couple of places.

David Phipps-Davis brings some good performances out of his strong cast (you wouldn't really expect anything less), and the staging is particulary effective in the lovely Hoxton Hall, a small music hall tucked away inside a community arts centre.
Ashley Mercer as D.W. Griffith, Jo webber as Lillian Gish and Alex Young as Mary Pickford give strong performances, Alex Young in particular capturing the steel cored innocence of the young Mary Pickford as she manipulates more money out of the studio bosses. There was good support too from Dale Bassett and Kate Feldschreiber.

I'm not too sure on the idea of casting Shannon Holmes in the male part of Adolph Zuker or Siegfried Hodgson as Mother Gish, but perhaps they were the only people suitable for their roles. They were generally effective.

The choreography was both effective and well rehearsed, and the staging was fluid and co-ordinated.

And the lighting was lovely.

Background: Workin' on Flickers

The original idea for The Biograph Girl came from the stage play Flickers, written in the early seventies by actor-turned-playwright Warner Brown. Having had no luck at finding a producer, Brown sought help from the experienced composer David Heneker in re-writing the piece as a vehicle for an American TV company. The partnership was an unlikely one: Heneker, though an internationally-known musical theatre composer, was seventy-four and had not had a hit since 1965 with Charlie Girl; Brown was twenty-nine, unsure of himself as a dramatist and had never written a musical before. But it worked well enough for both men to want to stay together when the studio chiefs in New York lost interest in the project. Loathe to part with what he considered a worthwhile property, Heneker consulted old friend Harold Fielding, the producer of several of his previous works, including the hit Half a Sixpence. Fielding quite liked the piece and, appreciating the international appeal of the silent picture era, persuaded the team to turn Flickers back into a stage show. His only proviso was that they should keep it small-scale. This could have been shrewd commercial sense, but it may have had something to do with the fact that his other show at the time - the lavish and costly On the Twentieth Century - was losing money at Her Majesty's.

By late 1979 they had fashioned an ingenious and nostalgic account of the legends and myths of the silent film era, starting in 1912 and finishing in 1928, the year after Warner Brothers had made The Jazz Singer and "talkies" were born. The golden age of the silver screen was presented through the eyes of the larger-than-life pioneers who made it possible: Mary Pickford, D.W. Griffith, Mack Sennett, Lillian Gish and Adolph Zukor. The underlying theme was the contrast between the artistic aspirations of Griffith and Gosh and the commercial instincts of Pickford and Zukor. Gentle, funny and yet still pointed, the piece was clearly influenced by Mack and Mabel which, though a flop on Broadway in 1974, had attracted considerable interest.

Fielding surprised Heneker and Brown by choosing Victor Spinetti (right) as director and casting the shows largely from young unknowns, the one exception being Bruce Barry as Griffith, an established star in Australia, trying to make his name in England. The decision to try out at the Gardener Centre on the campus of Sussex University was another surprise.

At the last moment, a TV series pre-empted the title Flickers, so Heneker and Brown decided to go for The Biograph Girl instead. This was a reference not only to one of Mary Pickford's many titles, but also to the string of turn-of-the-century Gaiety shows, which had included The Shop Girl and The Circus Girl. The title change necessitated writing a new Jerry Herman-esque number and led to the Pickford part being enlarged. Making a virtue out of necessity, Fielding persuaded nationally-known actress and singer Sheila White to take what was now the title role. The Biograph Girl opened in October 1980 to an enthusiastic reception. When London's Phoenix Theatre suddenly became available, Fielding decided to bring the show straight to the West End.

In 1980, the West End was dominated by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's Evita; small-scale musicals tended to flop. But with a budget of under £12,000, absurdly low even in 1980, Fielding figured he could afford to take a chance. Labelling the show, "the musical's answer to the Mini Metro," he promoted it extensively. With a showman's instinct, he engineered a brilliant and audacious PR coup by persuading eighty-four year old Lillian Gish (left) to come to the premiere, thus winning hundreds of free column inches for the show. Indeed, on opening night, curtain up was delayed while the audience, packed with reporters, gave Gish a standing ovation.

All seemed set fair, but the show never found its niche. Heneker's score was praised but The Biograph Girl was taken off after only fifty-seven performances. This year is David Heneker's centenary and we think it is a good opportunity to re-evaluate one of his greatest and yet most-neglected scores. We have decided to keep the show small, with most of the eleven-strong cast playing two or more roles (some dressing in drag add to the comedy). We hope you enjoy the show as much as we have doing it.

Cast (in order of speaking)