Homo Promos opera is banned from London jail
NewsThe Mail reports that prison chiefs have banned this week’s opera at London’s Wormwood Scrubs because of its explicitly gay theme.
The opera, proiduced by a company called Homo Promos, tells the legend of a 1943 prison love affair between the songwriter Ivor Novello and the gangland enforcer Frankie Fraser.
Full saga and reactions here.
This production is now guaranteed to sell-out anywhere it’s staged in the future! Hmmm…sounds like something the MET could gobbleup! Right up Yannick’s alley! Can’t wait to see/hear it!
“Right up Yannick’s alley” is such a tired homophobic giggle. Try and do better.
And I could say the same about “gobbleup”, given what that meant around the Glasgow gay scene in the 1970s.
Michael Tippett was in Wormwood Scrubs in 1943.
It would be nice to suppose that Novello’s musical, “Gay’s The Word” dating from 1951 was inspired by his supposed wartime prison liaison with Mad Frankie Fraser but there is no evidence to support this. The musical is some Ruritanian nonsense and Novello and Fraser were not even in the same prison.
Actually it ISN’T “some Ruritanian nonsense”.
If only you’d looked that up.
I’m old enough to remember when the word “gay” meant merry or happy or similar, and had no particular sexual implication. I had women friends named Gay — or Gaye in one case. Not likely many new mums are dishing out that name to their daughters now.
It’s one thing that a word has been co-opted to the point of no other possible meaning — language evolves — but I do object to trying to impose false meaning on a word that served other meanings for centuries. There is no reason to sneer at Cornelia Otis Skinner’s charming 1940s comedy Our Hearts Were Young and Gay, and it would be beyond stupid to suggest that when James Barke called the third volume of his quintet about the life of Robert Burns The Wonder of All the Gay World that he was doing a revisionist analysis if the famously — infamously, even — heterosexual Burns.
So, no, Mr. Sapiens, it would not “be nice” to so interpret “Gay’s the Word.” It would be infantile.
“usage referring to homosexuality dates back to the late 19th century” Wikipedia
Geez, Lind, how old ARE you?
Oddly, not everyone circa 1890–I think there may have been at least three people in Oban and two in Westonzoyland who werfe out of the loop–was aware of its esoteric use in one or two obscure contexts.
I don’t remember its sexuality use in the British press in the 1950s and 60s, though, as a young trainee journalist, I was an avid reader of newspapers.
Well, not THAT old! But I am a late boomer, and the word was not in common use for homosexuals in my youth — like many alterations in terminology and usage, it was not decreed by fiat, it just came into use more and more, till it became essentially a single-reference term.
My point remains — it is just silly to try to reinterpret previous uses when the synonymous terms I suggested above were much more widespread in the past.
The musical’s only connection to Ruritania is a plot device at the beginning. Producer Gay Daventry has seen her latest Ruritanian operetta flop ( Novello gently mocking himself ) and so with the aid of a character called Linda she founds a stage school in Folkestone Kent, before a big success puts her back on stage at the end.
Novello was trying to adopt elements of the American Musical and mix them in with his own operetta style songs.
The show is entertaining , but really needs a star turn for the lead role, which was written for Cicely Courtneidge, to succeed. The role of Linda was originally played by the soprano Lizbeth Webb who was a bright star in the British musical theatre.
I wonder what this new opera is like and whether they have had contact with the Ivor Novello Appreciation Society?
I seem to remember reading that Dame Joan Hammond met Novello in New York and he made kind comments about her singing. He was already ill. She said it was his incarceration which led to his death not long after .
Just for reference, the opera is called “1944: Home Fires”. Music: Robert Ely, Words: Peter Scott-Presland.
I used to pass Mad Frankie Fraser walking his terrier every morning when I lived in Angel. Belted up tight in his blue raincoat, he must have been all of 5ft 2inches tall, but everyone still gave him a very wide birth…
Including his mother?
Opera profession must be hard up to attempt putting opera on in a prison like that, particularly so obscure an opera! Why not put it on at ENO if it’s any good?
The Mail – well that explains the headline.
Nice early pic of the handsome Ivor Novello, but he only was inside for a travesty of justice led by a homophobic judge who hated theatricals.
Wormwood Scrubbs Governor & Welsh Chaplain took pity on Ivor and gave him a cell completely to himself.
This ‘opera’ is purely ficticious & doesn’t even use a note of Ivor’s 230 published songs.
It smacks of a huge publicity scam using Novello famous name and reputation to promote second rate inferior contemporary clap trap.
The Scrubbs authorities were right to cancel this travesty and self publicity stunt.
Why am I not surprised?