Almost a decade ago, back on December 4, 2013, BBC Four aired an hour-long documentary about Lionel Bart entitled Lionel Bart: Reviewing the Situation.  They made the film available online, but -- as they always do -- only for a limited time.  And I found out about it a few days too late.  And so, missed it.

I 've been looking for it online ever since, but the challenge was daunting.  The biggest problem was the title -- if I searched for "Reviewing the Situation," it brought up many hundreds or even thousands of videos of his song from Oliver!  Putting his name in the search terms didn't help.  Adding "BBC Four" only brought up recordings of the song on the BBC.  Adding "documentary" did the same, but also brought a totally different documentary which was pleasant, but more a puff piece.  And even including the name of director Mick Conefrey -- and the date it aired -- which I was sure would do the trick, didn't.  All the song videos of "Reviewing the Situation" predominated.

I could find the documentary listed on director Conefrey's website, but it wasn't embedded there like I hoped and no link was provided to it anywhere.

Believe me, I tried.  For nine years.

And then, for reasons I can't explain or remember, a month ago I tried another search term --  and found it!!  And it was as good as I had read.  Thoughtful, interesting, fun, detailed, great footage including interviews with Bart, but also open and honest about his flops, drug addiction, personal issues, having to sell the rights to Oliver!... and redemption.  Including one of the more magnanimous gestures I've come across in theater, when legendary producer Cameron Macintosh bought the rights for himself, put on a new production of Oliver! on the West End -- and gave some of the rights back to Lionel Bart.

My only real quibble is that it doesn't mention one of his first shows on the West End, a reasonably successful show called Lock Up Your Daughters, based on a novel by Henry Fielding who wrote the novel Tom Jones.  My parents saw the show on a trip to London, and brought back the cast album that's really wonderful.  I've even embedded several songs from it on this website, including one of my favorites here if you'd like to hear it.  (Highly recommended.) That article also includes a link to the fun title number,  sung by three rapscallions, which has one of my all-time favorite rhymes in a musicals --

Out in the street there are others like me
Searching for possible mothers to be.

The only reason I can think of why they didn't include the show is because he only wrote the lyrics, not the music, as well.  Nor, like his shows after Oliver!, the book, as well.  But the music by Laurie Johnson -- who wrote the theme music to the classic TV series The Avengers with Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg, as well as the thoroughly fun musical comedy The Four Musketeers with Harry Secombe -- is joyful.

Yes, that was a bit of a digression, but if the documentary isn't going include anything about Lock Up Your Daughters, it was up to me to do so.  However, back now to Lionel Bart and the documentary.  As I said, it was very good, and I was thrilled to finally track it down.

Unfortunately (okay, are you ready?), when I went to post it here today, the link was taken down!  After all that effort for years.

But -- but not to worry!  Because I actually thought that might possibly happen, and after a decade looking for the documentary, I didn't want to rely on chance and hope that it would always stayed posted.  And so, in a rare burst of foresight and wisdom, I downloaded it to save a copy.

And so, I'm able to upload it here.  Because of having to post it this way, the screen below is a bit small, but you can open it to full-screen.  Which is a good thing, because after nine years looking for it, I didn't want to miss a thing.

​Continuing our celebration o' the day, we have this decidedly-offbeat song, "Dear Old Dad," from the 1961 off-Broadway musical, Smiling, the Boy Fell Dead, a spoof of Horatio Alger-type stories, with music by David Baker, and lyrics by none other than Sheldon Harnick, his first stage show, three years before he teamed up with Jerry Bock for Fiddler on the Roof.  And oddly, two years after he and Bock won the Tony and Pulitzer for Fiddler on the Roof.  (This off-Broadway show had been written earlier, but took a few years to get produced.)

I think the first time I brought up the Jim Henson memorial service, that took place in 1990 was when I posted a video of the Muppeteers singing a deeply-moving version of the song “Just One Person,” which I posted here.
 
That same performance also showed up here the other day when I posted a long medley of favorite Henson songs at that memorial, which ended with that performance of “Just One Person.”
 
What I noted in that original post back in 2013 was that while most people probably think that “Just One Person” is a Muppet song, written for them – when in fact it’s from the stage musical Snoopy!!!!” with a score by Larry Grossman and Hal Hackady.
 
I had mentioned this the other day when I sent the memorial video to my friend Carla Winnie who I got to know a little over three years when she was my realtor.  Why I sent the video specifically to Carla is that (as I’ve noted here) it turns out that earlier in her career, Carla was an actress in musicals and was actually in that original production of Snoopy!!! and can be heard on the original cast album.  To be great surprise, when she watched the video (and loved it), she had absolutely no idea that “Just One Person” was no associated with The Muppets.  But was thrilled to know that the song had been given such a wonderful afterlife.  I liked, too, what she said, as well –
 
“That is my favorite song from Snoopy. I just love that song, and taught it to my son's class when he was in the 5th grade. Thank you so much for thinking of me. I had not realized the Muppets adopted it. How perfect. I know that Charles Schultz loved that song.”
 
And what a wonderful coda to know how much Charles Schultz loved the song, from its original incarnation.
 
The Muppets first sang it on The Muppet Show when Bernadette Peters was the host that week.  And perhaps other times, as well, I can’t recall offhand.  I bring all that up because for all the other performances they’ve done of the song, I have a feeling that this video below may be what solidified the song with The Muppets for them and in the public’s mind. 

It requires a bit of an explanation for the full impact.  After he died, The Muppets did a tribute special on Jim Henson.  The premise of the special was that The Muppets had heard about this guy Jim Henson who seemed pretty great, and so they wanted to honor him – though to the viewers it’s clear they’re unaware he’s passed away.  Also, for some reason that The Muppets can’t understand during this broadcast, Kermit is not there backstage with them to help put the tribute together.  In fact, he’s not there for the entire show.  The subtext, of course, for the TV audience is the question:  without Kermit’s voice will the Muppets be able to go on without him? 

This clip is from the end of the tribute special – it’s very good, but all the more impactful when you understand, to reiterate, that there’s been no Kermit for the full hour.  Not a word from him, no sight of him.  Only all the other Muppets.  So…what will they do?  Note, too, that at the very end, they bring in Big Bird, Bert, Ernie, Elmo and some others from Sesame Street – I think it’s the first time characters from Sesame Street (other than Kermit) were on TV with those from The Muppet Show.  So, it sort of unites all the Muppets together without Kermit, and the question of how they can go on not just without Kermit, but importantly, without Kermit’s voice.
 
Which brings us to this clip --

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And a bonus comment to this all --

I don’t know if this was intentional (I suspect not, though it could have been), but the Muppet character who was so sad about being ignored and then Bernadette Peters sings "Just One Person" to in the aforementioned first performance of this song The Muppet Show is Kermit’s nephew Robin.  And in that Jim Henson tribute video above, I noticed that the Muppet character who cheers up Fozzie Bear and starts to sing “Just One Person” is…Kermit’s nephew Robin!  If that was intentional, it was very clever.  And if it was just chance, what a fascinating bit of kismet.

A few weeks back, I posted a video of Emma Stone here when she played 'Sally Bowles' on Broadway in Cabaret.  I missed one, but my friend John Kander (nephew of the other fellow who wrote the show) was more on top of things, as well he should be, and pointed me toward this.  It's "Don't Tell Mama."  (She screws up one line near the end. It's supposed to be “You can tell my sister…” suits me fine/ Just yesterday she joined the line.  And instead sings “brother,” which is what comes next.  And she does sing it next properly, just a second time.)  All introduced by Alan Cumming as the Emcee.

Yeah, okay, we sort of have to have this one.  It's a lovely song from the musical Minnie's Boys, about the Marx Bros, with music by Larry Grossman, and lyrics by Hal Hackady.  The number is performed by Adolph -- who is better known to the world as 'Harpo' -- sung to their mother on her birthday, when the brothers are flat broke.

Though there are a lot of videos of the song, I was instead going to play the audio-only version from the original cast album, with Daniel Fortus as 'Harpo' (sung to Shelley Winters).  Most of the videos are done very well, but from a slightly different point of view, an emotional, general expression of love for their mother.  It's a perfectly valid interpretation, though in the show it's poignancy to me comes from being sung by a son who quite-literally doesn't have a gift for his mother on her birthday or enough money to even get her anything, but needs to tell her directly, to her face, what he would get for her if he could -- and being 'Harpo,' in a sweet, endearing way.

But then I found this.  The sound quality is very scratchy, but the song comes through very clearly.  It's from a live performance of the musical with the original performer Daniel Fortus, recorded off the stage board monitor.  Interestingly, though the show had a very short run on Broadway and closed in 1970, this is from two years later, in July, 1972 at the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera, so clearly they did a revival of the musical.  I did a little research -- and not only was it a revival, but four of the five actors who played "the boys" in the original Broadway production were in this version, as well, including Lewis J. Stadlen who had been acclaimed for his portrayal of 'Groucho' on Broadway, winning the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance in a Musical.  (One of the four played a different brother this time, going from 'Gummo,' the brother who was never in the movies but became an agent, to playing 'Chico' in this production.) The mother Minnie -- who has one line in the song below -- was played by Kaye Ballard.

But the point here is the song and Daniel Fortus.  It's near-identical to the original cast recording -- until the key change, when he performs it very differently and in some ways even more powerfully.  Which the enthusiastic audience applause recognizes at the end.