Summer Holiday Music

Summer Holiday is a British musical released in February 1963, featuring singer Cliff Richard in his best-known film. The musical was directed by Peter Yates (his debut) and was produced by Kenneth Harper for the Associated British Studios at Elstree. The original screenplay was written by Peter Myers and Ronald Cass (who also wrote most of the song numbers and lyrics). The cast included Lauri Peters, Melvyn Hayes, Teddy Green, Jeremy Bulloch, Una Stubbs, Pamela Hart, Jacqueline Daryl, Lionel Murton, Madge Ryan, David Kossoff, Nicholas Phipps, Ron Moody, and The Shadows. Herbert Ross choreographed the musical numbers.

Plot

The story concerns Don and his friends (Hayes, Green and Bulloch) who are bus mechanics at the huge London Transport bus overhaul works in Aldenham, Hertfordshire. During a miserably wet British summer lunch break, Richard arrives, having persuaded London Transport to lend him and his friends an AEC Regent "RT" double-decker bus (and not a later Routemaster as often quoted). This they convert into a holiday caravan, which they drive across the European continent, intending to reach the South of France. However, their eventual destination is Athens. On the way, they are joined by a girl trio (Stubbs, Hart and Daryl) and a runaway singer (Lauri Peters), pursued by her mother (Ryan) and agent (Murton). The movie was a huge box-office hit, thus repeating the success of Richard's earlier film The Young Ones (1961).

Soundtrack

See also: Summer Holiday (album)

There were 16 song and musical numbers all told: "Seven Days to a Holiday", "Let Us Take You for a Ride", "Stranger in Town", "Swinging Affair", "Really Waltzing", "Yugoslavian Wedding", "All At Once", "Summer Holiday", "Bachelor Boy", "Dancing Shoes", "Foot Tapper", "Big News", "The Next Time", "Les Girls", "Round and Round" and "Orlando's Mime".

The film's producers felt that female lead in the film, Lauri Peters, was unable to sing strongly enough after several test recording sessions and all of her parts, both in the film and on the soundtrack album were sung instead by session vocalist Grazina Frame. Frame had overdubbed female singing voices in Cliff Richard's earlier film "The Young Ones".

Cultural impact

Ross's choreography undoubtedly contributed to the critical view of Summer Holiday as a "breakthrough musical" in the British cinema, with the majority of the numbers integrating dance with song and not merely serving as scenes to promote a number of "hit-parade" songs. Ross, an American actor, dancer and choreographer later became a film director in his own right (his works include the musical Goodbye, Mr Chips , 1969, and the dance drama The Turning Point , 1977).

Summer Holiday, The Next Time, Bachelor Boy and Foot Tapper all reached Number one in the British charts during the first three months of 1963.

Both the film and the title song captured something of the popular mood as relatively cheap continental holidays became available in Britain around that time. It was voted the 99th greatest family film in a Channel 4 poll.

Stage adaptations

Summer Holiday was also turned into a stage musical in the mid 90s starring Darren Day in the role that Cliff Richard played. It was a national tour and was very successful. It was also taped and released on video, entitled "Summer Holiday-The Hits", which was all the musical numbers strung together by clips of Darren Day writing postcards to his friends, and describing what was happening in the story as he wrote.

The stage musical differs in a number of respects from the film version. For example, the route to Athens is via Italy in the stage version rather than the original film route via Yugoslavia. The songs also differ, and include a number of songs from Cliff Richard's other early back catalogue, such as "The Young Ones".

The first revival was by an amateur theatre school for children called Sands Theatre Arts School. This version included the same Musical Director (partner of the director) of the original professional performance and the theatre school only obtained copyright due to his ties with the original. The first stage version was actually done by Ashmole School (the same school that Amy Winehouse went to) and was adapted and directed by Tony Harries (the author of the Zeegpaw books). It sticks very closely to the plot of the film, but bookends it with scenes from a youth club.

It was revived yet again in 2003, starring Stefan Booth but later starring Darren Day again, but also his future partner Suzanne Shaw, from the pop group Hear'say, as Bobby and, as Shaw's mother, Aimi MacDonald. This tour was also very successful.

A revised version of the stage musical, adapted for smaller stages, is available for amateur performance in the UK and elsewhere.

References

1. ^ Grazina Frame at IMDB

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