Well there's another splendid tune from England's great heritage of musical rhubarb
'Greensleeves' - a song we all know and love. (Donald knows it and he hates it.)
I'd like to tell you about it. Are you all sitting comfortably?
Then I'll begin.
1546, if you'll cast your minds back, was a very bad year for the theatre;
'Gorbaduc' was doing poor business at The Globe
'Gamma Gurton' was still giving everyone the needle,
Apart from 'Noah's Fludde' (on ice)
That's about all there was on
Not even 'Salad Days' and 'The Mousetrap'
No - not even us.
Dramatists just seemed to have stopped writing
And the Master of the King's Revels was getting terribly worried
Because he had to have a new revel on in time for Candlemas, you see
It was part of his job.
So he sent for a playwright friend of his
And he said to him "Look Kyd",
(That was his name - Kyd)
He said "How about your writing another of your little Spanish tragedies or something,
I did so enjoy the last one!"
Kyd said "Well it's all very well for you,
Standing there smoking that potato,
Telling people to write plays
It's not as easy as all that -
All the best plots have been used already.
The second volume of Holinshed's not out yet.
The only cares to the public nowadays are really sitting bear-baiting and cock-fighting
And Morton's Fork.
They don't give a fig for the live theatre!"
He was a very angry young man this Kyd.
Well the Master of the King's Revels sort of calmed him down a bit, you know as you do
Stood him a butt of sack and so on.
He said "Well we really must try to think of something
Because it's going to be rather a special occasion -
We're nationalising the monasteries".
He said "If they offer you one, don't take it
Because if Bloody Mary gets in they'll be de-nationalising them!"
He said "As a matter of fact I have an idea for you
I know I'm only a civil servant but you're most welcome to it
Why don't you - may I call you Dost not thou? May I? Thank you -
Why dost not thou rewrite 'Ralph Royster Doyster'?
It is crying out to be done as a musical!
(Anything to stop it being done straight)".
Well Kyd thought this was an absolutely wonderful idea
He rolled about on the floor, like old Swann when he's seen a joke,
Mind you by this time of course,
After all this sack he was Titus Andronicus!
He staggered home;
Well he got to work on the book straightaway
He got Skelton in to do the lyrics for him -
John Skelton - made a first class job too
Wrote sown some very strong point numbers
'King Stephen was a Worthy Peer' - that was one of his;
'Nay, John, my Porridge is too Hot Cha Cha'
And dozens more: very funny, very strong lovely stuff.
But none of these songs seemed quite right to end the first half.
Now if you're writing a musical,
Which I'm sure practically all of you are,
That is the thing to watch out for, actually,
What they call 'the first-half closer'.
They'd got to do 'Ralph Royster Doyster' in two halves,
They were going to do 'Royster' in the first half,
'Doyster' in the second half,
'Ralph' in the interval.
As Skelton said, and he was quite right,
For a first half closer you must have a hit,
A palpable hit.
Well, they thought of having 'Summer is Icumen In'
But this had got itself on the banned list -
People had been singing 'cuckoo' rather too lhoudly,
And they thought 'well what next!'
"There's always the Agincourt songs" said Skelton,
"But it's been done to death, hasn't it?
It means having all those ghastly old Archers, I just can't face it!
You know they're not writing songs like those anymore, these days!"
And Kyd said "Well lief us not be too hasty", he said, "lief us not,
Somebody may be somewhere."
This chap 'Anon' was writing some perfectly lovely stuff,
But nobody seems to know who his agent is.
Well they sat around in the old Bankside Theatre on which they had a short lease
Getting more and more depressed, and shorter and shorter of money.
They pawned their doublets,
Sitting around in their singlets.
Then suddenly there came a sound of a tucket without.
Pausing only to pull down his singlet and tuck it within
Kyd rushed to the door and a scroll was handed in
By special messenger.
Kyd took the scroll, unrolled it, rolled it up again
(They always did this)
Unrolled it again;
At the bottom were several rows of very square and highly illuminated notes
And at the top it said 'Greenfleevef'
Kyd looked at this, he thought well this is a pretty unlikely title for a fong!
He handed it over to Skelton, and sat back to listen while Skelton tried it over on the virginals.
After listening for a while, Kyd said,
"Verily", he said, "'tis a passing melodious roundelay,
I doubt me an' it be commercial.
Who wrote this Greenfleeves thing anyway?"
And a voice from the back of the auditorium shouted out "We did!" Like that.
Scared the peppered doublet and hose off them.
And they came forward and they could just make out a shadowy figure standing up the back there, and they said
"Who are you?"
And the figure answered,
(This is the interesting part. Almost worth waiting for)
The figure answered "We are Henry VIII, We are!"
Well then of course they realised that 'Greensleeves' was exactly what they wanted!
They put it in the show, and under the title of 'Dockses Without Smockses'
It ran for years.
As you'd expect, with Royalty taking an interest, like horse racing and so on.
In fact, to this very day,
In every period play you go to see
Though it's set in 1300 up to about 1715, I suppose,
Still for incidental music -
'Greensleeves' is always played.
And the royalties go to Royalty!