Stage Musical
The 1961 musical Songs of a Sentimental Bloke, with music by Albert Arlen and lyrics by Nancy Brown, was first staged in Canberra on 8 March 1961, and became one of the most successful theatrical adaptations of C J Dennis’s work. Produced with the involvement of Lloyd Thomson, the musical brought Dennis’s narrative to life through song and performance, featuring a cast of Australian performers and staged in major theatres all around Australia. The production was well received by audiences and critics and enjoyed multiple revivals and performances, contributing to its lasting reputation as a significant Australian stage musical. Amazingly the last recorded performance I have found was at the Hayes Theatre Co, Potts Point, NSW on 16 Oct 2019.
In musicalising the property, Arlen purposely wrote the score in the musical style of 1913 when syncopation was beginning to be heard in popular music. The lyrics and book used material from Songs of a Sentimental Bloke and The Moods of Ginger Mick. The musical basically followed the story of Bill and Doreen’s courtship through to their marriage, with excursions to the theatre and the Melbourne Cup. Ginger Mick, Bill’s mate, still sold rabbits, and a lot of the action was set around the pickle factory where Doreen and Rose worked. Mr Smithers (the Stror ’at Coot) became the manager of the pickle factory.
Dennis’ original verse ‘A Spring Song’ was the inspiration for the song ‘Springtime Craze’, ‘The Intro’ provided ‘Intrajuiced’ and ‘I Dips Me Lid’, ‘Mar’ was the source for ‘Poor Dear Pa’, and ‘The Mooch Of Life’ became ‘Life’s Wot Yer Make It’. The latter used many Dennis stanzas, including:
Life’s wot yer make it; an’ the bloke ’oo tries
To grab the shinin’ stars from out the skies
Goes crook on life, an’ calls the world a cheat,
An’ tramples on the daisies at ’is feet.
The authors also used ‘The Play’, in which Bill interprets Romeo and Juliet in the argot of the street, in its entirety. It ultimately became the hit of the show. ‘I Dips Me Lid’ and ‘Intrajuiced’ captured the Bloke’s vernacular perfectly, ‘Piccalilli Lil’ and ‘Sunday Arvo’ were fun numbers for Rose and the company, and ‘My Sentimental Bloke’ was a sweet ballad for Doreen.
With Arlen on piano and Brown playing Rose, the show came through with flying colors as the headline in the Canberra Times (8 March 1961) claimed: ‘Sentimental Bloke Captivates Audience.’ They called it ‘an outstandingly successful piece of sheer entertainment, quite brilliantly funny’, and said, ‘Albert Arlen’s music had the lift and the sentimental quality which unified the play’. They thought Bill [Edwin] Ride was perfect as The Bloke (Bill), and Douglas Skinner as Ginger Mick and Nancy Brown as Rose ‘shone with life.’ They liked the adaptation, and loved ‘The Play’.
With a glowing notice in the only paper in town, the production had no trouble in selling out its short season, which meant that when Sir Frank Tait and John McCallum came to the last performance, they had to sit on stand-by chairs.11 They were pleasantly surprised by what they saw, but were still cautious about picking up the rights. Again nothing happened—until, a few months later, the Comedy Theatre, Melbourne, suddenly became available for a six-week window; the rest, they say, is history.
When the curtain came down on the first night of The Sentimental Bloke at the Comedy Theatre, Melbourne, on 4 November 1961, composer Albert Arlen knew he had a hit on his hands. His belief that his musical version of the beloved verse of C.J. Dennis would be a success was vindicated. Not only did the show play out its allotted six-week season, its run was extended to five months and it toured for another nine (making the producers J.C. Williamson very happy), but it would go on to become Arlen’s most successful show, and one of the most produced musicals in the annals of Australian musical theatre.