Who these days would pay to watch a West End musical that had no scenery, two grey curtains as a backdrop and a cast that admitted to hiring their suits from Moss Bros? In the 1950s one of the biggest hit shows consisted of two men in dinner suits, a piano and an audience singing along with the chorus of a song about an hippopotamus. Flanders and Swann were an unusual act. Michael Flanders was bearded and confined to a wheelchair, whereas Donald Swann, at the piano, had a boyish intellectual look and was referred to by his partner as 'an all round egghead'. Although their material was humorous neither considered themselves comedians. Flanders thought himself a writer of comic songs and Swann said of him that he was "at once a poet, an actor and a master of a very curious skill - spontaneous improvisation". They performed all over the world, and Swann translated much of their material into foreign languages. Irrespective of the host country, they were always met with enthusiasm while singing about things that were particularly British - like the weather, trains, workmen and snobbery. |
