Musical Partnership
Flanders and Swann both attended Westminster School, where in July and August 1940 they staged a revue called Go To It, and Christ Church, Oxford, two institutions linked by ancient tradition. The pair went their separate ways during World War II, but a chance meeting in 1948 led to a musical partnership writing songs and light opera, Flanders providing the words and Swann composing the music. Their songs have been sung by performers such as Ian Wallace and Joyce Grenfell.
In December 1956, Flanders and Swann hired the New Lindsey Theatre, Notting Hill, to perform their own two-man revue At the Drop of a Hat, which opened on New Year's Eve. Flanders sang a selection of the songs that they had written, interspersed with comic monologues, and accompanied by Swann on the piano. An unusual feature of their act was that, due to Flanders' having contracted poliomyelitis in 1943, both men remained seated for their shows: Swann behind his piano, and Flanders in a wheelchair. The show was successful and transferred the next month to the Fortune Theatre, where it ran for over two years, before touring in the UK, the United States, Canada and Switzerland.
In 1963 Flanders and Swann opened in a second revue, At the Drop of Another Hat at the Haymarket Theatre. Over the next four years they toured a combination of the two shows in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, the United States and Canada, before finishing up at the Booth Theatre on Broadway. On 9 April 1967, they performed their last live show together. Ten days later, they moved into a studio and recorded the show for television.
Over the course of eleven years, Flanders and Swann gave nearly 2,000 live performances. Although their performing partnership ended in 1967, they remained friends afterwards and collaborated on occasional projects.
Read more about this topic: Flanders And Swann
Famous quotes containing the words musical and/or partnership:
“Each child has his own individual expressions to offer to the world. That expression can take many forms, from artistic interests, a way of thinking, athletic activities, a particular style of dressing, musical talents, different hobbies, etc. Our job is to join our children in discovering who they are.”
—Stephanie Martson (20th century)
“Society is indeed a contract.... It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.”
—Edmund Burke (1729–1797)