'Saki'

A question in a pub quiz has just done me a rather big favour. The question: "What was the single-syllable pen name of writer H H Munro?" Well, something somewhere had stuck, because I gave my team captain the answer straight off. 'Saki' he put down, and the point was in the bag. I'm glad the question came up, because I realised that if I knew the answer, I ought to know a bit more about the man.

Munro's forte and stock-in-trade was the humorous short story . . . and I mean short. His parodies of Edwardian society were a couple of pages long, and fitted nicely into a few columns of a daily newspaper. He was a cartoonist in words; a satirist, a master of observation and a ruthless weeder out of the appalling poseur.

Munro had been a war correspondent in the Balkans for a British newsaper in the early 20th century in a career running parallel to his fictional prose. His comedic genius, itself born of the Wildean tradition, went on to influence the likes of P G Wodehouse following in the slipstream.

What a waste, then, when Hector Hugh Munro, at the age of forty-five, was slaughtered in a shell crater on the killing fields of France in 1916 while serving as a soldier for his country. He had refused an officer's commission, and he didn't even have to be there.

One thing should be remembered about the stupidity of the Great War and its consequences. This nation (and no doubt others) lost a disastrous amount of great minds and salt-of-the earth fellows, the likes of which were impossible to replace.

Recommended reading: Saki, A lIfe of Hector Hugo Munro ( by A J Langguth)
Saki, The Complete Short Stories (Penguin)

The Entertainer

What goes around, comes around, so they say. If this relatively recent epigram should ever need a boost to its credence, it should reach out no further than to grasp John Osborne's The Entertainer and hold it up for the world to see.

Osborne wrote the play in 1957 at the request of Laurence Olivier, who had watched the playwright's Look Back In Anger in the company of Arthur Miller and had been persuaded by the American that Osborne's was a talent to be reckoned with. Osborne agreed to come up with something, and set about the task by using as the backdrop to his story something very dear to his own heart: the British Music Hall.

Osborne knew that the Music Hall was dying. He used this as an allegory to warn us that the country was going the same way. Enter the star turn: Archie Rice, failing and faded stand-up comedian with the aspirations of a Max Miller but the accomplishments of a pub clown. Olivier played the role to perfection, as would have been expected. We can never see the great man play the role on stage again, but the film, made in 1960, is available on DVD.

The thing about history repeating itself here is the fact that the play is set during the Suez Crisis of 1956. Archie Rice, on top of all his financial and emotional burdens, is struggling on under the crushing weight of knowing his son has been sent by his country to fight in a far-off place and his young life is in extreme danger. Parallels of recent conflicts involving British interests and involvements need not be explained.

This film is a masterpiece of writing and performance of the highest possible calibre. It is worth watching if only for the parts where Olivier takes to the stage with his hat, gloves and cane and rips into his do or die routine; a routine which is as much about defying the apathy of the seaside audience as any valiant attempts at comedic wizardry.

This was a play written to provoke deep thought about the nation and its way of life. But, through the skillful use of pathos pertaining to the character of Archie Rice, we are also given an insight into the nature of the human condition. Like all great works of art, it makes comment but entertains while it does so. Its themes are universal, and as such, timeless. What goes around, as they say . . .

The gambler's gambler

Isn't it interesting to see what people do when they feel they have nothing to lose? No better example can be found of a man who had concluded that if life didn't care about him, then he wasn't going to care too much for life. His name: John 'Doc' Holliday (1851-1887), legendary gunslinger and professional card player. Ruthless, intelligent and fearless, he was a man's man and the gambler's gambler.

Doc Holliday new a bad hand when he saw one: he had been dealt one at the age of twenty-two when he was diagnosed with tuberculosis. Fully qualified as a dental surgeon, he had only recently opened up his own practice. The shocking and unpredictable coughing fits that wracked his young frame made it impossible for him to treat his patients and, having been given only a short time to live, his path was cut out for him. To steal a few more years on earth, he headed West in search of a healthier climate.

Not expecting to survive, Holliday put his natural talent for gambling into play. His life soon became a constant ride in the roughhouse. The pattern was fixed: serious card games, violent confrontations and quick exits out of town. This was the cutting edge of desperation. Dreading a slow and painful death by natural causes, Holliday was more than prepared to gamble on a speedy end by courtesy of the fateful bullet. Ironically, he was something of a born survivor. He claimed that at least nine attempts of one type or another were made on his precarious life. But beneath all the reckless disregard for danger, something in his character remained true to the well-connected and community-respecting background from which he had sprung as a child. When the chips were down, Holiday tended to side with the lawman against the troublemaker. This was proven when he made firm friends with Wyatt Earp and his brothers in Tombstone, Arizona. It was standing shoulder to shoulder with these no-nonsense mercenaries where Doc Holliday played the biggest gamble of his life - and struck his name into American history.

The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral took place on October 26, 1881. Living on borrowed time, Doc was more than happy to walk down the street to this violent showdown as a combination of faithful friend, deadly killer and lawman for the day. He may have been dead as far as the future was concerned, but on this day he was as alive as anyone in the world.

Something like thirty shots in thirty seconds: that's all it took to settle the issue with the Clanton Gang. On the winning side only Wyatt Earp escaped injury. His two brothers along with Doc were wounded but not critically. Of the five defeated Clanton boys, three were shot dead and two got away unharmed. It was up close and personal - literally a couple of feet away from each other - and about as lawless as the law allowed.

Doc Holliday had survived the big gamble. He lived on, just as recklessly, for another six years. But the fateful bullet never found him. His body gave way before his courage ever did; after two months in his sickbed, much of the time delirious, he awoke on the morning of November 8, 1887, and calmly asked for a glass of whisky. He knocked it back in his usual style, said, "This is funny", and then passed away. It wasn't the end he had expected and looked for, but even the best of gamblers cannot always predict the final card.

Going for a song

With everyone talking about the latest Oscars, and in light of the recent passing of the composer John Barry, it might be worth while looking back a few decades to recall a particularly good year in the Best Song category. 1966 and all that: what a choice for the judges.

There were five nominees for Best Song at the Oscars that year, with the three favourites being the big hits 'Born Free', 'Georgy Girl' and 'Alfie' from the films of the same name. The films were as different from each other as it is likely to imagine, but the quality of the songs' compositions and the individual performances of the recording artists had one thing in common: sheer brilliance.

John Barry scored 'Born Free', with Don Black providing the lyrics. Matt Monro, the singer's singer, gave it the power and the subtlety that only a master craftsman could deliver. Black was Monro's manager, and Barry was the seasoned composer of international film music: it was a mighty powerful triumvirate with a mighty powerful lobby in its corner.

But Don Black for one knew that the prize was anything but in the bag. In a radio interview some years ago he acknowledged that the competition had been fierce, and that 'Georgy Girl' was a glistening gem. He knew a great song when he heard one . . . and great it was and will always be so.

The film 'Georgy Girl' was a madcap romp of trendy Britain in the Sixties; a lighthearted comedy with a touch of pathos propping up the walls. The star of the film was Lynn Redgrave, but the ace in the pack was the magnificent theme song performed by the Seekers. At the peak of their considerable powers, they gave their all in a rollicking, carefree, defiant and joyous interpretation of a song that typified its era. It had arguably the finest melody, the cleverest lyrics and most importantly the best marriage of melody and lyrics of all the contenders. It should have won . . . but it didn't.

'Georgy Girl' was written by Tom Springfield and Jim Dale. Springfield, brother to Dusty, was the mastermind behind most of the Seekers' greatest hits. Where he pulled this melody from, God only knows; perhaps God gave it to him. But many may be interested to learn that the man who put the words to the tune was none other than a future Carry On star. Yes, the Jim Dale on the song credits is the same Jim Dale as the wacky guy who was about to feature in many of the Carry On classics.

Dale's lyrics on 'Georgy Girl' are uncannily perceptive, acerbic and touchingly sympathetic. I can't be sure, but I'd like to bet that Don Black (one of the world's greatest lyricists) wished he'd penned them himself.

'Alfie' was a haunting song that perfectly reflected the sadness and pointlessness of the main character's life as played out in most of the film. Hal David wrote the words, Burt Bacharach the music. It was a difficult commission for them both: neither were keen on writing a song about a guy named Alfie, but top pros that they were, they of course delivered the goods. It was a song so strong that it was covered by countless top artists, including Cilla Black and Dionne Warwick. But it was Cher who sang the track on the film. It's all about opinions as to which of the above three did the best job . . . but 'Alfie' went the same way as 'Georgy Girl' and had to give way to 'Born Free' on the big night.

Any one of the three songs would have been worthy winners. The main thing is the world was treated to a feast of music of the highest possible calibre in that one incredible year, back in the mid nineteen-sixties.

(Picture: James Mason and Lynn Redgrave in Georgy Girl)