"The
popular musical by Wolf Mankowitz is tonight’s Play of the Month
Porto Bello was once the
busiest city in the New World,
with a harbour from which the Spanish colonialists shipped goods and
treasure back to Europe. The Portobello road in West London
can be every bit as busy, but here the treasure-seekers are keeping
an eye open for what they can find among the antique stalls and
shops that line its pavements. It
is this world of bargain-hunting which provides the setting and the
action for tonight’s Play of the Month, Make
Me An Offer.
Peter Gilmore as Charlie and Diana Coupland as Sally
Wolf Mankowitz originally
wrote it as a novel in 1952, when he was himself active in the
antique business, and specialising particularly in antique Wedgwood.
(It’s scarcely a coincidence that the hero of Make Me An Offer quests after a piece of Wedgwood china, a green
Portland vase.) Next it
was turned into a play for radio, then into a film, which also
provided Peter Finch with his first starring role.
But it was as a musical that
Make Me An Offer probably
achieved its greatest success. Joan
Littlewood’s production opened at the Theatre Royal, Stratford,
in October 1959, then transferred to the New Theatre, where it ran
for over a year. In the
process it won the Evening
Standard Drama Award for the best musical of 1959.
‘Things have changed a lot
since then,’ says Wolf Mankowitz.
‘In fact, right at the start of this TV production viewers
are told that they’re going to see a fairy-story - a fairy-story
about the days when you could still pick up bargains in the
Portobello Road.’
“It’s
something of a departure for Play of the Month to feature a
musical,’ says the producer, Cedric Messina. ‘But
this is a splendid piece of family entertainment.’
Two members of the original stage production - Diana Coupland (as Sally) and
Meier
Tzelniker (as Wendl, the canny dealer) - appear in tonight’s TV
version. Charlie, the
hero, is played by Peter
Gilmore.
Authors are often
the severest critics of what directors and producers make of their
brain-children. But Wolf
Mankowitz seemed contented after seeing a run-through.
‘I thought it was exceptionally good,’ he said.
‘Very well dressed, and with a brilliant set designed by Eileen Diss. But I still
don’t understand how, in any medium known to man, you can produce a
musical in under five or six weeks.
Yet here they had to do it in three.’”
Charles
Fox
© Radio Times
7 April 1966
|
Credits
The production starred:
Peter Gilmore as Charlie
Diana Coupland as Sally
Judith Bruce as Celia
Heier Tzelniker as Wendl
James Grout as Sparta
Al Mancini as Mindel
Robin Parkinson as Sweeting
Ann Beach as Gwen |
Author, Wolf Mankowitz
Music and lyrics, Monty Norman and
David Heneker
Producer, Cedric
Messina
Director, Bill Hays |
The
Story
“Charlie is an unsuccessful
dealer in the Portobello Road, whose wife, Sally, is understandably
anxious for him to make good, especially as there is a baby to think
of. Charlie’s trouble,
however, is that he is too honest, and because he loves the Wedgwood
that he deals in, he refuses to cheat people.
Soon Charlie becomes involved
with two rich American dealers and two back-street dealers, intent on
selling anything in sight. When
they find a whole room full of Wedgwood it is then that Charlie
becomes involved with Celia, a high-class young lady.”
Meier Tzelniker (left) as Wendl, Patricia Kerry as the Tripper and
Peter Gilmore as Charlie in
“Make Me An Offer”
©
Coventry Evening Telegraph
12 April 1966
This is how The Times reviewed
the programme:
Business is Pleasure in Sardonic Musical
“Opera has many times been
shown to suit the television screen.
There seems no logical reason, therefore, why stage musicals
should not be adapted with equally happy results.
Yet, as last night’s BBC1 presentation of Make
Me An Offer showed, the difficulties are formidable.
Mr Wolf Mankowitz’s story
line presents no real problem. The
hero, a specialist dealer in Wedgwood, starts out as an honest
failure. We see how, by
affirming that the fake Wedgwood in a room up for auction is genuine,
he turns into a dishonest success.
Ethically dubious though this may be, Mr Mankowitz implies that
a man who wants to feed a wife and family has to fall in with whatever
moral code prevails: business
is business, as one of the songs proclaims.
The television production
brought out the musical’s rather sardonic tone.
What it could not cope with was the long opening section set in
the Portobello Road. On
the stage, the street traders’ chorus numbers were robust and
cohesive: on television
they lacked this vigorous unison.
Significantly, when the production ceased to worry about
creating a naturalistic flurry of movement and allowed the
artificiality of the musical convention to establish itself, things
noticeably improved.
Several performances gave a
lot of pleasure. In
particular, Mr Meier Tzelniker played the guileful dealer, Wendl, with
dazzling craft. And Mr
Peter Gilmore, Miss Diana Coupland and Miss Judith Bruce were good to
look at and listen to. Faced
with a stiff challenge, Mr Bill Hays, the director, emerged with
credit. It is not his
fault if television has yet to solve the problem of how to present a
musical conceived for another medium.”
©
The Times
13 April 1966
Note
On the night Make Me An Offer
was broadcast in the UK, Peter was on stage in Coventry
as Ramble in the musical Lock Up Your Daughters.
He could also be seen at the local cinema in Carry On Cowboy!
DR
March 2004
Television 60s
Television
Copyright DiMar
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