GOOD TIMES TOGETHER with the Everly Brothers

A NEW MUSICAL – Book by Tony Chapman

Sir Tim Rice, of Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita fame, is the Everly Brothers’ biggest fan. He’s also a fan of the script of my new musical play GOOD TIMES TOGETHER with the Everly Brothers. So much so that he’s asked to see it staged.

The obvious venue for me was a theatre with which I’ve been associated for many years as a writer, director and actor, QUESTORS, the Ealing-based community theatre. It’s been described by that doyen of theatre critics Michael Coveney (1) as: “as much a part of the national theatre as the National Theatre itself.” It’s London’s biggest and best amateur theatre, but they’d rather you didn’t call it that if only because the majority of its actors and directors are professionally trained and because its 350 seat Judi Dench Playhouse is one of the best in West London.

The public tryout – the staging of a play or musical at an out-of-town venue for evaluation – is taking place at Questors Theatre, 12 Mattock Lane, Ealing, London W5 5BQ on the evenings of 9th and 10 May 2023 at 07:45 pm, tickets available now http://www.questors.org.uk/event.aspx?id=1071

Evaluating the show, on one or other of its two nights, will be Sir Tim Rice; Terry Slater, longstanding member of the Everlys’ band and one of the initiators of their reunion concert at the Albert Hall in 1983; Albert Lee one of the world’s top guitarists, still touring at 89 and who played in the reunion concert; and Bill Kenwright, producer of Jesus Christ Superstar, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat, Tommy and many more musicals.

The show is fully and I might say brilliantly cast and below I’ve posted a few images of rehearsals. The show is directed one of The Questors’ longest-standing directors, John Davey.

GOOD TIMES TOGETHER with the Everly Brothers tells the story of the tempestuous relationship between two brothers who changed the course of music history. Their harmonies influenced Cliff Richard, The Beatles, The Hollies, Simon & Garfunkel and many others. Using many of their best-loved songs and some little-known ones, performed by members of the cast and the top Everlys tribute band, The Temple Brothers, it shows the sibling rivalry – the creative and emotional tensions – at the heart of one of the 20^th century’s best musical partnerships.

The show opens with the brothers’ reunion, following a 10-year break, at the Royal Albert Hall in London in 1983 and quickly flashes back to young Don and Phil learning their music at the knee of their mother Margaret and father Ike, a local hero on the country music scene across the southern United States. Following their big break with Bye Bye Love, it depicts a series of personal and musical challenges: Don’s breakdown due to addiction to prescription drugs; the break-up of marriages due to the strains of touring; the British Invasion of the US led by the Beatles; and their professional bust-up resulting in Phil storming off-stage during a concert. The death of their father finally brings them back together and the show ends on the high-note of their poignant Albert Hall reunion, yet with the unresolved ambiguity of their love and rivalry. 

1. Michael Coveney – Questors, Jesters and Renegades, The Story of Britain’s Amateur Theatre, published by Methuen 2020

not just because I left the RIBA in the Spring but because I’ve been away for a month, taking trains up the western coast of the US and Canada and then via the Rockies and Toronto to New York City. Of course I was still looking at buildings as well as bears and whales but it was nice not to have to write 500 words on each one. And it’s not as if they haven’t been written up before: Gehry’s Walt Disney Concert Hall (a great piece of city even if the interiors disappoint); Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim (ramps closed due a new installation but still great); Venturi Scott Brown’s Art Museum in Seattle (where the POMO flourishes look far more at home than they do in London – incidentally I was there to conduct a final piece of research for my architectural thriller, of which more later.)

Without me the RIBA has agreed on a Royal Gold Medallist – at last Paulo Mendes da Rocha whose work I’ve long admired from afar (why didn’t I take the time to go to Sao Paulo when I was in Rio and Brasilia making a film with Niemeyer?)  And they’re close to deciding on the 21st Stirling winner (insert plug here for my latest book THE RIBA STIRLING PRIZE : 20, just published by Merrell with a lovely intro by David Chipperfield). I love AJ’s idea of setting up a parallel jury to see if they might agree with the official one, though given the composition of both that’s highly unlikely.

And (with me) the RIBA’s Awards Group will soon be deciding on the winners of the first RIBA Awards for International Excellence and the shortlist for the RIBA International Prize. I’ve seen four of the thirty myself – two unofficially while I was in New York, and two formally as a judge: Shigeru Ban’s Oita Prefecture Art Museum and Peter Stutchbury’s Invisible House in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales. Given the quality of those two there’s going to be some tough decision-making in the week after Stirling – for which I can’t wait. For once I can just enjoy it – and not know the result in advance.

 

 

 

I’m a writer and a film-maker. I have worked for the BBC; run my own TV production company Time:Code:Productions which I still use to make videos; and between 1996 and 2016 I ran the Royal Institute of British Architects’ awards programme.

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