Dreamboats and Petticoats

A long time ago, when God was a little boy and Stephen Fry hadn't even been thought of, I went to a place called The Birmingham Hippodrome – and guess where that place was? Yes you guessed it – Birmingham. Not any of the thousands of Birminghams in America like Michigan but Birmingham, Warwickshire – incidentally there are not thousands in America just 16 not forgetting New Birmingham in Tipperary, Ireland.

You don't believe me?? Okay here we go:

Birmingham Alabama the largest city in Alabama and the largest city named Birmingham in the United States.

Birmingham Connecticut.

Birmingham Kentucky, a sunken town

Birmingham Indiana,

Birmingham Iowa,

Birmingham Michigan,

Birmingham Missouri,

Birmingham New Jersey

Birmingham, Erie County, Ohio

Birmingham, Guernset County, Ohio

Birmingham, Chester County, Pennsylvania

Birmingham Huntington County, Pennsylvania

Birmingham Township, Schuyler County, Illinois

Birmingham (Pittsburgh) a neighborhood in Pittsburgh now known as South Side.

Birmingham Township, Pennsylvania.

There we are I'm glad I got that out of the way – everybody says that the 'other' Birmingham is in Alabama and now you can see it isn't! There are loads of them. Now I suppose I'm going to get hits from all of those Birminghams.

But back to The Birmingham Hippodrome; I was taken there first by my mother, who loved the theatre. I was also taken to The Alexandra Theatre (just round the corner), with the school, to the Christmas Pantomime one year, which had a lasting impression upon me. I can't remember which panto it was but I remember the set and I remember actors coming on and – acting!!

The Hippodrome was more for variety shows and it had a long auditorium and you needed microphones; the Alex had a wider auditorium so the acoustics must have been better.

I saw loads of pop singers at the Hippodrome, as I used to go every week, and lots of other shows – I even remember seeing a trapeze act where we thought the man on the flying trapeze was going to fly in to the audience but caught the trapeze at the last moment. I saw Norman Wisdom there – he played many instruments including the drums – and some of the pop singers I saw were Charlie Gracie, Slim Whitman and many others including pop packages when I saw Billy Fury, Dickie Pride, Vince Eager and one time one in the pop packages was a certain Mark Wynter.

He was more of a ballad singer than a rock singer and he covered songs, which was common in those days, of American hits. A cover, in those days, was a cover of a major hit in America and they would release the song in the UK before, or at the same time, as the American hit. Sometimes the UK version would start to sell so well that the American original version would be wiped out so great singers like Gene McDaniels never really made it in the UK - although I saw him at the Hippodrome too.

Mark Wynter covered Venus in Blue Jeans which was originally recorded by Jimmy Clanton (but there was a hit by Frankie Avalon); Go Away Little Girl, recorded by Steve Lawrence – which is a better version than Mark Wynter's. It was written by Gerry Goffin and Carol King when they were in the Brill Building in New York and I always thought it should have been recorded by Bobby Vee, as he was Goffin & King's kind of muse. I see he did record it but too many covers meant it didn't get noticed.

The expresion 'cover' has changed over the years – like lol – as it only meant a cover of a current recording. All bands, groups, pop singers sang on stage other people's songs – or numbers (where did that word come from for a song?) - when I saw The Beatles they sang other people's songs – Twist and Shout, Baby It's You, Chains, Till There Was You etc. In fact Elvis never wrote a song in his life (not even Don't Be Cruel), neither did Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby or any of the major stars. If you revived a song it would be called a revival but then someone called it a cover one day – probably some idiotic deejay - and now they call bands who do other people's songs cover bands – or cover groups.

When we saw the pop package at the Hippodrome we went around to the stage door to see the pop stars emerge – it has to be said that most of them emerged as spotty little Herberts and I remember thinking there may be a chance for me – but in those days I didn't have the gall to get up and do that. I won a singing competition at the army cadets Christmas Party one day but – ah we were only messing about, we were on our way to be macho men and . . ..

One of the stars who emerged that day was Mark Wynter – as the girls approached him he said 'Mind my Sunday best!'

So we shoot forward many years in fact to last Saturday night; we went in to the west end because our son bought tickets for us to see the show Dreamboats and Petticoats a rock'n'roll show set in the early sixties. When we approached the theatre the first thing I saw was that Mark Wynter was in it; there was an old photo of him up in the street; in it he looked about 25 and it said that he was starring in the show and that he would be singing his four hits for the first time in 40 years. So the first thing we wanted to see when we went in was what he looked like!

We didn't have to wait long for that as he opened the show. His (character's) grandaughter was up in the attic playing his Dancet Player and he went up to her; what did he look like? Remarkably similar to what he did when he was 20 or 17 or however old he was when I saw him. However when he turned around he was going very thin on top and there was a kind of stoop in his posture – but from the time the show started to the finish he never stopped dancing; however – he did dance like a granddad at a wedding. He had all the steps and the fancy footwork but the stoop gives the age away and make his legs look to be from a different body. But best of luck to him I thought he was great.

The show itself was wonderful – it was announced that all the music and the singing was live which is a great change from the insulting backing tracks. Three guitars, drums and piano plus two young female saxophonists.

I know all the songs they performed and if you are a rocker and you like this stuff trust me they played it just as it was played in the day.

In the first scene he found his fender and his grandaughter said 'Were you in a band?' and he said 'The Coldstream Guards were a band – I was in a group – for five minutes.' Then she said 'Oh look at this (record) Let's Dance'  'Play that one' he said 'that was my audition.'

And the scene shoots back 40 years and away we go with Let's Dance!