Chapter 8

Willow carried her bag into the house.

“Good week, love?”

“Interesting, Mum. I enjoyed it, and, best of all, the crowds enjoyed it.”

“What sort of crowd, all Hooray Henrys and Snooty Susans?”

“Not really. Most were in their teens or twenties, and as bent as a paper clip. It was a gay club, but a lot of fun. We found out that we’re ‘icons of female empowerment’ in that crowd, and we spent every night in a cloud of different perfumes. And that was just on the guys!”

“Well, you would have fitted in well, knowing your own story.”

“If that did come out, it would give me a degree of authenticity, wouldn’t it?”

“Did they film you?”

“They did. It will make interesting viewing, as they chose ‘Tart’s Tuesday’. It will go down well with the venues for summer, as they were all booked by the same group.”

“So, you’ll be spending summer touring the gay bars of Europe. Gina will find it a bit different when you’re in Florence.”

“I’ll have to put a note in with the new album when I send it to her. We’ll be recording both of our albums when we’ve finished with the operetta this week.”

That evening, she hung her black dress to drop out, and tidied up all her notes and scores for the operetta. Then she sat and wrote the list of new songs, in the order that would be good on the album. She sat and thought long and hard about the title. It should be accepted by the gay community, but not decried by everyone else. She thought back on the odd names that had been given to albums over the past and decided on ‘Tourniquet’. Most people would just have a laugh and wonder what restricting the blood flow had to do with the songs, but she had the idea that where they would be playing, it would already be called ‘Turning gay’.

On Monday morning, she had the bag with the awards she had received almost two months before, along with the dress and her normal bag. At the school, it was a hive of activity, with Max in a coach, and the truck being loaded with the rostrum, timpani’s, one cello and one double bass. The rest of the orchestra had been pared down to six violins, three violas, and a wind and brass section. They had ended up with the twenty that would fit nicely in front of the theatre stage.

Vivienne and Nancy arrived with their own security, as did Bryan and Edward. Garry was already there. Mister Bamborough and Mister Jamieson were joining them today, both keen to see how the final result turned out. The cast were all in school uniform, with their chosen stage outfits in garment bags.

The convoy left the school, bound for Leicester. Garry rode with Bryan and Edward; Mister Jamieson rode with Vivienne and Nancy, while Mister Bamborough rode with Willow.

“Interesting day, today, Willow?”

“It will be, Sir. It may take a while to get it into shape, as we haven’t workshopped the stage movements fully, and it will take a while to set up the backdrop material. The guys have assured me that they have it right and have been out filming on location on weekends. I told them that we could use the blue screen today, but they rejected that as it wouldn’t give them the feedback that they needed to recreate the effect in the theatre.”

“This project has certainly utilised a lot more of the school equipment than any other show, even the drama students are keen to see what you come up with.”

At the studio, the chairs for the orchestra were put out in front of the big window, with the rostrum facing towards the back of the studio. Further along, the big wooden screens had been placed, three to a side, and overlapping. The projection material was hung from a line between two camera mounts and the technical group set up behind it.

It was close to ten before they were ready. As things were being set out, the players, the cast, and Willow took turns in the toilets to change. Sarah, Sydney, and Josh were busy setting out microphones for the orchestra, and clipping radio mics on the cast as they changed. Willow was given one as well.

When they were all ready, Willow called for everyone to gather round. She had her bag of awards, and Vivienne stood beside her with her own bag.

“Before we get working, there is something that has been delayed due to other things. Vivienne and I had a meeting with the label, back in April, at which we were given awards. I’m afraid, Josh, that you’ll need to find some space on the wall. I have, here, a Platinum Record for ‘A Girl has to have Standards’, which needs to be hung. I also have another, for Sarah and the team for the production of the same album.”

There was applause and some happy hugging. Then Vivienne spoke.

“At that meeting, I was also given some awards. These were for ‘Joie de Viv’ DVD. There are both Gold and Platinum Records, as well as another set for this magnificent team of Sarah, Sydney, and Josh. I thank you all from the bottom of my heart, and I especially thank Willow for her piano playing.”

There was more applause and hugging, and then Willow called for quiet again.

“Today, we are going to work on the operetta. What I want to do is have all the cast with ear buds, so that I can give instruction as we go. Sarah will set the mixing board so that I can hear the mix, and also talk us through it. There should be one of the projection team with buds as well. It won’t be on the recorded mix, and I hope that we can do the final show without needing them, with everybody taking their cues from the music.”

Sarah set it up so that all those with buds could hear both the mix and Willow, with the same coming out of the speaker in the control room. The teachers and the drivers all settled down to look and listen.

Willow started by asking all of the cast, in turn, if they could hear, and then the projection leader. Then she said that the overture was about to start, tapped a new baton, and led the orchestra into the overture. As it neared the end, she told Vivienne to be ready. Vivienne was sitting on a seat in front of the screen, which was showing the inside of a swanky room.

As the overture ended, Willow stated that the curtain was opening and for Viv to be examining her nails, and to wait for the violin. She gave it ten seconds and then started the violins, with a sweet melody. She counted down from five for Viv to sing, and then they were into the first act. All of those in the control room were amazed at how plaintive, yet beautiful, the song was.

As it was ending, she cued Garry for his entrance, with him striding on stage from the wings, with ‘There you are, my daughter!’ and then telling her about how great he was for her, and how he had thought of a way to ensure that she had a life with all the things she wished for. It introduced the ‘I’m a man of the people’ when he outlined the quest he had put in place, and then they had a duet where she called him a controlling beast, and he told her that all he was doing was caring for her. When he calls in the candidates, she rushes from the stage.

He then sings the questions to the four, with each of them professing their love for his daughter. The two males with bombastic claims that she would love them, eventually, and the female claiming that they already had a love. The last candidate declared that he would ‘t,t,t treat her w,w,w, well.’ They thanked Ego, telling him that he truly was ‘a man of the people’.

They took a break and discussed changes, and then continued with the second act. This opened with Vivienne on the seat once more. On the stage, the first would be a light sofa, and the second would be a garden seat. The musical intro was playing as Willow called that the curtain was opening and to start the song. Once again, it was a sweet, but plaintive song about only being free of restraint when she was in the park. Willow was impressed with the background vision, with it being a real film, rather than a backdrop.

There was the song from one of the men, as he stood beside her. She told him, in song, that she was being watched, and that if he sat next to her, he would be set upon by hidden security. He professes that he would look after her as his trophy wife, and she sings that, ‘it’s not me you should woo, kind sir, it’s my father that set the quest. If you don’t adhere to his rules, then others would surely be best’.

They had decided that the second man should approach after the first leaves the stage, approaching her in a similar fashion and getting a similar reply. When she gets up and leaves the stage, the first man comes back and the two men have a duet about it all being too hard, and the wooing sounded more like work.

They took another break and pondered on the outcome, so far, while Josh went to pick up lunch from the fish shop and pizza store. The tables had been set up in the rest area, and it was a case of helping oneself. When they had finished, they went back to work on the third act, which opens, once more with the scene in the park. In this one, there is no opening song, with Cuthbert strolling on and muttering to himself. He sees the daughter and stops.

“Wha, wha, wha, what are you do, do, doing here?”

“Wait, wait, waiting for you, young man. A young man who has no chance of winning. How can you create all those followers and all that money?”

“I do ma, ma, magic, my lo, lo love. I do it in mi, mi, mi, mime.”

“In mi, mi, mi, mime?”

“Yes. I’m Cu, Cu, Cu, Cuthbert the mi, mi, mi, miming con, con, con, Conjurer.”

“Cu, Cu, Cu, Cu, Cuthbert.’

“The mi, mi, mi, miming.”

“Con, con, con, con, conjurer!”

He stands with his back to the audience and acts as if he was doing coin tricks, while, behind them, on the screen, a picture appears of a white-face magician in tails, performing the tricks. It took some work for Willow to lead the orchestra in playing the music in sync with the tricks. When he turns and walks off stage, Vivienne is still sitting, with a big smile on her face, when Nancy comes on.

“Are you smiling for me, my love, just for me, my love.”

They sing a duet about the time that they were younger and experimenting, before her father had the time to be home a lot. The last song, with Vivienne alone again, is about all these suiters yet only one who was kind and interesting, and seemed to like her, for herself, and not for her money. As that ended, Willow called the curtains closed and time for a break.

Act four had the backdrop as another fancy room, with several chairs. The two men come in and continue the duet about it being more work than wooing, joined by Nancy who joins in, with them wondering what the price of failure was, seeing that Ego was known for his craziness. Cuthbert comes on stage and sits down, and Ego and his daughter enter from the opposite side of the stage. Ego sings a song about how great he is, and how great his quest was, and how he, as a ‘man of the people’ would be giving all contestants something to remember him by. He then asks each one, in turn, how they had fared.

The two men declare that their efforts on Tic Toc had brought no success, with one declaring that the cat was not a good actor, and the other agreeing that it was hard to make a duck do tricks. Nancy’s character admitted that she had only entered the quest in the certainty that the shared love would overcome all.

Cuthbert declared that his ‘ma, ma, ma, magic po, po, po, po, podcast was vi, vi, vi, vi, viral,’ and that he had been ‘ar, ar, ar, ar, asked to appear in Ve, Ve, Ve, Vegas. He praised his ma, ma, ma, ma, magic la, la, la, laptop. The others all sing praises for the magic laptop.

Ego takes his daughter’s hand and leads her to Cuthbert and declares that he has won her in marriage. He then reprises the ‘man of the people’ song, telling them that all will be given a car from his factory, ‘batteries not included’ and they all sing that Ego is surely the man of the people, repeating that line to a rousing finale, with the timpani giving the final drum roll.

After that, they worked on small parts that they had discussed, trying out new movements and timings. When it was time to go back to Coventry, Sarah gave the teachers a DVD of the raw footage and sound, with another for Willow. Everything was left as it was for the next day, when they intended to run through it as a complete show, with the changes they had made.

The cast all changed back to school uniform, leaving their stage outfits on a rack that Josh brought in from the back. Willow and Sydney collected all the buds and wiped them. The truck drivers were told to come back the next afternoon, and the orchestra got on the coach to go back to the school.

In the car, Howard Bamborough had a laugh.

“You know what the Head is going to say, don’t you?”

“What’s that girl done this time?”

“No. How many full houses will this fill in our theatre. I can see her wanting to have at least three nights as a season.”

“We might get it right by the third show.”

“You’ll have it right tomorrow. Jim and I have discussed this class as you’ve moved through the years. It has been the one with the different ways at looking at things. I know that you and Vivienne had no say in what was going to be tried, but, between you, you’ve created something entirely new and wonderful. I’m certain that there are at least three songs there that would become firm favourites, should it ever get onto another stage.”

“Thank you, sir. It took a lot of thought to get them, made easier by Viv being such a good singer.”

“I believe that you’re recording albums after this. Do you mind if I sit in on that? You can take all of Wednesday, it you like.”

“Thank you, sir. That’s appreciated. We have a deadline to come out with the two albums in time for summer, We’ll be spending the whole holiday in Europe, with a week each in six cities, doing shows in clubs. Not exactly the huge stadiums we did last year, but a lot more work at about six hours a night.”

“How do you manage that?”

“We did eight nights in a club in London, last week, and we did manage to fill the time quite well. It was a lot of fun, actually.”

“Is there a recording?”

“Well, yes, there is, but I doubt that it would ever be put on the market.”

“Oh! Something went wrong?”

“Not wrong, sir. It’s just another shift in focus. It was a gay club, as are all the clubs in Europe. Viv and I have become icons. They said that we were ‘icons of feminine empowerment’. The gigs were all booked by the Rainbow Alliance and accepted before anyone twigged.”

“Nothing wrong with that. Their money is as good as anyone else. That has never done any harm to a few other singers, none as young as you, I admit.”

“It has made us both think about our next recording. We trialled a lot of the songs during the week, and they went well, so I’m hopeful that the new albums should sell.”

“If they half as good as the ones you got the awards for, you should both do well out of them.”

“It’s not the money, sir. It’s what am I going to do with the rest of my life? I seem to be jumping from one thing to the other. I own the trademark of Summer Rose, but the band will never play again. I built a good friendship with Gina, but she’s now in Florence, rehearsing for a summer season with an orchestra. As soon as I get something positive, everything changes.”

“I can tell you, right here and now, young lady, that whatever you end up doing, it will be because of everything that has gone before it. I listened to you, today, calling the shots with that show, and you pulled it together. I know that you had worked with the orchestra, and I know that you had input into the songs and the story, but you allowed others to shine. Take my advice. When you get a final cut of the show, tomorrow, send a copy to the ENO, and another to your label. I’m sure that when you present it at the school, there will be a lot of people in the audience who are there to see this new star of musical theatre.”

At the school, he got out of the car and told her that she would see him in the morning for another session. On the way back to Rising Lane, Sebastian spoke.

“I didn’t know what to expect today. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw. There were at least three songs that reminded me of the best songs of other shows. That first song that Vivienne sung was like a stab to the heart, a bit like that killer song in Cats. There are people who will pay good money to put that on in the West End.”

“It’s just a school project, Sebastian.”

“So was the Blue Coat Dance Band, and that took you to that Berlin show, which is destined to be one of the all-time greats. So was that Carpenters set that put you on a record career. As Howard said, whatever you do is leading you to greatness, and I’m proud to have watched it unfold.”

“Are you going to write a book about it? Xavier said that he was going to do one with all the pictures he had taken. He said it was going to be called, ‘The Summer Rose Story, from The Sap Inside’.”

“I’ll call mine, ‘Driving Miss Willow’.”

He pulled up outside the house.

“See you tomorrow, Miss Rose.”

“I’ll be here, Hoke.”

That evening, she showed her parents the raw footage from the day and explained how it all evolved. Ashley waited until the end of it before he spoke.

“Is that the ‘man of the people’ song that you wrote for my campaign?”

“No, Dad. That’s the ‘man of the people’ song that your opponents are likely to use for themselves, and if they ask, I’ll give them permission. By the time that the election is called, hopefully, the show could have been seen by others, who will equate that song with pure ego and the desire to dominate. I’ll be writing you another short song, ‘man for the people’, which will be aimed at picturing you as a man who helps people. The lunches in the club will help.”

“Has anyone ever..”

“Yes, Dad, many times.”

Next morning, they were at the studio around nine, and, with no set-up needed, did the entire operetta in the morning, with just a few changes needed. In the afternoon, they did it without the buds, and with the full set of cameras and mics. Sydney told Willow that the vision looked good, with her conducting style drawing comment from the teachers, now she could concentrate on it.

Willow congratulated everyone on a job well done, and Howard Bamborough congratulated Sarah and the team on the effort they had put in, not just this week, but also in their teaching at the school, with the technical group getting handshakes from the teachers. Willow was given six copies of the DVD, with the teachers getting another six, and the cast and orchestra getting one each, with one left over for the techs. The rostrum and instruments were collected up and the truck went back to the school with them.

That evening, she looked at the latest recording, and then packaged one for Jill, with a note telling her that this was a school project and not for issuing. She also sent one to the ENO, to the attention of Norman Strong, with a note to check the school website for the date of the performance.

The next day she went directly to the studio. Mister Bamborough was already there when she arrived. With the team, they pulled the piano from behind the mock stage and pulled it towards the big window. They were stacking chairs when Vivienne arrived, With the space now set, and the microphones in place, the two of them changed into one of the outfits that they had worn in the club, the week before, and helped each other look good.

The blue screen was set up behind them and Willow sat at the piano and warmed up her fingers.

“Just so you know, Sarah. We are going to record two albums. Mine is called ‘Tourniquet’ and is a collaboration with Vivienne. We tried a lot of these songs in a gay club last week, and it will have us singing solo and duets.”

Vivienne stepped to her microphone.

“My album will be called ‘Viv-a The Difference’ and will be much the same. On Willow’s, she gets about seventy percent solo, and on mine, I get about the same.”

In the control room, there were smiles, with Howard Bamborough wondering how the label would treat these albums.

They recorded twelve tracks of jazzy pop and took a break. Willow gave Sydney a dozen covers, six for the CD, and six for the DVD. They were the willow tree again, with the album name. On the back listing, seven of the songs were listed as written by Armstrong/Rose and five by Rose.

When they had recorded a similar album for Vivienne, her covers had the old cartoon of a boy and a girl with their panties pulled open and looking into each other’s crotch. The songs were a similar mix of Armstrong/Rose and Armstrong. On both DVDs, the scene behind them was of the back of the stage at the nightclub, taken by Vivienne one night in a break, with the signs lit up.

They ate pizza while the team produced the discs. Mister Bamborough questioned the choice of material and packaging.

“It’s all about perception, sir. As I told you, we played for a very successful week in a gay club and are playing all summer in more across Europe. The label wanted two albums to go on the market before then, and these are the two albums that we’re delivering. Yes, they’re different from what we’ve done before, but they are us trying to be adult. The songs are all about love and laughter, so won’t make a fuss when they’re played on the radio. Our target market will understand, though.”

“What do your parents say?”

“Our parents are just happy that we’re a success. What we’ve done, so far, has improved our family’s lives. We’re sixteen, and in some countries, we would have been married off by now. The songs are all about enjoying life as a teenage girl in a free world. These will be forgotten in a year or so, but there is, waiting in the wings, a six-hour video of us doing what we just did, live in that club. We don’t know what’s planned for that, but it would be a real money-maker. These will divert some of the buyers cash to us. Now, sir, the studio is paid for until close of business Friday. I know it’s a short notice, but is there anything that you want to use it for until then?”

“I could get the junior orchestra in to record what they’ve learned. Thank you for that.”

“We’ll be in school, as usual, in the morning. I think that it’s been a successful few days.”

The girls changed back into the casual clothes that they had arrived in, collected their discs, four of their own and two of the other’s, and left with their drivers. Howard Bamborough arranged with Sarah about having the orchestra arrive in the morning and persuaded her to give him a copy of each of the DVDs for his own collection. He rang the school to organise the truck for the morning, and to get Mister Jamieson to tell the junior orchestra that they were spending two days in the studio. He drove back to Coventry with a smile on his face.

Marianne Gregory © 2025