It doesn't seem that long ago when I saw this on the big screen complete with an intermission and a glossy programme.As a matter of fact it was the height of the "Swinging Sixties" and perhaps not the most obvious time to make a musical set in Edwardian times with an ex-fifties pop star in the lead role.The words "British" and "musical" are of course antithetical,the list of disasters and near disasters in this bastardised genre too long and too well-known to recount here.Presumably the producers hoped that by bringing in George Sidney they could breathe life into an already mouldering corpse.Sadly "Half a sixpence" was not a Lazarus-like project. The best Mr Sidney could do was to give it a semblance of life,even his considerable talents could not provide that vital spark to set the heart beating and the blood pulsing. Mr Tommy Steele,a decade earlier the archetypal cheeky cockney pop singer who was the best Britain could do in the rock n' roll industry's birth-pangs,had gamely fought his way from guitar-slinging to "family entertainer"status via pantomime and Variety bills.Shrewdly managed,he did not try to compete with the emerging "Beat Group" generation but capitalised on his broader appeal and toothy charm.Sadly it was not enough to smile and shake his blond hair a lot when it came to making a big movie, you needed that special quality that forces people to look at you rather than those round you,and he didn't have it. Watching "Half a Sixpence" is like indulgently watching your favourite nephew perform after Christmas dinner.While he chirps away merrily your eyelids droop and every so often when he gets extra loud you wake up with a start and pretend to be enjoying it. It isn't actually bad - it's just totally non-involving.The songs are blandly - if competently- performed,the dances likewise.The "Big Number","Flash,Bang,Wallop" neither flashes,bangs nor wallops. Miss Julia Foster has clearly been instructed to reign in her effervescent personality(and dye her hair so as not to rival Mr Steele's)but she still manages to be the best thing about the film. A lot of talented people did their very best to make "Half a sixpence" work.It must have been heartbreaking for them to put in so much effort to so little avail.Opening out the production from the relatively modest confines of the theatre destroyed it's warmth and intimacy.Replacing those attributes with brassiness and wide grins was,I'm afraid a retrograde step.
Review of Half a Sixpence
