Twang!

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Twang!
Music	Lionel Bart
Lyrics	Lionel Bart
Book	Frank Norman
Productions	1965 West End

Twang! is a musical written by Lionel Bart, based on the story of Robin Hood. It is most famous for its disastrous box-office failure. It played at the Garrick Theatre in London's West End, starting in 1965 and ran for six weeks.

Bart wrote both the music and lyrics and also directed and produced it together with Joan Littlewood. The lead actor was James Booth as Robin.

Twang! brought together a cast that included the Littlewood's Theatre Workshop’s strongest players including Ronnie Corbett and Barbara Windsor. It had the potential to be a great vehicle for James Booth, who was repeatedly told he was the only person who could do justice to the Robin Hood role, and who was repeatedly assured that the small part would be expanded to starring dimensions.

But Twang! was a disaster from the word go. The script was weak and stayed that way, especially the part of Robin Hood, despite constant, confusing rewrites. Rehearsals were disorganized. In front of the whole company, Littlewood accused Bart of being too strung-out on LSD to fulfill his creative responsibilities. A “theater doctor” was brought in to salvage things, leading to still more confusing changes, but nothing helped. The show opened in disarray and closed soon after, to universal scorn and derision. Bart had invested his personal fortune in Twang! and he lost everything.

James Booth said that he had never felt good about Twang!. Against his own better judgment he had allowed himself to be flattered and cajoled into accepting the half-baked part of Robin Hood when he could have been doing other things. He voiced his concerns over and over again, sticking with Twang! only from a sense of obligation. He had made no money during the year it took to prepare for Twang!.