Using music in the theatre – Love, Love, Love by Mike Bartlett
A bit of a diversion, this post, but as I sit in my lofts north london I thought I’d share with readers here some thoughts on how rock and roll can be used to great effect on stage, as part of a critically acclaimed and popular new play now touring round the country. Mike Bartlett is one of the United Kingdom’s most successful younger playwrights, whose Earthquakes in London was a huge hit at the National Theatre in 2010. Currently touring is his play Love Love Love, which explores the generation gap between the so-called “baby boomers"- the first generation of UK youth to really experience popular music as we know it – and their children.
The play begins in 1967, as the Beatles are about to premiere their new song All You Need is Love in front of a worldwide television audience. A rather conventional young man, Henry, is waiting for his date Sandra to arrive, but his Oxford student brother Kenneth won’t leave the flat to give the young couple some space. By the end of the first act, Kenneth has seduced Sandra – and they dance to the live broadcast of the Lennon – McCartney masterpiece before Henry enters and is broken. At the top of Act 2, some twenty years later, Kenneth and Sandra are married with two kids. As the curtain rises their youngest child, Jamie, is coming it the full Ian Brown impersonation as he lip-syncs along to the Stone Roses'She Bangs the Drums. As soon as the older, sleeker Kenneth enters, he’s yelling at his son to turn the music down.
Using these two songs both illustrates the generation gap in terms of the kind of music that’s played and the actors'and audiences'response to it. Plus they’re both great tracks! Highly recommended viewing.
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