The Girl I Left Behind Me

Neil Bartlett, Jessica Walker

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781849435130
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Performing Arts

'... I'm sure I'm not the only one who's thinking; hang on a minute; "I seem to have the knack of pleasing ladies." In trousers? With short hair? In public? Was that allowed? Indeed it was.' A cool and contemporary look at one of the most intriguing aspects of musical theatre – just what is it that makes a woman in trousers so appealing? Accompanied by a piano, mezzo-soprano Jessica Walker dons a few well-chosen items of male attire, giving a supremely well-sung performance that conjures up an entire world, from the swaggering cross-dressers of the Victorian Music Hall to the ambiguous boy-heroes of Mozart and Strauss, to the back-room bulldykes of the Harlem Renaissance. Commissioned and produced by Opera North Projects with the Southbank Centre touring partner Welcome to Yorkshire. The Girl I Left Behind Me is a provocative, flirtatious, personal one woman-guide which deliciously recalls a forgotten chapter of female performance. The Girl I Left Behind Me will be performed at The Barbican Centre in November 2011 as part of the Bite Season.

The Girl I Left Behind Me

Devised by Neil Bartlett and Jessica Walker.

Commissioned by Opera North; originally performed by Jessica Walker, with James Holmes at the piano, in a staging by Neil Bartlett.

First performance 15^th May 2010, in the Howard Assembly Room at Opera North in Leeds.

THE SONGS USED IN THE SHOW ARE

I'm the Idol of the Girls, Lyle/Murray/Hilbury, 1908

I Love the Ladies, Schwartz/Clarke, 1914

Jolly Good Luck to the Girl Who Loves a Sailor, Lyle/Leigh, 1907

Angels Without Wings, G. Dance, c. 1900

Don't Put Your Foot on a Man When He's Down, C. Vivian, c. 1870

Down by the Old Mill Stream, W. Wilson, 1875

Why Did I Kiss That Girl?, King/Henderson/Brown, 1924

Following in Father's Footsteps, E.W. Rogers, 1902

I'm Sowing All My Wild Oats, Lyle/Mellor, 1908

Hi, Waiter, J.F. Mitchell, 1888

I've Got the Time, I've Got the Place, Henry/Macdonald, 1910

Burlington Bertie from Bow, W. Hargreaves, 1915

Baby Won't You Please Come Home, Warfield/Williams, 1919

The Girl I Left Behind Me, S. Lover, 1866

After the Ball, C.K. Harris, 1892

THE TWO OPERATIC EXCERPTS USED IN THE SHOW ARE

Cherubino's Aria in Act II of ‘Le Nozze di Figaro’
by Mozart

Octavian's Aria in Act I of ‘Der Rosenkavalier’
by Richard Strauss

Jessica Walker, image by Fotofillia, 2010

A hatstand with a few hats, a table with a few props, a microphone in a spotlight – and a grand piano.

The house lights go down.

A piano player enters, bows as if he was performing in a very grand theatre, and starts to play.

OVERTURE

A sometimes jaunty, sometimes sentimental medley of the tunes to come. The last item in the overture is an instrumental chorus of ‘After the Ball’.

A woman – immaculately dressed in white tie, trousers and tails, with scarlet lipstick and cropped hair – enters.

She looks at the audience. She stops by the hatstand and rearranges one of her hats, then lingers at the props table next to the microphone, lightly touching a couple of singularly male items – a cigar, an ashtray, a cane.

She speaks into the microphone. What she says is lightly punctuated by the pianist with chords that take us gently towards the next piece of music – sometimes gentle, sometimes melodramatic. They are indicated simply in the text by an X.

Good evening. Very early in my career, I realised that when I'm singing…I don't have to behave.

In fact, you might say that I make my living doing things I would never do – X

Saying things I would never say – X

And wearing things I would never wear… X

This evening, I would like to share with you sixteen and a half songs made famous by some outstanding pioneers of womanly misbehaviour – some of them famous; X

	Some, infamous; X
		Some fabulously successful – and some…obscure. X

Famous or infamous, handsome or petite, these Ladies had one thing in common; they were all Male Impersonators – that is, they were Ladies who sang while dressed as Gents. (She indicates her own costume.) From head…to toe…

But…whatever they wore, whatever they said or did, these women always sang in their own voices – which meant that no one was ever fooled, or even meant to be fooled, by their act; X

which meant that it was all alright, because at the end of the evening, everything could go back to being just how it was meant to be in the first place, both onstage

X

and off; X

which meant, perhaps, that they didn't really mean what they were singing, if you see what I mean… X

Or…which meant – perhaps – that they were just ladies who

Like Post-women X
	Or like Bus-drivers X
		Or like me…prefer to work…in trousers. X

The piano begins a jaunty vamp under.

She picks up a walking cane from the table.

So, if you're sitting uncomfortably, I'll begin. This first number is an iconic little ditty made popular by the most successful trouser-wearer of them all. Born in poverty in 1864, Matilda Powles was rechristened the Great Little Tilley at the age of eight when her father dragged her up in evening dress and put her in the act – and then hastily rechristened again because she looked so convincing that some people thought she actually was a boy, which would have been…confusing – so, Miss Vesta Tilley she became, and she never…looked…back.

She plucks a top hat off the hat stand during the musical intro, and strikes a pose with her back to audience. She turns – and sings off-mike, in character as a cocksure young man – dapper, suave, flirting with the girls in the audience…

I'M THE IDOL OF THE GIRLS

I meet no end of nice girls, and ’pon my word, at times

I feel quite bashful when they say they love me;

It seems that I'm a magnet that attracts them, as it were –

There's no resisting me when I'm about;

In my dress I follow fashion, ev'rything’s immaculate;

They cry, ‘Why here comes Charlie, he's the Johnnies’ fashion-plate!’

The girls they say they'd die for me – in fact the dark ones do;

My fav'rite colour's gold you see – that's why they change the hue…

I'm the Idol of the Girls; I'm the Idol of the Girls;

Fellows come along but they soon go, for they've got no show with the Girls!

I'm the Idol of the Girls – love their dainty little curls –

There'll be trouble if the wife finds out I'm the Idol of the Girls!!

Since I can first remember, it's always been the same –

I seem to have the knack of pleasing ladies.

When I was quite a youngster they would hold ...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half-title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• THE SHOW
• THE SINGER
• THE DIRECTOR
• THE GIRL I LEFT BEHIND ME
• NOTES ON THE AUTHORS