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drinks Monday 2 June 08
DUBLIN ... Colman Higgins describes the scope and history of Dublin Gay Theatre Festival ... and reviews two of its shows ... Down Dangerous Passes Road ... Confessions of A Mormon Boy /// LONDON ... film on now ... La Question Humaine / Heartbeat Detector /// BRIGHTON ... It's on till 26 May and here's at least 20 Things you might want to know about Brighton Fringe /// PEOPLE ... Who was there at Fringe Report's First Monday 5 May - photographs & article /// CULTURE ... One Culture ... film screening 30 May booking now ... details
PETER BUCKLEY HILL
in
My Old Man's a Dustman - a Deconstruction
Verdict: Breathless comic analysis
Edinburgh - The Canon's Gait - August 02
Anthony James 'Lonnie' Donegan MBE was born in Glasgow in 1931. Peter Buckley Hill is a little younger.
And it's in the rival city of Edinburgh that Peter Buckley Hill (PBH), comedian, musician and university lecturer, combines - with breathless bluster - these three of his many talents for a penetrating analysis of one of Donegan's most famous songs.
My Old Man's a Dustman (MOMAD) sold a million copies. Lonnie Donegan's hits include Putting on the Style, Have a Drink on Me, Cumberland Gap, Michael Row the Boat Ashore, Does Your Chewing Gum Lose its Flavour, Grand Coulee Dam, Battle of New Orleans, and Pick a Bale of Cotton, but MOMAD was the one that made him famous. Peter Buckley Hill, accompanied by (stuffed) Tiger, asks the question - why?
A sharp burst of the unrelated Marijuana Song on PBH's trusty guitar sets the tone, which can only go downhill. As he says, 'People don't like new material: I've solved this by avoiding it'. The challenge had to be faced, and one day while uttering the meditative mantra 'Ommmmmmmmm', PBH realised it was but the preface to 'Ommmmmmmmm...y Old Man's a Dustman'. In his own words, 'A show was born'.
Cue the laser-focus of a research-trained brain, and PBH traces MOMAD back to 1908: the blues. He does a skillful (but not skiffle) blues version. Tiger looks miserable, so PBH sings 'Where's My Tiger's Head Blues' in the style of Willie Dixon. The answer is 'four feet from his tail'. Borrowing St Augustine's Proofs of The Existence of God, he proposes 3 proofs of one's father being a dustman: (1) He wears a dustman's hat, (2) He wears Cor-Blimey trousers, (3) He lives in a council flat. If you're confused, these, and the tiger tail riddle, are all lines from MOMAD.
Distracted by the three proofs, PBH hits a sidetrack on the significance of '3' in literature. Discovering 3 witches and 3 murderers in Macbeth, he rewrites Shakespeare's lines to incorporate dustmen. For balance, he sings Macbeth to MOMAD's tune.
Another topic troubling PBH is the number of people who can truthfully say, 'My old man's a Dustman'. The answer is, a lot. The world, he finds, is full of people called Dustman, and they all live in America. He contacts them; they don't get the joke. This isn't for the celebrated lack of irony north of Mexico: it's nomenclature. They call them garbage collectors. Undaunted, PBH corresponds with Dustmans throughout the States. He encounters starlet Demi Dustman, and the racing drivers Jim and Jack Dustman. (Sadly, James, a member of Racers for Christ, was killed in a hot rod racing accident in June 2000.) Others include 'dirty' Donald Dustman (sentenced to 20 years for sex offences in 2000), and Natalie Dustman, a champion of women's watersports.
Skipping the date of the real MOMAD in 1960, Buckley Hill asks the question: supposing Donegan had released it in the more serious 70s? 'If there's a rustle in your dustbin', to the tune of Stairway to Heaven, parodies Jimmy Page at his most arcane. PBH flips to 1960 itself, recalling the year's major events from the dating of the solar system to the launch of Sputnik, containing 2 dogs.
It's building to the grand finale, but first PBH completes the deconstruction. Elements discovered include the number of female dust operatives in the UK (very few), the hidden meaning of the lyrics, a competition to sing the lyrics of MOMAD to the tune of The Monkees Daydream Believer (they fit), and to Land of Hope and Glory on the Last Night of The Proms (the audience are given a choice of paper flags, English and Scottish).
Finally, at the second encore, the moment arrives. Lyrics are displayed, and Buckley Hill leads the audience - or vice versa - in a rousing version of the masterwork itself. My Old Man's a Dustman. The words will never mean the same again.
Written and performed by Peter Buckley Hill. My Old Man's A Dustman by Lonnie Donegan.
END
John Park
reviewed Saturday 24 August 02 / The Canon's Gait, 232 Canongate, Royal Mile
Related topics:
Lonnie Donegan 1931-2002: BBC 4 Nov 02: Lonnie Donegan BBC Obituary
Lonnie Donegan film and TV credits can be found by searching International Movie Database under his name.
Fringe Report (c) Fringe Report 2002-2008
