'Newley - The Singer and his Songs’ traces the Dickensian arch that was the personal and
professional life of one of Britain’s greatest, and most versatile entertainers.
Using, songs, mime, movement, and inspired and improvised madness, David Boyle plays
Newley - and just about everyone else - in this startlingly original solo show about the legendary
entertainer.
Newley was the original East-end boy made good. Boyle wasn’t. He was born 40 years later, but
just ’round the corner from his Hackney hero.
Newley went from child actor, playing the Artful Dodger in David Lean’s film version of ‘Oliver’, to
‘50’s ‘Pop Goes the Weasel’ pop star.
Boyle played second stable-boy on the left, in the Nativity, at Victoria Park Rd Mixed Infants. Later,
he was slung out of backstreet ‘70’s punk band ‘The Twisted Bleeders’, for singing in tune, and
apologising to someone’s mum for stealing her safety pins.
Newley went from the toast of the West-end, and Broadway; writing, staging, directing, and playing the lead roles in many
ground-breaking musicals, including ‘The Roar of the Grease-paint, the Smell of the Crowd’, and ‘Stop the World, I Want to Get off’, to
aging and over-paid Vegas Cabaret artiste, dodging the Mafia, fed-up, and far from home.
Boyle, a natural, and un-discovered, song and dance man, and one of a dying breed, is a well brought up family man, with parental duties
and responsibilities, which he takes very seriously. He is also keen to keep his family in a style to which he was never accustomed. He
works for Disney and draws Mickey Mouse for a living.
Newley, with his writing partner, Leslie Bricusse, wrote many world famous hit songs, including,
‘The Candyman’, ‘Goldfinger’, ‘What kind of Fool am I?’, and several musical movie scores,
including ‘Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory’
Boyle wrote a cheque recently for singing lessons.
Newley, liked the ladies. He was married three times, most famously to the actress Joan Collins.
There was talk of other proclivities – which Newley never denied - and camp stage whispers of
his occasional passion for ‘forbidden fruit’!
Boyle lives in a nice house in Finchley, with his lovely wife and two kids, and is a straight-talking,
clean-living, honest, kind of guy.
In the 1980’s, when he was diagnosed with cancer, Newley returned to the UK, in reduced circumstances. There, he played his cabaret
show to half filled theatres, and an audience which had all but forgotten him.
Boyle gets a pain in the neck once in a while, bending over his drawing board, and he feels frustrated. He hit a ‘pretty rough patch’ a few
years ago, though he’s now back at the drawing board. Recently, he found acupuncture and hypnotherapy to be most affective. In one
such session, in a state of professionally induced trance, Anthony Newley appeared to David, embraced him, and told him to ‘Get a
bloody move on!!!’
Through regular treatment, and support from his wife, David Boyle ventured onto the cabaret circuit, where he found his voice, gained his
confidence – on stage and off – and is transformed into a naturally gifted, generous, and multi-talented performer. That’s all very well..,
but now what does he do with it?
It was not until his old partner, and life-long friend Leslie Bruicusse, mounted a production of
‘Scrooge’, that Newley bravely got back to the top of the bill where he belonged.
Boyle is gearing up for his ‘big break’.
In ‘Newley - The Singer and his Songs’ we see the solo tragic-comic, presence of Newley, living,
loving, writing and performing through all this. David survives in similar circumstances.
We see how Newley’s art mimicked his life, and vice versa. We look, behind the ‘laisse fair’, his
clown persona, inimitable vocal style, and pantomime trickery, to see how Tony may have
gradually come to terms with his passions, fears, loss, loneliness, age, ego-ism, and denial.
Similarly, David has a lot to learn.
In ‘Newley - The Singer and his Songs’, David Boyle dives into Newley’s character, and his own,
with passion, fire, and zest for life.
Together Newley & Boyle wrestle their demons - and sometimes each other - share a laugh, compare notes, and generally belt the hell
out a few fantastically memorable tunes.
Newley & Boyle are talented men who were born to perform: each have unfinished work to do and old scores to be settled. Their stories
unfold, entwine, distort, and delight, in this fractured, funny, crazy business they call show.
