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Those of a certain age will have delighted in the comedy songs of Flanders and Swann.
They sang about mud, mud, glorious mud, riding on a bus, being a gnu and when the gas man came to call.
Now fans can hear these and more when opera buffs Sovra Newman and Leon Berger present Hold Very Tight, Please! a tribute to Michael Flanders and Donald Swann on Saturday, February 29 on Sheppey.
Sovra, 59, the daughter of jobbing actor Philip Newman, was brought up in the East End listening to the duo’s records played by her grandfather.
Singer Leon, 63, was asked to perform in an opera written by Donald when he went solo and the pair became such good friends Leon ended up writing a biography of the composer.
Following his death, Leon was asked to look after the archives and, as a result of that, also looks after the Flanders’ family archives.
Music teacher Sovra, who has lived at Gillingham since 2013, said: “Because of Leon’s work, we can include rarely performed and unpublished songs along with all the old favourites.”
She added: “We are trying to dispel the myth that these songs can only be performed by two posh, white English males. We want to prove they have a life of their own.”
For 11 years, Flanders, in a wheelchair, and Swann, at the piano, were the toast of the West End and Broadway with At The Drop of a Hat and At the Drop of Another Hat which they “performed all over the civilised world – and in America.”
They met at Westminster School where they wrote a revue together and then again at Oxford (although Flanders was not allowed to study there because he had become crippled from polio and had to use a wheelchair).
The pair wrote for soloists such as Joyce Grenfell and Ian Wallace before creating their own touring shows.
Sovra met Leon when they were performing at the Theatre Museum in Covent Garden. Baritone Leon had been drafted in as a last-minute replacement.
They will be accompanied at the Criterion Theatre in Blue Town, Sheerness, on Saturday, February 29, by pianist Tim Smith.
The show starts at 7.30pm.
Tickets are £15 from 01795 662981 or thecriterionbluetown.co.uk
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