Around the World in Another 80 Gays: Part 35) What a Performance

Previously on “Another 80 Gays” : The English politician 72) John Hervey, Lord Hervey (1696-1743) was satirised as 73) Sporus (c.49-69), the youth married to 74) Emperor Nero (37-68), famous for having watched Rome burn from the gardens of 75) Gaius Maecenas (68 BC-8 BC), an arts patron who fell in love with a pantomime performer called 76) Bathyllus (c.60 BC –c. 2 BC).

75) Gaius Maecenas loved all forms of entertainment and was patron to many writers and performers. In his villa in Rome, from where Nero is said to have watched the city burn, Meacenas built performing areas similar to modern stages.

At this time one form of entertainment was increasing in popularity. It was a poetry and dance act called pantomime performed by a solo artist, usually based on stories from mythology. Different characters were represented by different masks and gestures. There was quite a lot of erotic and lewd content in the performances and as such pantomime was seen as a career for the lower classes. However, pantomime was very popular with all classes.

76) Bathyllus was one of the Maecenas’s slaves before becoming one of the most famous pantomime performers. Whether Maecenas had fallen in love with him while he was his slave is unlikely, but by the time Bathyllus had become a household name several years later the poet Horace (another of Maecenas’s protégés) was writing poems about their love affair. Perhaps Bathyllus was already a talented performer during his slave years and Maecenas recognised a future star in the making, granting him his freedom and became his mentor and lover.

Bathyllus made comedy his speciality. He quickly became a super-celebrity and it was thought at one time that he was the person who actually introduced pantomime into Rome, though it is now known that it existed beforehand.

Bathyllus had his rivals. Just like modern times when, at one time, you were either a Kylie fan or a Madonna fan, in Rome you were either a Bathyllus fan or a Pylades fan. Pylades was another super-celebrity pantomime performer. The two may have met before their careers began, for when Bathyllus was a slave of Maecenas Pylades was a slave of Emperor Augustus, Maecenas’s boss. The rivalry between the Bathyllus fans and the Pylades fans can be likened to that of football fans, or the British Mods and Rockers of the 1960s. Just like the Mods and Rockers, the fans of Bathyllus and Pylades clashed violently in the streets. In fact, Augustus banned Pylades from Rome until the rival gangs calmed down.

We don’t know when Bathyllus died. Pylades produced a pantomime festival in 2BC when he was too old to perform personally. We assume Bathyllus was about the same age and equally too old to perform, if he was still alive by then.

Even though Roman pantomime dropped in popularity in the 7th century elements of it survived in Italian theatre and partly influenced the “commedia dell’arte” of the 17th century. With the development of stock characters such as Harlequin, Columbine, Scaramouche and Pantaloon commedia dell’arte influenced the extremely popular modern form of British pantomime.

At this time of year almost every city, town and village in Britain puts on a pantomime. I’ve been in quite a few myself, dating back to my childhood days. One pantomime regularly tops the list of the most performed in any one year – Cinderella. The popularity of the story has, of course, spread beyond British theatre. The Disney cartoon is perhaps the most famous version. My personal favourite, however, is the 1976 British film “The Slipper and the Rose”. This was a significant film for the lgbt community, not because the Prince was played by (the now openly gay) Richard Chamberlain, but because it was the first film for which a transgender person received an Oscar nomination. That person was 77) Angela Morley (1924-2009).

Apart from the actual songs and main themes all of the music in “The Slipper and the Rose” is Angela’s – composer, arranger, orchestrator and conductor. In 2011 I wrote about Angela’s musical successes which ranged from surreal radio comedy to Holocaust biography.

It’s difficult to explain briefly what an arranger and orchestrator does. Basically and arranger takes the music from a composer and decides arranges the tune to sound like heavy rock, burlesque, romantic ballet music or country and western. The orchestrator decides how many instruments play the finished piece of music and which part of the tune they play. Often the composer is also the arranger and orchestrator.

I can’t do justice to Angela Morley’s massive contribution to television and film music, so I suggest you look at her IMDb page. But here’s a video of famous scene from a famous film in which all the music you hear was composed by Angela Morley based on the main theme of the film written by her most famous regular collaborator, John Williams.

Angela Morley first came to my attention when I was a child listening to his music in BBC radio comedies. I’m still listening to them. Both of her main comedies are currently being repeated on BBC Radio 4 Extra every week. BBC radio was Angela’s big break in music, as it was for a star of one of those radio comedies, “Hancock’s Half Hour”. That other British comedy legend was 78) Kenneth Williams (1926-1988).

Next time : We Carry On with more comedy and end up being Mad About the Boy.