Continuing on my top 10 musicals, here’s the next on the list.
Bugsy Malone (1976)
Bless Nicola. She leant me the VHS of Bugsy Malone, told me I’d love it, and I never did give it back. It was the first musical I’d seen with kids in. Real kids. Not a school production. I loved the fast paced bits, always forwarded past the boring bits (I was a kid, another kid singing a dirge about ‘what kind of fool’ didn’t interest me). The songs instantly got stuck. No-one had a clue what I was on about at school. I wanted to be Talulah, not Blousey. I wanted to be mobster. I wanted to have a car with pedals.
When Alex and I got married at Pinewood Studios, Bugsy Malone played a big part. As my wedding morning gift, he’d framed artwork from the film along with a reworded version of the final song. We got married in what is technically Dandy Dan’s conservatory (or rather the entrance to it). Our wedding photo of everyone is on the grounds where Bugsy and Leroy spot the Splurge Inc vans. The very last song as we left was “You Give A Little Love” – the memory of everyone dancing around us in a circle, doing the knee-clap-hallelujah and singing at us as we skipped out will stick with Alex and I forever. You give a little love and it all comes back to you.