He begins mixing with Dixie's society friends, and finally breaks a contract Johnnie has set up in order to fly off to Majorca with the actress. But while Johnnie is busy moving the whole venture onto a classier level, Bongo is slipping from his fingers. At the Diplomatique Club his presence causes a riot and also gets him noticed by the actress Dixie Collins and her wealthy friends. In the second act Bongo moves out of Soho and into more moneyed waters. Arnold Katz ('Kakky') once a Hollywood producer and now a vagrant trying to set up one more deal Bongo's sodden father and sour, untrusting mother: all of them used by Johnnie - and the even more unscrupulous Bongo - on their way to the 'big time'. On the way up the ladder of success, a cavalcade of Soho characters pass by Johnnie and Bongo: Maisie, the little stripper who longs to be a singer and who can bring out the kinder side of Johnnie Mayer, the pop recording man who hates modern music and yearns for Aïda K. The act ends with Bongo in a white suit singing 'The Shrine on the Second Floor' to an adoring audience. The first act charts the new star's way to the top in a gritty, even vehement fashion singing 'Expresso Party' in coffee bars, then on television and record, and finally coming out with a new song when, his identification with youth, sex and violence established, Johnnie plans to widen his appeal with a 'mother' song.
Renamed 'Bongo' Herbert and fitted out with a loud, rhythmic song called 'Expresso Party', the boy quickly becomes a fashionable success. Theatre Royal, Nottingham - 24 March, 1958 Saville Theatre 23 April, 1959 (316 perfs) STORY: Agent Johnnie discovers Herbert Rudge playing bongo drums in a coffee bar in Soho and signs him to a management contract. Lyrics by Julian More, Monty Norman and David Heneker.
EXPRESSO BONGO a musical in two acts taken from a story by Wolf Mankowitz.
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