Old
Farnhamians' Association
FGS Production
of
The Coolibah Tree
In March 1960, FGS presented the home grown musical The Coolibah Tree. Alan
Fluck composed the music and Michael Foster and Terry Hughes wrote the book and
lyrics. The production was enthusiastically acclaimed by everyone in the
locality who saw the opera in Church House, Farnham during its sell-out four
night run. Enthusiasm was the main ingredient of the entire project, but some
significant musical and acting talent was also displayed, with leading ladies
imported for the show. Terry Hughes and Margaret Mansey made an excellent
leading couple and the other principal parts were well performed. The music was
reminiscent of both Leonard Bernstein and Richard Rodgers, musical heroes of
Alan Fluck at this period of his life.
The instrumental performance was, well… that of a normal school
orchestra. Chorus singing was of equivalent quality and extremely robust (your
webmaster was in the chorus and enjoyed himself enormously but has never
boasted about it on his CV).
Despite all of this faint praise, the whole production was a huge
success when judged as simply a school project. It made FGS the special school
that it was with a massive amount of effort and creativity from within the
school itself, not just by the key staff members such as Alan Fluck and Michael
Foster, but by the scores of boys who were involved. We cannot say that such
things never happen today but, in those days, such events did not happen very
often on this scale, in a small school, and with the creation of a totally
original operatic piece.
We do not think that this opera was ever produced again. But it did lead
to a further collaboration between Terry Hughes and Alan Fluck when they wrote
a musical version of Love on the Dole
that was produced in the Nottingham Playhouse in 1970.
Only Terry Hughes survives from the team that wrote The Coolibah Tree. Terry went on to become one of our FGS high
achievers as a
Ian Sargeant
Posted 8 November, 2008
Click the pictures to enlarge, back button to return. Press F11 for a
full screen.
Photographs by the late J.S. Sargeant
Listen to the recording of The Coolibah
Waltz (MP3 file) – Click Here
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