Sing Everybody Sing

Television Toppers under the spotlight

charlesfoster48 Comments

It has recently emerged that the musical theatre sequence in the 1955 film The Dam Busters was performed by the Television Toppers dance troupe and filmed in the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith.

The information comes from one of the dancers, Jackie Lee, whose daughter Susie Ball has recently posted some comments on an earlier post on this blog. Jackie is seen second from the right at the start of the routine and second from the left at the end. Unfortunately she can’t now recall the name of the singer. Update: Michelle Powell, in a comment below, has said that the singer was her husband’s aunt, June Powell.

The whole routine was filmed in a day: the dancers were given their routine to learn when they arrived. They shot the first half before lunch, and the other half afterwards. They were introduced to Richard Todd, playing Guy Gibson, who is seen in the film in the audience. During the song and dance routine, Gibson notices how the spotlight operators on each side of the stage move their lights to follow the singer as she moves from side to side. This is supposed to give him the idea for using intersecting spotlights on the Dams Raid aircraft to keep to a fixed height while approaching their targets. In truth, the idea of using spotlights came from a scientist at the Ministry of Aircraft Production, and they had been installed several weeks before the raid.

In the 1950s, the Television Toppers were one of Britain’s best known female dance troupes and were contracted to the BBC. They first appeared on television in 1953 and are probably best remembered for their appearances on BBC TV’s Black and White Minstrel Show, which ran from 1958 until 1978. The Toppers were also much in demand for personal appearances and openings. Jackie Lee left them in 1958 when she got married.

Jackie also remembers that the soldier-style costumes worn by the dancers were borrowed from the Empire Leicester Square and made by the well known West End wardrobe suppliers, Berman’s. Costumes in this style were very popular during the war, and would have complemented the music used in the sequence. Earlier research published by this blog has revealed the song to be “Sing, Everybody Sing” by John P Long.

[Thanks to Jackie Lee and Susie Ball for their help.]

Sing, everybody – we’ve found the song!

charlesfoster7 Comments

Music1 loresMusic2 loresMusic3 loresPics: Ray Hepner

This blog’s good friend Ray Hepner has turned supersleuth, and had an incredible result. I wrote last week about the music which is heard in a short scene in the film, ‘The Dam Busters’. This shows the actors Richard Todd and Basil Appleby, playing Wg Cdr Guy Gibson and Flt Lt Bob Hay, watching a chorus line perform a song at a London music hall. Neither the song nor the performers are listed in the film’s credits.
Ray has now tracked down the sheet music for the song, which is in fact called ‘Sing Everybody Sing’. The words and music are by John P Long, and it was published in 1942. Long had several hits in the first half of the 20th century, the most notable of which being ‘Oh, It’s a Lovely War’, written in 1915 with Maurice Scott. This of course later provided the title song for the 1960s musical play and film ‘Oh What a Lovely War’.
According to this listing (scroll down), ‘Sing Everybody Sing’ was recorded during the war by Jenny Howard with Victor Silvester and his orchestra. It is not yet known who were the singer and orchestra featured in ‘The Dam Busters’, which was not released until 1955. More may follow.

Update: 5 February 2016
Ray Hepner has sent a new, slightly earlier, piece of sheet music, which shows that the original artistes associated with the song were Ernest Binns’ Arcadian Follies.

Music4 lores
Thanks to Ray Hepner.