‘Geraldo’s Navy’ is a musical with Music by Maxwell Hutchinson and Book & Lyrics by Judge Smith. It was commissioned by the Hampstead Theatre Club while it was under the distinguished leadership of Michael Rudman (later to be Associate Director of the National Theatre) and David Aukin (later the Executive Director of the National Theatre and Head of Film at Channel Four).
We approached the Theatre with the idea for a musical about a dance band on a cruise ship. A commission was agreed and we were encouraged to write the work for actor-musicians, so that all the music of the show would be performed by the actors playing the dance band; a radical idea, which I am not aware has been duplicated since.
The script was approved and accepted, but the show was not produced, and for this reason, work on the musical score was never completed.
SCRIPT AND MUSIC
Below you will find a link to the ‘GERALDO’S NAVY: SCRIPT’. This opens a 1.2 Mb .pdf file with a full and detailed stage script of the show. Where a musical recording is available, the title of the musical number is a link to that archive recording. We suggest that that you open this link in a new tab (‘Right Click’ for Windows devices) and then click on the original tab so that you can follow the script as you hear the music.
‘GERALDO’S NAVY: SCRIPT’
A NOTE ABOUT THE ARCHIVE RECORDINGS
Some songs were begun but not completed and some exist as lyrics only. The nine existing archive recordings are very much a mixed bunch, some are very primitive and crude, others are more developed demos of numbers that we had recorded before the Geraldo project came along but which we had fitted into the show. Almost all now only exist in the form of cassettes, the original reel-to-reel magnetic tapes, have decayed and are mostly unplayable.
BRIEF NOTES ON EACH TRACK
01. FLOATING AWAY. Max Hutchinson, Piano; Judge Smith, Vocals
02. GERALDO’S NAVY. Max Hutchinson, Guitar; Judge Smith, Vocals
03. YOU’VE GOT TO KEEP UP TO DATE, Max Hutchinson, Piano; Judge Smith, Vocals.
The tune was written and a rough piano demo was made with Maxwell warbling the melody. I wrote the lyrics, but never recorded them. So I recently recorded a vocal on top of this 42 year-old cassette.
04. PLAYING BY EAR. Max Hutchinson, Guitars; Judge Smith, Vocals
05. DRIFTING. Robert Pettigrew, Piano and Vocal
Taken from reel-to-reel tape, the last chorus can be heard disintegrating.
06. IF I FORGET TO LOVE YOU. I am still researching the personnel on this well-developed studio demo (of which I have no memory whatsoever) except that the wonderfully Marylyn Monroe’esque vocals were sung by a friend of ours called Natalie.
07. STEAMLINE STREAMLINE. I am also making enquiries about the performers on this recording of Maxwell’s magnificent ‘novelty instrumental’. Certainly Max Huchinson plays guitar, Martin Pottinger is on Drums, and Judge is one of the two vocalists.
08. DJANGO’S TUNE. Max Hutchinson, Guitars.
09. THE CLOCK ON THE WALL. Max Hutchinson, Piano; Judge Smith , Vocals
