My Britcom Musical

I've had it in mind for about two years to compose a musical based on the Britcom of the 1970s, Are You Being Served?. The music has been rolling around in my head, but not having any text, I didn't want to write it down. The problem I had was finding someone with the right sense of theater and humor to take on the job of writing the "book" (the libretto or script). I even have two of the parts cast in my imagination (Dr. Scott as Mr. Humphries and Lynette as Mrs. Slocombe). Both have a background in theater and opera and have said that they'd love to take on the roles.

Because AYBS was created around the older theater traditions of the English operetta (which Gilbert & Sullivan got from composer Stephen Storace, who brought it with him from Vienna in 1787 where he studied German Singspiel with Mozart), it has many of the elements of, say, The Marriage of Figaro:  An over-the-hill man who's bored with marriage and is always after the soubrette (Capt. Peacock/Count Almaviva and Miss Brahms/Susanna), the older lady who fancies herself a femme fatale (Mrs. Slocombe/Marcellina), a smart-as-a-whip but basically lazy young man who's also after the soubrette (Mr. Lucas/Figaro), two older men who are basically good for nothing except causing trouble (Mr. Grace/Don Bartolo and Mr. Grainger/Don Curzio), a romantic young man who's full of panache (Mr. Humphries/Cherubino), and the "blue collar" worker (Mr. Harman/Antonio). There is no Countess Almaviva role though, unless it's Mrs. Peacock, who shows up once in a while, but for the sake of a comedy she is easily left out. The tradition of the commedia dell'arte is obvious in this show, which makes it perfect for the stage.

A few weeks ago it dawned on me that I already had the perfect librettist, a young woman I know in Seattle who writes and produces off-the-wall shows for her group, Operadisiac. I approached her with the idea yesterday and she expressed a lot of interest.

She has the perfect sense of comedy for this project, and we've been nuts about each other for a number of years. If we end up doing this together, it'll be a lot of fun.

The hard part will be all the red tape with the BBC. There could be issues with using the characters. I'm writing them a letter today to find out about that. Wish us luck!

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UPDATE 12:25 pm:
As I wrote this entry, I was wondering about the role of Mr. Rumbold, and thanks to Ville's comment, I've deduced that both he and Mr. Grainger are Don Bartolo types. That leaves me wondering about Young Mr. Grace. Perhaps he's Don Curzio... Fun to analyze.