Posted Friday 12 August 2011
Ivor Novello Award-winner Mr Heneker wrote songs for some of the longest-running musical comedies to be shown on the London stage after the war and was the first British writer to have two shows on Broadway running for more than 500 performances. He was best known for his musical Half a Sixpence, which was the last West End show to transfer to New York before Andrew Lloyd Webber's shows in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
The archive, housed in the University's Archives and Special Collections in the Learning Resources Centre at the Penrhyn Road campus, contains a wealth of original material on the stage and film productions including working notes, early drafts of scripts and manuscripts of songs. There are also programmes and musical memorabilia such as commemorative wedding albums and postcards connected to Half a Sixpence, after-show champagne supper party invitations and telegrams congratulating Heneker on the opening night.
A rummage through the archive shows early scripts for Half a Sixpence bear the headline 'Kipps', written in Heneker's ink fountain pen, after the lead character and title of H.G. Wells book on which it is based. The records also reveal how six songs originally written for the West End show did not make the final production. Meanwhile there were no musical scores for four songs which appeared including Flash Bang Whallop, one of the biggest hits from the musical, which was a last-minute addition.
The collection joins a growing list of high-profile archive material held at Kingston University including Iris Murdoch's London and Oxford libraries and the Sheridan Morley Theatre Collection. This was one of the key factors for the Heneker family in choosing Kingston University to house the collection which had previously been packed away in the attic. "My grandfather's song-writing career covered such a long period of the music industry's history, from the 1930s to the 1990s and his songs are still much in demand today," David Heneker junior said. "We sincerely hope that this unique collection will now be readily available to all, students and enthusiasts alike. We are delighted that Kingston University has kindly agreed to catalogue and look after David W. Heneker's musical material."
19 June 2024
17 June 2024