View From The Fifth Row 4 - Billy The Kid And The Green Baize Vampire

It's time for another delve into the obscure corners of my DVD collection. This time it's a television musical drama from 1985...

It seems that almost any subject can be turned into a musical. In the last few decades we have had man eating plants (Little Shop of Horrors), teenage delinquency (Cry Baby), French bohemia (Moulin Rouge!), drugs (Reefer Madness), superheroes (Doctor Horrible's Sing-along Blog), hockey (Score) and even horror (The Devil's Carnival).

But I doubt anyone could have predicted there would be a musical about...snooker?

But before we get there, a little bit of a history lesson, as it's probably difficult for anyone under the age of 40 to imagine a time when snooker was vying with football for the number one sport on British television.

Snooker had started as an offshoot of billiards played by British Army officers in 19th century India (indeed the name is a slang term for inexperienced military personnel). Growing in popularity, the first world championship was played in 1927 but it was still considered a minor sport and it's popularity waxed and waned over the intervening decades. Then, following the advent of colour television transmissions in the late 1960s, the controller of BBC2 (David Attenborough no less) came up with the idea of the "Pot Black" knockout tournament to showcase the snazzy new technology.

The show was a resounding ratings success and continued for many years. As a child in the 1970s I clearly remember my dad being an avid fan and watching the show regularly. Despite having an aversion to almost every sport, this was something I watched with him. For half an hour each week it was one of the only times where his interests and mine overlapped. Of course like most households we didn't get a colour television until around 1973 (rented from 'Granada' I think - those were the days). The BBC commentators (including the famous voice of Ted Lowe) tried to compensate for this but didn't always succeed, leading to one memorable comment of "...Steve is going for the pink ball - and for those of you who are watching in black and white, the pink is next to the green..."

The first televised world championship was in 1978 and interest in the game began to rise even more. Top players (and their nicknames) became well known to everyone including Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins, Jimmy 'Whirlwind' White, Steve 'Interesting' Davis and Ray 'Dracula' Reardon - we'll come back to them later. Snooker had become mainstream and it's popularity reached it's zenith in the 15-hour final between Steve Davis and Dennis Taylor, which at it's "black ball" climax was watched by 18.5 million people.This is the environment in which the fledgling and risk-taking Channel 4 earmarked funds to make a musical - and "Billy The Kid And The Green Baize Vampire" was born...

The script was written by Trevor Preston, perhaps best remembered by SF genre fans for creating the early 1970s series "Ace of Wands", although he also did sterling work on the classic cop series "The Sweeny". Director Alan Clarke was usually known for his hard-hitting socially aware TV dramas and films such as "Scum", "Made In Britain" and "Rita, Sue & Bob Too", plus an adaptation of Bertolt Brecht's play "Baal" starring David Bowie, so he was a highly unusual choice for this project. Clarke roped in his star from "Scum", Phil Daniels, for the lead character, plus well known character actors Alun Armstrong and Don Henderson to fill out the other main roles.

The music and songs were written by world renowned composer George Fenton - at this stage Oscar nominated for the score of Dicky Attenborough's "Gandhi" -  although he would go on to write for many other films and directors including "Cry Freedom", "The Fisher King" and "Memphis Belle" plus work for the younger Attenborough's series of wildlife documentaries. Finally, Armstrong and Daniels were both given training to make the snooker matches look more realistic. All the game play and trick shots in the film are carried out by the actors, not stunt doubles.

All in all it was an eclectic bunch of creators and actors who would produce a most strange, unusual and entertaining musical.

The plot is relatively simple. Up and coming snooker rookie, Billy The Kid (Phil Daniels) is being tipped as the next big thing. His manager T.O. (Bruce Payne) is a gambling addict and heavily in debt to a violent nutcase loan shark known as The Wednesday Man (Don Henderson). By the way, "T.O." stands for 'The One', and I don't recall we ever find out his real name! The Wednesday Man proposes that he will wipe T.O.s debts clean if he sets up a match between Billy and seven-times world snooker champion Maxwell Randall (Alun Armstrong) - commonly referred to as The Green Baize Vampire due to his widows peak hair and pale complexion (Randall even plays up to it by wearing plastic fangs). T.O. hypes up the 17-frame match as a grudge contest by using a journalist to provoke both players into making angry comments about each other. However the game has much higher stakes than first thought, as The Wednesday Man has worded the contract so that the loser will have to agree to never play professional snooker ever again. The stage is set for a showdown...

The parallels with the then current stars of snooker are obvious. Billy The Kid is clearly based on South London rising star Jimmy White and Maxwell Randall could only be six times world champion Ray Reardon. Indeed Preston admits he got the initial idea from the duo's 1982 clash in the Professional Players Tournament final.

Ray Reardon, NOT the Green Baize Vampire

The cast are generally very good as you would expect from actors of the calibre of Alun Armstrong, etc. Yes the characters are painted with very broad strokes and a certain amount of stylised theatrical "performance" - and there is an abundance of cockney accents (this *is* Phil Daniels we are talking about after all) but but it never descends into pantomime and it's definitely not camp. The chemistry between The Kid and T.O. is particularly good fun with some dark humour and a satirical edge. There was only a very small budget -  the whole film is studio bound -  so sets are kept to simple yet effective claustrophobic rooms and corridors. Good use is also made of moody lighting, especially in the snooker match scenes where the audience / chorus are on a balcony looking down on the two players. In fact, it's stark simplicity means that I can picture it being performed in a theatre with very little needing to be changed.

But this is meant to be a musical I hear you cry - what about the songs? Well they are a varied yet catchy bunch though to be honest I think you probably will either love them or hate them. Don't expect melodic classics reminiscent of "Rocky Horror" - often the characters are simply "saying the words in tune", if that makes any kind of sense. Certain people have made comparisons to elements of The Who's rock opera "Tommy" and I can see where they are coming from. My personal favourites are "I'm The One" sung by Bruce Payne as T.O., and the songs around the gripping final battle including "Quack Quack" and "It's the Fame Game". Some of the actors fare better than others with singing but generally they get away with it by sheer bravado.

Some "Kid" and T.O" banter plus "I'm The One"

I think Billy The Kid And The Green Baize Vampire was only ever shown on TV twice (hence why very few people have even heard of it), but it was eventually released onto DVD in 2006. Overall, it's not the greatest musical ever made but it's far from the worst and it's worth a look just for the sheer curiosity value if nothing else. Is it Alan Clarke's version of a Brecht / Kurt Weill musical (a snooker Threepenny Opera)? I have no idea - that kind of homage would have gone completely over my head in 1985 and I'm not much better qualified to judge even now. I'm definitely not saying that any of the songs are up there with "Mack The Knife" but that doesn't really matter. All I know is that it's another one one of those obscure one-off things that seems to have got lodged in my brain and refuses to leave. A real guilty pleasure..