DVDs: Arabian Nights

What show was for decades the longest running musical in British theatre history? It was Chu Chin Chow, the hit that is forever associated with England during World War I.

It was based on the story of Ali Baba and the forty thieves, derived from the tales of the Arabian Nights. And it was the creation of Oscar Asche, who wrote the book and lyrics, produced, directed, and played the leading role of bandit king Abu Hassan. Asche's wife played the cunning spy Zahrat.

In the plot, robber chief Abu Hassan wishes to add to his riches the property of Kasim Baba brother of Ali Baba, and has installed the slave Zahrat in Kasim's house as a spy. Hassan arrives at Kasim's palace in disguise, as "Chu Chin Chow of China." Hassan eventually slaughters Kasim, but Zahrat gets her revenge on both Hassan and his forty thieves.

With music by Frederic Norton, Chu Chin Chow was an enormous spectacle, its locales shifting from a slave market to a street in Baghdad, an orchard, or the thieves' cave. The score was lushly tuneful, with hit songs in the sprightly "Any Time's Kissing Time" and the doleful "Cobbler's Song." There are two full-length, studio-cast recordings, one of which is available on CD.

With Gilbert and Sullivan star Courtice Pounds in the comic lead of Ali Baba, Chu Chin Chow opened at His Majesty's Theatre in London where The Phantom of the Opera has been running for two decades on August 31, 1916, and played a staggering 2,235 performances. Chu Chin Chow was less successful in New York, however, where it arrived in 1917 at the Manhattan Opera House for a run of 208 performances.

A combination of musical comedy, Christmas pantomime, melodrama, romance, and spectacle, Chu Chin Chow broke every theatrical record in England. It received wartime London revivals in 1940 and '41, and was even produced on ice at the Empire Pool in Wembley, London in 1953.

Chu Chin Chow was first filmed as a silent in 1923. In 1934, it got a solid talking version, directed by Walter Forde, with Anna May Wong as Zahrat, Fritz Kortner as Hassan, and beloved music-hall singer-comic George Robey as Ali.

One of the better filmed musicals of its era, the sound version features twelve songs, numbers which may at times remind you of the score for another musical Arabian night, Kismet. The '34 film co-written by Kismet playwright Edward Knoblock recently underwent a substantial restoration, pieced together to its original 102-minute length from several released versions. The three-disc set from VCI includes Ali Baba Nights, a shorter version of the film, released to the American market as an adventure for children and missing most of the score. The new set also includes feature-length commentary by Jay Fenton, who discusses the film's opulence it cost £500,000, the career of Anna May Wong, and the restoration process.

It's remarkable that such a relatively obscure musical film has received such loving treatment and is now widely available. And the film is worth a look for its documentation of a once-celebrated stage musical that's not likely to get a full-scale revival.

TABOO Ace's Wild

Just after Taboo opened on Broadway in the fall of 2003, I reviewed the double-DVD of the London production, released in PAL format in the U.K. In the same format is a new, triple-disc "special edition" DVD set of Taboo.

Unglamourously packaged ---the three discs come on top of each other--- the new set offers, as before, the complete 145-minute London production of the show, taped live at the Venue, plus a full-length audio-commentary track featuring Boy George and Mike Nicholls, the latter the costume designer and director of the show video. Recorded near the end of the run, this commentary can be amusingly dishy, including occasional indiscreet comments about cast members. Also from the original, two-disc set, there's an "Ich Bin Kunst" music video as well as a featurette shot backstage on closing night at the Venue.

The highlight of the hour or two of new material in the three-disc set is "Everything Taboo," a fifty-minute documentary on the production, also directed by Nicholls. Here, one meets the "real" Boy George, Philip Sallon, Marilyn, "Big" Sue Tilly, Nicola Bowery, and Steve Strange the latter character dropped in the Broadway production, as well as, on film, the late fashion designer and performance artist Leigh Bowery. Also appearing as talking heads are the actors who played these people in the London Taboo, including Euan Morton, Paul Baker, John Partridge, Drew Jameson, Julian Clary, and Gail MacKinnon.

There's a great deal of information about the club culture of the '80s, and Marilyn, Sallon, and Boy George all have various bitchy things to say about one another. Defining the New Romantic movement, George says it was all about the search for acceptance by a bunch of people who felt ostracized from their families and environment and came together in the heart of London to create an alternative family of freaks.

Late in the documentary, we meet Broadway Taboo producer Rosie O'Donnell, who talks about how the show is being altered for New York. O'Donnell mentions her interest in playing Big Sue when the original Broadway cast departs. Sallon says he wasn't in a room with O'Donnell for more than forty seconds before she told him exactly what she was worth financially.

This entertainingly ramshackle documentary made me wonder what ever happened to the documentary about the Broadway production that was to have been exhibited and released. No doubt it will turn up eventually.

Beyond the documentary, there are eight new featurettes in the triple-disc edition. The first has George in his Broadway dressing room at the Plymouth Theatre just two days before opening night, talking about the publicity the show has received and about his latest musical project, "The Twin," born out of his frustration with the BBC not playing his music and inspired by the bravery of Leigh Bowery that George has discovered through playing him.

We get footage of Bowery as a one-man art exhibit at a London gallery. We see George perform "Here Come the Girls" at the I.C.A. club. There's a 2005 fashion show climaxed by the appearance of George and Mike Nicholls, who presumably designed the clothes.

There's an "Out of Fashion" music video, featuring cast members of Taboo and clips of the real Bowery. There are out-takes from a TV advertisement for a "Karma Chameleon" telephone you'll have to see it to understand. We get George dressed as Bowery and visiting various London locations, and George performing at Ronnie Scott's club.

The New York production of Taboo seems to have developed something of a cult following, so fans of the show will be intrigued by all of the above. But they will also be surprised at how different the London production, with a book by Mark Davies, was from the Broadway incarnation, with Charles Busch's book and a significantly altered tunestack. The two Taboos make for an interesting contrast, even if one is forced to conclude that the Broadway script was superior but the informal London club environment was more appropriate.