Swinging City - Blackheath Arts

Swinging City (Extracts) - Robert Burns / Frank Marshall

SWINGING CITY - Describes a fight for control of the largest Insurance company in the world, after a clandestine investment by its Directors into a secret oil exploration off the coast of Iceland brings it to the brink of insolvency.

Amidst the fall out from the biggest Financial Crash the world has ever known, the take over bid is master minded by Saul Midas, an enigmatic mogul, whose empire, built on currency smuggling operations from all over the third world, is big enough to bring down Wall Street on its own.

11 songs from Swinging City are now available available for purchase on itunes..

The following are some extracts from the musical - TURN VOLUME ON HIGH FOR BEST EFFECT.

Part 1

Room With a View From The Top	2.32
2. Let's Have a Flutter	2.44
3. Guy I Warn You	1.42
4. Round World Trip	1.17
5. Do We Really Need The Plebs	2.30
6. Asset Stripper	2.33
7. I'm For The Moment	1.54
8. Broken Dreams	3.15
9. I'm sure Guy You Understand	2.51
10. Gold and Silver	3.39
11. The Lord Mayor's Banquet	4.39
12. Jesus Wept You Got To Hang Right In	1.38
13. Pacem In Terris	10.02
14. Bill Out On Collection	3.06
15. Maxims	5.36
16. The Way We Worked	3.32
17. No Mean City	3.56
18.It's An Outrage	3.05
19.Room With A View (Finale)	7.23

SYNOPSIS.

The musical begins as the United Kingdom is beset by a severe recession caused by an energy crisis, and in the opening sequence
‘ Room with a View from the Top’ groups of Treasury officials, Bankers, Brokers and Trade Unionists gather to air their grievances.
As they do so, GUY LAMMERSON, Chief Investment Officer of The Truemantle, and son in law of its formidable chairman, SIR HENRY CASSON, is persuaded by three fellow directors (MATTHESON, MAINE and ELMS) to meet LORD VANRITTART, a senior partner in a large firm of stock brokers.
At the meeting which takes place in an exclusive city restaurant called the Mirabeau, VANRITTART proposes that LAMMERSON should invest heavily in an oil exploration project off the coast of Iceland.
At a subsequent board meeting CASSON opposes the investment, feeling it is far too risky, and cautions LAMMERSON to do nothing until he returns from an upcoming business trip.
Meanwhile MATTHESON, MAINE and ELMS, who are dissatisfied with CASSON’S leadership continue to plot against him, while in a scene set in a city gymnasium it transpires that VANRITTART has also involved a notorious asset stripper called HUGO SPEEDER in the Icelandic venture, and SPEEDER in turn has informed one of the mightiest figures in world finance, SAUL MIDAS, a man whose power is such that he is feared to have the capability of bringing down Wall Street on his own.
In the midst of this CASSON suffers a heart attack and far from rushing to his wife’s side, LAMMERSON, urged on by MATTHESON, MAINE and ELMS, flies to Iceland and signs the contract taking the Truemantle into the oil deal.

As months pass, the British economy deteriorates, while the Truemantle’s liquidity is so stretched by the oil investment, that it appears to be on the verge of collapse. As a result of this CASSON, who’s recovered from his heart attack, confronts LAMMERSON and after a furious row, during which LAMMERSON refuses to pull out of the oil deal, sacks him.
When word of this reaches MIDAS, he instructs SPEEDER to bring VANRITTART, whose oil consortium is floundering due to escalating development costs, to his chateau in the Haute Savoie. There he offers VANRITTART fresh financing, provided that he agrees to help package a plan to take over the Truemantle.
To VANRITTART’S surprise MIDAS scoffs at the idea that CASSON’S friends in the city establishment will rally to his defence. Then to his astonishment, MIDAS insists that he secure the services of LAMMERSON as the front man to lead the bid. Once the bid is successful however, MIDAS explains he plans to replace LAMMERSON by HUGO SPEEDER.

Subsequently at a hurriedly arranged rendezvous in Maxims nightclub, LAMMERSON, still smarting from his dismissal, is advised of the proposed take over bid by VANRITTART, and is urged by MATTHESON,MAINE and ELMS to throw in his lot with HUGO SPEEDER by heading it up.
LAMMERSON agrees, but almost at once is ousted by SPEEDER and after an angry confrontation with MATTHESON discovers that he has not only been used and double crossed by HUGO SPEEDER, but that the real backer for the deal is the power hungry MIDAS.

Meanwhile in a speech announcing his take over bid, SPEEDER accuses CASSON of gross mismanagement and so outrages the city establishment by impugning their integrity, that he is ordered to appear before them.

Then, as the financial crisis in the United Kingdom grows to nightmare proportions, CASSON, facing the reality of bankruptcy at the Truemantle, and desperate to unload the oil shares at any price, receives an offer from VANRITTART to buy them back at a fraction of their original cost. However as he is about to accept, LAMMERSON learns that an oil strike is imminent and sends a letter to his wife outlining all he knows, and frankly admitting his own duplicity, asks her to pass on this information to her father.

Consequently the take over bid is quashed by the government and various arrests are made by the fraud squad, including most notably those of HUGO SPEEDER and LORD VANRITTART.
A few days later LAMMERSON’S clothes are found near Beachy Head, and after an extensive search it is assumed that he committed suicide. Meanwhile, granted bail, SPEEDER promptly flees the country, while MIDAS disappears completely.
Then as SIR HENRY CASSON is seen returning from a trip to Iceland, an announcement is made of a major oil strike.
Amidst celebrations as SIR HENRY is feted by the city and, as all over the world economies pick up, two characters resurface – LAMMERSON in Las Vegas, where he is seen losing all his chips in a gambling casino, and MIDAS in Japan, where amid cries of scandal and scenes of consternation on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, he launches a bid for Mitsubishi.

Meanwhile the Brokers, Bankers, Treasury officials, Trade Unionists and Shop Stewards, who are seen striving for ascendancy in the sung sequence before the action starts called ‘ROOM WITH A VIEW FROM THE TOP’ are seen once more battling for supremacy as the show closes out with a reprise of this music.

For amidst the ebb and flow of economic fortunes, they, like everyone else involved in ‘SWINGING CITY’ haven’t changed their ways.

About SWINGING CITY.

THE BOOK AND LYRICS TO ‘SWINGING CITY’ WERE WRITTEN BY ROBERT BURNS, WHO HAS AN EXTENSIVE FINANCIAL BACKGROUND AND WAS THE CHIEF ACCOUNTANT OF A LARGE INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION.
THE INSPIRATION FOR ‘SWINGING CITY’ CAME FROM ROBERT’S FIRST HAND EXPERIENCES WHEN DEALING WITH THE MONEY MEN, MONEY MARKETS AND POWER BROKERS IN THE WORLD OF INTERNATIONAL FINANCE.
ROBERT ASKED MUSICIAN/COMPOSER FRANK MARSHALL TO COMPOSE THE MUSICAL SCORE FOR THE VARIOUS SONG LYRICS IN THE WORK, AND THE RESULTING COLLECTION OF SONGS, ANTHEMS, SHOWTUNES AND UNDERSCORING BECAME THE MUSICAL WORK ‘SWINGING CITY’.
THE WORK LAYS BARE THE WORLD OF THE INTERNATIONAL BANKING SYSTEM, ITS TAKERS AND USERS, ITS WINNERS AND LOSERS. IT VIVIDLY DEMONSTRATES THE GREED, DECEPTION, BETRAYAL AND LUST FOR FINANCIAL, ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL CONTROL THAT ARE AT THE ROTTEN HEART OF THE LIVES OF THE CENTRAL CHARACTERS OF THE PIECE;
ONE IS A DIRECTOR OF A CENTRAL FINANCIAL INSTITUTION IN THE CITY OF LONDON, THE OTHER IS A SECRETIVE AND MANIPULATIVE INTERNATIONAL FINANCIER, A MEGALOMANIAC BILLIONAIRE WHO HAS AN UNQUENCHABLE DESIRE FOR CONTROL ON THE WORLD STAGE.

ABOVE ALL THE DYNAMIC THRUST AND RAW POWER OF THE MUSIC AND LYRICS CAPTURE THE HECTIC FAST MOVING PACE AND SEETHING TURBULENT ATMOSPHERE IN WHICH THE ACTION OF ‘SWINGING CITY’ TAKES PLACE.

Swinging City (Extracts) - Robert Burns / Frank Marshall

The following are some extracts from the musical - TURN VOLUME ON HIGH FOR BEST EFFECT.

Music

Drama

Verse