The Lambeth Goosestep

I’ve been busy lately digitizing my (huge) collection of musical theater cassette tapes. One that I came across this week was the mid-‘80s hit Me and My Girl, a fluffy tap-tastic import from across the pond. Me and My Girl has the most perfunctory of plots, about a young Cockney man who suddenly discovers that he is the Long-Lost Heir to the earldom of Hareford--but only if the executors of the will decide he is “suitable.” Gender-reversed My Fair Lady hijinks ensue!

If you can get past the enormous suspension of disbelief required by the audience (such hereditary peerages as dukedoms and earldoms are or at least were, things have changed a bit in the last several generations protected by entailment and certainly not subject to conditional snobbery tests--the barons of Runnymeade would rise up from their graves before they allowed THAT to happen!):

King John: Can I just add a quick rider about how the heir has to speak RP--

Looming Knight: NO. Sign it already, Softsword.

King John: But it would make such a great musical!

...Me and My Girl is a delightful bit of puffery, one long silly music hall number after another, dotted in between with comfortably predictable jokes.


HEATHERSETT: Aperitif, sir?
BILL: No thanks, I got me own.

DOWAGER: Do you know my daughter, May?
BILL: No, but thanks for the tip!

And certainly its most engaging and famous number is the first act finale, “The Lambeth Walk*,” one long rollicking set piece designed to take the piss out of British aristocracy.

We play a different way
Not like you but a bit more gay,
And when we have a bit of fun--oh boy!

Any time you're Lambeth way
Any evening, any day
You'll find us all
Doin' the Lambeth Walk--oi!

Robert Lindsay, Tony Award winner, singing The Lambeth Walk

As silly as it is, the number is truly infectious and was a HUGE hit in pre-War England--obviously a welcome distraction as Europe drew closer and closer to near-annihilation. As the saying went:

While dictators rage and statesmen talk, all Europe dances — to The Lambeth Walk.

Even King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (mother and father of the current Queen) came to see the show in 1939, and sang along with the rest of the audience.** Within a few years, of course, the Kingdom had need of even more distraction--and here their affection for The Lambeth Walk brought its own rewards.

During times of challenge humor is an invaluable coping mechanism--it contextualizes, it cuts down, it reduces, it adds perspective. Monsters have frequently been cut down to size through humor--in fact this is the stratagem behind the riddikukus curse in Harry Potter, that you conquer your boggart by placing it in a silly context. In this age of irony we like to think we invented this technique, that the generations before us were all terribly earnest and brave and stalwart. Brave and stalwart the Greatest Generation certainly was--but no one can cut you down with humor like the Brits! During World War II some filmmaking genius had the clever idea to match an orchestra track of The Lambeth Walk to some footage from Leni Reifenstahl's Triumph of the Will--and thus, the mashup was born.

If this is not the funniest thing you've seen all week, there is something wrong with you.

They say that Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Minister of Propaganda, flipped. out. when he saw this footage, throwing chairs across the room. God, I love British humor.

And oh, what a right little island.

A right little, tight little island...

*The actual Lambeth Walk is in the South End of London, off of Lambeth Road. The reference is to the strutting evening promenade popular amongst residents--Noel Gay had the idea to set it to song and thus an iconic song was born.

Notice Mayfair across the river, to the northwest--Mayfair is where the aristocracy, and thus new Earl's "posh" relatives, lived.

**Adorably--and cheekily--Lupino Lane, the star of the show, reported afterward, "They [Their Majesties] said they had been walking the Lambeth Walk the wrong way--the ballroom way--and promised to do it our way in the future."