Kick up your heels and take a quick break. This week’s camp from the musical, Oliver! I’d Do Anything. And I’d do anything for Hilllary, except vote for Barack Obama, so perhaps it’s I’d do almost anything, anything for Hillary.
Fagin, played by Ron Moody, prancing and twirling at the end of this scene is priceless. The musical is by Lionel Bart and it’s a camp classic. Lionel Bart was born in East London in 1930, the youngest of seven children. His parents were Galician Jews who escaped the pogroms in Galicia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and split between Poland and the Ukraine. His real name was Lionel Begleiter. Amazingly, Lionel Bart never learned to read nor write musical notation. Oliver! was by far his biggest hit and at one point, it was earning Bart £16 a minute! He never married and was presumed to be gay though he was at one point romantically linked to Judy Garland, a gay match made in heaven.
I have often wondered why gay men just adore musicals. I think it affords us the opportunity to just be silly in public, something we can’t normally do. Oliver! is by far my favourite musical. The camp factor is high. I guess we also just love to tap our toes, and not just at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.