The Rake's Return is one of the most exciting and ambitious productions mtp has ever embarked on: a brand new work of musical theatre which brings together the respective satirical genius of two of the 18th century's most renowned social commentators: William Hogarth and Henry Fielding.
With a book by Graham Baker and music by Neil Innes, the show draws on characters and incidents from Fielding's witty farce Rape upon Rape, or The Justice Caught In His Own Trap and re-invents them as Hogarthian moral archetypes, springing to vivid life in the imagination of the artist as he commences work a new set of 'moral fable' tableaux: "The Rake's Return".
Fielding's story fits perfectly into Hogarth's world of Gin Lane, The Rake's Progress and Marriage a la Mode. We begin with a heroine - feisty young Hilaret - and a plot to deceive: she is preparing to slip away from the household of her father, the bookish and news-obsessed Politic, in order to meet up and run away with her soldier lover, Captain Constant.
However - for this is an 18th century farce, after all - fate has other ideas. En route to their liaison, Hilaret is caught up in a street affray with a dishevelled and impoverished traveller, newly returned to home shores from a life spent wandering the globe. This is Ramble - none other than the Rake of our putative title. Both he and Captain Constant find themselves arrested, their fates now at the mercy of the devious and corrupt Justice Squeezum.
From this event flow a riot of plots and hilarious confusions. In a telling battle of the sexes, trickery abounds and it takes all of the women's cunning - led by the doughty and resourceful Mrs Squeezum - to bring the errant Justice to book, settle all accounts, right all wrongs and carry us to a rousingly happy ending!
Ours is not the first show for which Fielding's play has proved a rich source of inspiration. In 1959 Bernard Miles used it as the basis for his musical Lock Up Your Daughters (Music: Laurie Johnson; Lyrics: Lionel Bart), which served as the opening production at his new Mermaid Theatre. In terms of sexual politics, however, Lock Up Your Daughters was very much a product of its era. Over the intervening half-century, social attitudes have changed beyond recognition. With "The Rake's Return", mtp's working brief has been to produce a new and fresh interpretation of Fielding's tale: one that reflects those changes and brings the narrative alive for a 21st century audience.
To produce our new script, Suffolk-based writer Graham Baker has returned to the author's original. Graham's career began with the film Omen III - The Final Conflict for 20th Century Fox - the commencement of a fifteen-year tenure in Hollywood, writing and directing for the screen.
Providing the music, we are delighted to have secured the involvement of a fellow Suffolk artist: the legendary Neil Innes - inspiration behind much of the Monty Python musical catalogue and founder member of those arch minstrels of Dadaist absurdity, The Bonzo Dog Doodah Band.
Work on the production began in late 2007. On July 25th 2008 an early draft of the show was previewed in a semi-staged, costumed reading in Suffolk, and enjoyed a rapturous response. Work is now proceeding on the expansion of the project into a full-scale touring musical. If you want to keep up with what's happening...
