The TV talent shows promise riches and fame, with YouTube and internet exposure now replacing nights at the Palladium.īut the film also pushes boundaries. Yet the exploitation of teenage crooners by seedy men out to make money from their throwaway talent is a theme that lingers eternal, with young singers tossed aside after a few hits. It’s a playful satire of the 1950s music industry, tracking the career path of Bongo, the ‘astonishing phenomenon of our time’. But the path to musical stardom is not a smooth one for Johnny and Bongo.Īdapted from his stage musical of the same name by Wolf Mankowitz, Expresso Bongo is a time capsule distilling a moment in British cultural history.

He gives Burt the snappy moniker Bongo Herbert, then proceeds to manage his career with a spring in his step and pound signs in his eyes. Sensing a path to stardom that’s paved with gold, Johnny convinces Burt to stop mingling with the “spare time geniuses” and sign a management deal as dodgy as his cheap suit. And you should never separate a boy from his bongos. Burt has the voice of an angel, but he just wants to play his bongos. He discovers fresh faced Cliff Richard’s wonderfully named Burt Rudge. The film stars Laurence Harvey as would be Svengali Johnny Jackson, who hangs about in the coffee bars looking for the next big thing. A curiously anodyne bunch of teens really, hardly preparing to stage a rock and roll revolution. But inside, no ne’er do wells or underworld gangsters, just wholesome teens who want to drink Italian coffee and dance to the beat. Instead of the glitz and the glamour of New York’s Broadway, or the sophisticated romance of Paris, here our story unfolds in the scruffy espresso bars of the Soho underbelly.

It’s a musical with a defiantly British sensibility. Part frothy pop musical, part satirical send-up. It’s a film that defies convention and category. That’s the intoxicating world at the heart of Expresso Bongo, Val Guest’s delightfully murky musical satire from 1959. Where dancing goes on until dawn, and the jazz music never stops. Past strip shows and clip joints, showgirls and women of the night. Journey through the seedy night-time streets of London’s 1950s Soho.

Expresso Bongo by Wolf Mankowitz