Top Hat

Fantasy Bob has observed before that there is no human misery that could not be made passably better by a spot of tap-dancing.

Generally he sticks by that philosophy: while current political debate might not acknowledge the argument's merits, FB is confident that the coming UK election will see the major parties make serious commitments to tap dancing as they draw up their manifestos.

Be that as it may, FB and Mrs FB recently enjoyed a performance of Top Hat - a stage presentation of the 1930s musical which has enough tap dancing to soothe most anxieties these troubled times give rise to.

FB has never had the chance to tap dance.  Mrs FB suggests that his possession of two left feet would be a significant hindrance to any attempt.  Of course Mrs FB has never seen his nimble dancing down the wicket to dispatch the ball to the boundary, far less his floating rhythmic run up the hill against the wind.  Had she done so, she would know that her anatomical aspersion is inaccurate.  FB has two right feet.

FB has therefore always admired tap dancing in others and no one tops Fred Astaire who shone like the brightest of diamonds in the film version of Top Hat which contains several magical dance numbers with Ginger Rogers.  Not even FB's world famous in-swinger can match the perfection of their presentation of Cheek to Cheek. Test Match Quality.

Regrettably, cricketers find little to interest them in the careers of Astaire nor Rogers - any interest stimulated by the knowledge that Astaire's very first film appearance was in a 1915 silent film with the encouraging title of Fanchon the Cricket is soon dispelled when they find the action revolves around a young wild girl Fanchon (played by Mary Pickford) who lives in a forest with her eccentric grandmother who is suspected of being a witch.  Being a witch of course could be a cipher for bowling leg spin, but there is no cricketing action to verify this reading.

The score of Top Hat was written by Irving Berlin, generally believed to be another non-cricketer.   Berlin can be considered the greatest of all song writers - he wrote over 1500 many of which are as popular and fresh today as when he wrote them - despite the shocking absence of cricket references in his lyrics.  But then it has to be recalled that Berlin was writing for an American audience whose interest in cricket was limited. For commercial reasons, he had to suppress his better instincts and write cricket out of his songs.

This seems a reasonable hypothesis for FB has unearthed this early version of the lyric of one of Berlin's more enduring numbers, which could almost have been written about FB:

There may be googlies ahead
But while it's milit'ry medium
You won't look a prat
Let's face the bowling and bat

Before the seamers have fled
Before they ask us to play leg spin
And while the wicket’s still flat
Let's face the bowling and bat

(This great tune  - with its better known words - was included in the stage version of Top Hat where it sat very nicely - but it was written for another Astaire-Rogers film Follow the Fleet.)

Cheek to Cheek - perfection