Milk bars, jazz and show­girls: The intox­i­cat­ing world of Expres­so Bongo

Jour­ney through the seedy night-time streets of London’s 1950s Soho. Past strip shows and clip joints, show­girls and women of the night. Where danc­ing goes on until dawn, and the jazz music nev­er stops. All life is here.

That’s the intox­i­cat­ing world at the heart of Expres­so Bon­go, Val Guest’s delight­ful­ly murky musi­cal satire from 1959. It’s a film that defies con­ven­tion and cat­e­go­ry. Part frothy pop musi­cal, part satir­i­cal send-up. It’s a musi­cal with a defi­ant­ly British sensibility.

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. But inside, no né’er do wells or under­world gang­sters, just whole­some teens who want to drink Ital­ian cof­fee and dance to the beat. A curi­ous­ly ano­dyne bunch of teens real­ly, hard­ly prepar­ing to stage a rock and roll revolution.

The film stars Lau­rence Har­vey as would be Sven­gali John­ny Jack­son, who hangs about in the cof­fee bars look­ing for the next big thing. He dis­cov­ers fresh faced Cliff Richard’s won­der­ful­ly named Burt Rudge. Burt has the voice of an angel, but he just wants to play his bon­gos. And you should nev­er sep­a­rate a boy from his bongos.

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. 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. But the path to musi­cal star­dom is not a smooth one for John­ny and Bongo.

Adapt­ed from his stage musi­cal of the same name by Wolf Mankowitz, Expres­so Bon­go is a time cap­sule dis­till­ing a moment in British cul­tur­al his­to­ry. It’s a play­ful satire of the 1950s music indus­try, track­ing the career path of Bon­go, the ​‘aston­ish­ing phe­nom­e­non of our time’. 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. The TV tal­ent shows promise rich­es and fame, with YouTube and inter­net expo­sure now replac­ing nights at the Palladium.

But the film also push­es bound­aries. It fea­tures bare­ly con­cealed strip­pers and sex shows, things that were shock­ing to audi­ences at the time. There’s a won­der­ful con­trast between the inno­cence of the teens in the cof­fee bars, and the seedy life on the streets out­side. And between Burt and John­ny who inhab­it them.

Har­vey seems to rev­el in the camp mean­ness of John­ny, prowl­ing around try­ing to pro­tect his prodi­gy with fire in his bel­ly and a wry smile on his face. He feels like an exag­ger­at­ed amal­ga­ma­tion of all those untrust­wor­thy music men in suits.

Cliff is just Cliff. Young and pret­ty, sweet and pure. His decid­ed­ly British, latent sex­u­al­i­ty is an advan­tage here. There isn’t much for him to do, just look pret­ty and break some hearts. A reflec­tion of the way the young male tal­ent was exploit­ed at the time, and a nice change from the exploita­tion of pret­ty young girls on screen.

The women in the film are more than just win­dow dress­ing. There’s a won­der­ful­ly droll turn from Yolande Don­lan as fad­ing Amer­i­can star­let Dix­ie Collins. She chan­nels a know­ing, world weary matu­ri­ty as she sets her sights on naïve young Bon­go. Her inter­est is twofold, want­i­ng to revive her own flag­ging career by using him to gain a new audi­ence, and to also take advan­tage of his hot young body for her sex­u­al plea­sure. There’s no pre­tence, we know her inten­tions even if Bon­go doesn’t.

Sylvia Sym’s world weary strip­per Maisie King is a show­girl with dreams. She has a singing voice sent from heav­en, and the patience of a saint. She puts up with boyfriend John­ny and his schemes, crav­ing sta­bil­i­ty. She takes on the role of sym­pa­thet­ic nurse­maid to his ambi­tions. She does his wash­ing, then goes to work on stage, wow­ing the sleazy Soho crowds.

The com­plex­i­ty of the two female leads is nice­ly com­ple­ment­ed by the addi­tion of Susan Hampshire’s delight­ful­ly ditzy and vac­u­ous posh débu­tante, with her wide-eyed crush on Bon­go, ​“Isn’t he sweet, isn’t he pure heaven!”

Ulti­mate­ly, every­one wants a bit of Bon­go. Dix­ie and John­ny bat­tle for his atten­tion and his tal­ent, both seem­ing­ly with an unhealthy inter­est in more than just his career.

Despite the satir­i­cal and sleazy under­tones, Expres­so Bon­go is a musi­cal and the sound­track is full of verve. From the mes­meris­ing, jazzy open­ing title sequence that sets the rol­lick­ing tone for the film, to the jaun­ty char­ac­ter solo num­bers, it’s pure, frothy and decid­ed­ly quirky enter­tain­ment. It almost makes you want to burst into song and open your own bon­go club.