AccuRadio Song Of The Day-The Craze

Artist:The Craze

Song:Just My Luck

Album:One Man, Two Guvnors: Original Cast Recording

One Man, Two Guvnors is a musical comedy that was successful in England and then came to Broadway and was nominated for several Tony awards. The show was written by Richard Bean who started out as a comedy writer and directed by Nicholas Hytner who is mainly a theater director but has also done films. The show stars comedian James Corden who was host of the CBS show The Late Late Show with James Corden. The story is about an unemployed musician who goes to work for two different employers and he doesn't want them to know about each other. So it's a comedy of errors. The most interesting aspect of this show is that Hytner decided to assemble a live skiffle band to perform the music. You don't know what skiffle is? You're not as old as me. Skiffle is a form of folk music that became very popular in England in the 50s. Lonnie Donegan's 1959 single Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor (On the Bedpost Overnight?) was a big hit. So I think in England there is nostalgia for skiffle. So Hytner got his friend Grant Olding to not only write the songs for the show but put together a band called The Craze to perform live during the show. The band is Olding on lead vocals and guitar, Philip James on guitar and banjo, Richard Coughlan on bass and Ben Brooker on washboard and percussion. As you will see in the video, The Craze is good enough that they could make a lot of money on tour like a real band. But they aren't a real band and Olding usually works in musical theater. The show was a big success in England. Then it played on Broadway in 2012 and Corden won a Tony. Since then, there have been several revivals in England. And in 2023 Hytner announced that he and Corden were planning a new revival of the show in London. It hasn't happened yet. The original cast album is available as a budget CD. This album could make you a skiffle fan. Here's The Craze performing Just My Luck on a 2012 episode of the Irish TV show The Late Late Show.