Pip Burley

Previously Lectured with Cunard & Princess

Pip Burley was born in Croydon where he attended Whitgift School. During a career embracing music, publishing, advertising, theatre and television, Pip has performed in, written, produced, musically directed and directed a variety of works on television and in the theatre.

Through his company, Excelsior, Pip has devised and produced The Darling Buds of May, starring David Jason and Catherine Zeta-Jones, and A Touch of Frost. He has also produced My Uncle Silas with Albert Finney and Pride of Africa, starring Robert Powell. In theatre, he has produced West Side Story at The Fairfield Halls, and produced and directed Guys and Dolls for the National Trust, for whom he was Artistic Director at Polesden Lacey for four years. He has directed Kismet and The Slipper and the Rose, which he also adapted for the stage and is now performed all over the world. For the theatre, he has written and directed No Exit for Students, Don’t Mess With the Curtain Cords! and Viva la Costa!

Pip has composed and recorded music for commercials, theatre, film and television and, in 1990, won the Ivor Novello Award for best television theme music for The Darling Buds of May.

Alongside his involvement in the above, Pip founded a publishing, advertising and design group, which he ran as Chairman and CEO throughout the 70s, 80s and early 90s, serving a wide variety of clients including Toyota, Book Club Associates and The Financial Times, as well as working internationally, especially in the leisure industries.

Pip was Chief Barker of the Variety Club in 1999, the charity’s 50th Anniversary, and is a keen member of the Variety Club Golf Society. He also serves on the committee of the Old Whitgiftian Golf Society and was Captain in 2007/8. He is currently President of The Whitgiftian Association and Chair of Governors of the Quest Academy in Croydon.

Pip is married with three daughters and four grandchildren, and lives in Headley, Surrey.

TALKS

Showbiz, celebrity, television and music.

2 Series of talks:

“The Golden Age of Song” which pays tribute to the lives, words and music of Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter and George Gershwin.

 1: JEROME KERN –THE ‘DADDY’ OF THEM ALL

Kern was born of middle-class parents in New York in 1885 and, in a career

spanning more than four decades, composed more than 700 songs used in over 100

stage works, musicals and films. He was one of the great, if not the greatest,

innovators of American popular song and the ‘father’ of a whole family of

songwriters who would follow him.

Songs featured include: “A Fine Romance”, “The Folks Who Live on the Hill”, “I Won’t Dance”, “Long

Ago and Far Away”, “ All the Things You Are”, “The Way You Look Tonight”, “They Didn’t Believe Me”

2: IRVING BERLIN – THE CENTURIAN OF SONG

Israel Beilin (later to become Irving Berlin) was born in Russia in abject poverty

three years later than Kern, in 1888. He arrived in America in 1893, at the age of

five speaking no English. Berlin became a huge American patriot and by the time

he died at the age of 101 he had written thousands of beautiful, often witty,

songs, inspiring the much younger George Gershwin to describe him as ‘the

greatest songwriter who ever lived’.

Songs featured include: “There’s No Business Like Showbusiness”, “Alexander’s Ragtime Band”,

“Let’s Face the Music and Dance”, “White Christmas”, “Change Partners”

3: COLE PORTER – THE ‘SOPHISTICAT’

Cole Albert Porter was born in Peru, Indiana, in 1891, the only child of a wealthy

family. A graduate of Yale and the Schola Cantorum in Paris, he inherited two

fortunes and made another. A workaholic, severely disabled following a riding

accident in later life, Porter left a legacy of more than 800 songs including the

score of the musical “Kiss Me Kate”. Writing both words and music, Porter had

a sophisticated style often compared to his great friend Noel Coward

Songs featured include: “I Concentrate on You”, “I Get a Kick out of You”, “In the Still of the

Night”, “Night and Day”, “Just One of those Things”, “So In Love”, “True Love”, “What Is This

Thing Called Love?”

4: GEORGE GERSHWIN – THE YOUNG GENIUS

George Gershwin was born on September 26, 1898, in Brooklyn, New York,

the second child of Russian-Jewish immigrants. He is universally acknowledged

as one of the most significant composers of the 20th century, not only for his

work for stage and screen, often with lyrics by his brother Ira, but also for his

masterful classical compositions, including the opera “Porgy and Bess”. He died

tragically at the age of 38.

Songs featured include: “Rhapsody in Blue”, “Summertime”, “A Foggy Day in London Town”, “I Got

Rhythm”, “The Man I Love”, “Embraceable You”, “Bess You is My Woman Now”. “They Can’t Take That Away from Me”,

“Someone to Watch Over Me”

5: RICHARD RODGERS – THE ROMANTICIST

Richard Rodgers (b 1902) was a pioneer in crafting what became the quintessential

American musical, integrating seamless storytelling from speech to song. Working

with two lyricists, Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein, he is credited with

writing more than 1,000 songs, an estimated 85 of which are considered

standards. To date, nineteen film versions of his musicals have been made. As

one critic put it, “Probably not a day goes by without a show of his being

performed somewhere in the world.”

Songs featured include: “I Left My Heart in San Francisco”, “My Funny Valentine”, “Blue Moon”,

“The Lady is a Tramp”, “The Sound of Music”, “Oklahoma”, “Some Enchanted Evening”, “You’ll

Never Walk Alone”, “Do I Love You” “Hello Young Lovers”

6: HOAGEY CARMICHAEL – THE INSPIRED ALL-ROUNDER

Hoagland “Hoagy” Carmichael was born in Indiana, in 1899. If not the

best-known composer of his era, he was one of the most successful – and

an industry trailblazer. He has been described as the most talented,

inventive, sophisticated and jazz-oriented of all the great craftsmen of pop

songs in the first half of the 20th century, his catchy, often jazz-infused,

melodies and homely lyrics winning huge popular appeal. He was also a

successful actor, performer and broadcaster.

Songs featured include: “Lazy River”, “Heart and Soul”, :Rockin’ Chair”, ‘Stardust”, “Skylark”, “The Nearness of You”, I Get

Along Without You Very Well”, “Two Sleepy People”, “In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening”, “Lazybones”, “Georgia On

My Mind”

 

Note: Pip also has available a one-hour introductory lecture featuring the first four of the

above composers.

 

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THE WORLD OF TV, MUSIC AND SHOWBUSINESS

Lecture 1 – Tuning Up
Discovering music and the piano, learning to play – Bert Weedon, Russ Conway. Early life as a musician including playing with the Beatles, then on to music at sea, working aboard the old ‘Oriana’, ‘The Canberra’ and on QE2 with Joe Loss. But were we seeing the end of a musical era?

Lecture 2 – Overture and Beginners
The Radio Show at Olympia. The Goon Show – Frankie Vaughan and Eric Sykes. The dawn of rock ‘n Roll and its early exponents. A day at the Beeb seeing the pilot for ‘Top of the Pops’ and watching Benny Hill rehearse. Cabaret performances and the people I met – the delightful Ted Ray

Lecture 2 – Curtain Up!
The Big Bands, the bandleaders and personalities of the time: Syd Lipton, Ray McVay, Ken Mackintosh, Joe Loss, and Claude Cavalotti. The dance halls. Performing in cabaret in the West End and at country houses. Working at the Grosvenor House and

on TV with Pete Murray. The session scene – Wally Stott and Angela Morley. Hubert Gregg.

Lecture 3 – Act One
The day job – advertising in the 70’s and 80’s. Making commercials. Barry Humphries, Freddy Laker, Ron Hubbard and the Scientologists. Anita Harris and Mike Margolis. Roger Hargreaves and the Mr Men.

Lecture 4 – Intermission
The celebrity culture – dealing with the stars. Encounters with: Diana Rigg, Sir Fitzroy Maclean, Jeremy Beadle, Oliver Reed, Sir Henry Cooper and John Sullivan, The Beverley Sisters, Susan Maugham and Barbara Windsor.

​Lecture 5 – Act Two
The World of TV. What producers do. “The Darling Buds of May” and discovering Catherine Zeta-Jones. “The idea for “A Touch

of Frost” with David Jason and the making of the series.

Lecture 6 – Encore!
“The Slipper and the Rose” and “My Uncle Silas” with Albert Finney. “Pride of Africa” with Robert Powell. Composing for TV

and Film. Winning an Ivor Novello Award. Even ‘briefer encounters’.

Lecture 7 – Questions and Answers

NB
(a) I like to illustrate much of the above with music from the piano (if one can be made available onboard) a few original songs and humorous poems.