The fateful adaptation of ‘The Seventh Seal’ into a musical, funded by Formula 1 magnate, Bernie Ecclestone, was one of the most infamous flops in the history of Broadway. In this treatise I explore the production’s history and prod tenderly at the reasons why it might have failed so calamitously.
When the great Swedish director, Ingmar Bergman, died in 2007, a regretful codicil in his will meant that any of his films could be turned into musicals as long as it had nothing to do with Mick Hucknell. It was widely known that Bergman hated Simply Red. “Given the nature of my films,“ Bergman said in an interview with Cat Deeley on SMTV in November 2001, “people often say to me, ‘Ingmar, do you believe in an afterlife? Do you believe in a Heaven or a Hell?’ and I say ‘I, like Belinda Carlisle, believe that Heaven is a place on Earth, but because of Simply Red, I know for certain that Hell exists on Earth.“ Bergman won that week’s ‘Wonky Donkey’ saying that a blurred image of festering sores was a ‘vague plague’ and danced in the background to Steps.
Ecclestone, a huge fan of Saturday morning breakfast television, or more specifically Cat Deeley’s calves, saw the interview, and when Bergman died six years later and the will was made public, leapt at the opportunity to buy up the performance rights to Bergman’s works. He initially wanted to adapt ‘Fanny and Alexander’, mainly because it made him snigger, but settled on Bergman’s most acclaimed work figuring that it was guaranteed to put bums on seats.
One of the idiosyncrasies of the adaptation was that the initial author of the lyrics and book that Ecclestone hired, Howard Clementson, whose only authorial experience was as a copywriter for a firm of dry clearners, misunderstood the term ‘seal’ and therefore in the closing number of act 1, listed seven different species of the water-dwelling mammal like a heavily aquatic 12 days of Christmas. ‘1 is for the Leopard Seal that’s eating all my penguins, 2 is for the Grey Fur Seal that clubbers love to beat.’ And so forth. Ecclestone fired him, not for this homophonic mishap, but mainly as Clementson was reluctant to put in any musical numbers that referenced Grand Prixes.
Clementson’s replacement, former Dutch manager, Dick Advocaat, had no such artistic qualms and the songs such as ‘I wish I was in Spa now, now it’s Grand Prix time.’ which contained the lines ‘I’m going to Brands Hatch a plan to get outta here. I’m going to go away and fly’ and “I wanna go go go to Monaco co co!“ suddenly found themselves as prominent numbers in Advocaat’s script. At the time, Advocaat was managing Zenit Saint Petersburg and his communications were being monitored by the Russian secret police which is why the first production of the musical was in fact performed at the annual Christmas do of the FSB in 2009. Reviews were mixed.
By the time Advocaat’s script was completed, he was managing Belgium, and the production moved mainly into the hands of the director Ecclestone hired, his daughter, Tamara. Tamara had no experience in theatre direction, but had presented the Red Bull Air Race World Championship for Channel 4. In early previews of the show, it was felt that Tamara’s diamante infused reimagining of the story in Holmby Hills Los Angeles, detracted from the gravitas of the medieval plague blighted backdrop of the original. Ecclestone Snr. quickly distracted his daughter with promise of a string of health clubs and eponymous wellbeing smoothies – ‘The Tamara Kale Shake’ with its jaunty if slightly nonsensical slogan of ‘Let me see you shaking kale feathers’, and Sir Peter Hall was brought in. It wasn’t enough to save it artistically in time for its May 10th 2010 opening for press, as Ecclestone kept proffering his two penneth worth and Hall never fully got control of the unwieldy production’s competing threads.
One of the aspects that it was too late to redact was the casting. Due to the popularity and success of Avenue Q, the decision was made to cast Elmo as the Squire, Jöns. “The moment when the Squire (Elmo),“ stated Film Critic, Kudus Mandible, in ‘The Washington Post’, “rescues the servant girl from the amorous sexual assault of Raval the Thief lacked the expected sobriety and drama of such a moment, though I did learn a lot about triangles and the letters ‘K’, ‘Z’ and the number ‘3’.“ Danny Devito’s casting as the Knight was mainly led by the notion of scale and Ecclestone’s own stature insecurities. It was felt that as Jöns was a puppet, the Knight had to be relatively diminutive to make the scale work. What they failed to take into account was that everybody else in the production now looked disproportionately massive with Sigourney Weaver’s Mia towering over Devito by a foot and a half.
The production opened with the Knight, Antonius Block, and his cynical squire Jöns arriving back from the Crusades to discover that their homeland has been ravaged by the plague and an incompetent set dresser. Jöns sings:
“My liege, you gotta admit, that this Crusade was shit
And our motives were rather unsound,
Now I kinda regret, all the blood and the sweat,
We spilt on the holy ground.“
Which essentially set the tone for the entire show. “What the Hell is this?“ wrote Dame Shirley Bassey in her review for ‘The New York Times’. “It is like Bergman has been bestially violated by Joe Pesci.“
Death’s tap dancing routine to Chic’s ‘Le Freak’ had to be pulled when they couldn’t get copyright. Instead, Death (played by Frozen’s Josh Gad) greets the Knight with his solo ‘Pleased to Meet Ya’ singing such lines as “There’re buboes pustules forming in your armpit, I guess you aint’ got long to go’ and ‘It’s nighty Knight to you.’ As people know, the Knight challenges Death to a game of chess, wanting to prolong his life, a concept that they maintained despite briefly toying with swing-ball. “It’s much easier to control the action in chess,“ stated Sir Peter Hall when interview by Bunty Magazine, “whereas with swing-ball your fate’s in the hands of the gods and how many tequilas the cast have had.“
The Knight and his Squire pass a caravan of actors: Jof (Jim Belushi), his wife Mia (Weaver), their son, Mikael (Tom Holland), and the actor-manager Jonas Skat (Nicholas Lyndhurst). There then proceeds to be a twelve minute jazz number in which ‘Skat’ skats ‘Skeep bop de-diddle-de bow-wow, skap de doodle bebop yeah’ for the majority of the time until the Knight and the Squire can no longer bare it – a sentiment echoed by the audience and critics alike – and move on. “Lyndhurst is many things,“ wrote Macavity Klingfilm in ‘The Daily Mirror’ but a convincing jazz singer is not one. It was like watching Brian Sewell trying to sing N.W.A.“
They escape to a church where a fresco of the ‘Danse Macabre’ is being painted. The Squire tells the painter off for promoting the Crusades, and the painter tickles him leading to much hilarity. The Knight tells the Priest that he wants to perform ‘one meaningful deed’ only for the Priest to turn out to be Josh Gad’s Death who sings at him: “so far ee, its Ferrari that my money is on, I’m McLaren you’re a Karen to disagree; Don’t give me no Racing Bulls shit, no Red Bull shit, you Haas got to be joking me! Alpine if I wanna for the old days of Daimler, I’m Williams to concede that at least, But I think ya shady if ya plump for Mercedes, its Sauber between you and me!“
When the Knight moves on and meets a woman (Charlotte Church) who is due to be burnt alive for cavorting with Satan, the audience are massively relieved. The scene, however, is all too brief and we dive into the ridiculous farce of Elmo rescuing the servant girl (Dannii Minogue) from the evil Raval (Dean Gaffney). Elmo kisses Dannii Minogue who does not reciprocate the lust as he is a glove puppet, but does agree to be his servant if he promises she can meet Mr. Snuffleupagus.
Back in town, Nicholas Lyndhurst’s Jonas Skat is enticed away by Lisa (Betty White) the wife of the Blacksmith Plog (Steve Guttenberg), for a romantic tryst. White sings: “Oh Skat, come look at my hat. What do you think of that? What do you think of that? Oh Skat, don’t be a big twat. Come play in my flat. Come meet my cat. Plog is a hog I don’t want to snog, so Skat come Verstappen my way you prat.“ Feeling somewhat violated, the audience get some respite when the curtain comes down on the first half with the Priest haranguing them for their infirmities.
The second half is even worse. Gaffney persuades Guttenburg to start on Belushi, but this is stopped by Elmo cutting Gaffney with a switchblade – a moment described by Will Gompertz as ‘the Death of Art’. The Knight, Squire and actors all go on a picnic and there’s a confusing cameo by Yogi Bear. The Knight sings: “I will remember these strawberries for the rest of my life, Jof your wife makes a lovely spread; that be-hatted bear has taken my pie, I will take a knife and leave it dead.“
At this point the cheerleaders for the New York Jets enter, symbolising the plague, and the cast flee, seeking shelter in a castle. Meanwhile, Betty White leaves Nicholas Lyndhurst and returns to Steve Guttenburg. Lyndhurst fakes his suicide and hides up a tree, which Josh Gad chops down. The song he sings: “Choppy choppy chop chop, choppy choppy chop chop, choppy choppy chop chop and then you drop!“ replaced Oliver!’s “Where is love?“ as the most banal in the history of musicals when Kerrang! Magazine updated its list in 2017.
Devito asks Charlotte Church to summon Satan so he can have a quick word with him about God. It soon becomes apparent that this is beyond Church as she starts to chant ‘The Macarena’ whilst spraying the blood of a cockerel at a costermonger.
The scene shifts and we see Gaffney stricken with the plague. Dannii Minogue tries to give him water, but Elmo stops her. Gaffney dies alone muttering as his final words “Wellard!“ in a touching, yet misplaced tribute to ‘Citizen Kane’.
Belushi sees Devito and Gad playing chess and decides to flee with his family. In a futile attempt to ward off Death, Devito knocks the board over, but it miraculously comes back together. The movements of the pieces on the board as the two play are then mirrored in dance by a mime troupe with large chess pieces cellotaped to their heads. Kleft Johnson, the arts correspondent for CNN described it as “Bafflingly distracting, like unleashing a box of wasps at a wake.“
Death begins to mock the Knight as he starts to win in the song ‘Sore Winner’ “Okay mate, it’ll soon be checkmate,
Take a look at your rook, it’s the last time you’ll see it.
Okay mate, I guess it’s your fate,
Your bishop is screwed, looks like you blew it.“ As Death knocks over the Knight’s king, he declares that the next time he sees him will be the last, and promptly the Knight finds himself with his family eating from KFC buckets (who had kindly and misguidedly sponsored catering for the production). The meal is interrupted by Death who eats a spicy wing before Dannii Minogue stands up and declares: “It is finished.“
Accordingly, the whole performance finishes off with ‘The Disco Danse Macabre’ as Jof and family watch a line of skeletons in flares and medallions lead the Knight and his companions away to a medley of Bee Gees’ hits.
Despite one favourable review in ‘The National Inquirer’ (“Devito knocks it out the park!“), the production closed down within a week and, following a court order, all copies of the script and recordings were burnt.
Treatises of Gloria 