Songbook

About the show

Through a series of witty pastiches, the musical tells the life story of a fictional songwriter, Mooney Shapiro, born Liverpool 1908, who emigrates to New York's Lower East Side, before finding Broadway and Hollywood success (cue Gershwin and deSylva/Brown/Henderson spoofs), marrying a Swedish film star and writing for early Busby Berkeley film musicals. Mooney flees the Depression for Europe, where he joins the expat Paris scene (cue Piaf spoof) and falls for an English aristocrat, whose sister is a close friend of Hitler (cue Berlin Olympics 1936). Returning to the US, Mooney scores an Andrews Sisters style hit, then returns to write patriotic numbers for Blitz-ed London (cue Cicely Courtneidge & Marlene Dietrich spoofs). After WW2, Mooney is back in the USA writing returning-GI hits (cue Como/Sinatra spoof) and hoe-down, mid-West feelgood Broadway musical before falling foul of McCarthyism. This brings him back to his native Liverpool (1960) where (surprise, surprise) he writes for a new pop group and a new generation (cue Beatles spoof)! The Swinging Sixties come and go, leaving Mooney stranded again, losing wife and lover, a teenage singer, who conquers the charts with an old Shapiro number reworked as a disco hit. Back on top again, the aged Mooney dies, rich in honours, with a parting song 'Nostalgia'. half-celebrating, half-mocking his long songwriting career.