No rocking John's memory

When musical director Richard Hoyle handed out the music for Sit Down You’re Rocking the Boat at a recent choir rehearsal, bass member John Giffen had a thrill of recognition.

John performed in Guys and Dolls, the musical in which the number appears, way back in 1968.  He did so again in 1986, and his memory of the song had stuck.

So when a fellow choir-member queried the meaning of one of the lines, John was ready to explain.

The line in question arises when the character Nicely-Nicely Johnson tells how he dreamed of a playing the dice game craps – and “hollered, ‘Someone fade me’.”

Was the line correct?  And what did it mean?

John knew the line was right – and later told the choir that Nicely-Nicely was calling on someone to bet against him when he rolled the dice, otherwise the game was over.   The phrase echoes the street patois immortalised by Damon Runyon, on whose stories Guys and Dolls is based.

John’s two performances in Guys and Dolls were as a member of the Croydon Stagers, the local operatic and dramatic society which has been performing in Croydon since 1908.   Both productions were staged at the Ashcroft Theatre.

John sang and danced in both shows, and recalls that in 1968 “the show was superb – it was a complete sell-out all week.”   

The Croydon Advertiser singled out Sit Down for praise, reporting that it was "stirringly sung”.

The 1986 version, which followed an acclaimed production by the National Theatre, was hailed in the Advertiser as “a delightful show”.

John felt that the quality of the dancing was better in 1986, and particularly remembers “complicated bobbing up and down” in the Sit Down number.

John appeared in over 60 Croydon Stagers musicals between 1965 and 1999, when he left and joined the CMVC. Although his dancing years are over, he is delighted to be able to sing the number again.  “There is great affinity between musicals and male choir repertoires, as our current programmes show,” John says.