Master Sound-Recording. The Baudy Bard with lyrics by Burgess

Scope and Content

Songs titled:

1. Elizabeth;

2. Love Life;

3. Bringing the Maypole Home;

4. My Name in the Sky;

5. Will O the Wisp;

6. My Name in the Sky;

7. Shakespeare's Boys;

8. Will's Lullaby to his Sons.

Record label: Warner Bros 7 Arts, HO 4-7441

Also known as The Bawdy Bard/Will!

See also AB/ARCH/D/1/348 and AB/ARCH/A/WIL.

Administrative / Biographical History

In the winter of 1967, Burgess was approached by William Conrad, an actor turned producer at Warner Brothers-Seven Arts, to write a musical film about Shakespeare's life, under the working title "The Bawdy Bard" and later "Will!". Although the film was never made, Burgess got as far as drafting a film script for the project and a number of songs. There was also ambitious talk of casting Robert Stephens as Shakespeare, Maggie Smith as Anne Hathaway, David Hemmings as Christopher Marlowe, and James Mason as Philip Henslowe.

Burgess's The Bawdy Bard is substantially the same as the Shakespearean stage musical that Enderby writes in Enderby's Dark Lady (1984).