Stinkfoot: An English Comic Opera

Stinkfoot, a Comic Opera
Screwy (Jon Beedell) vs Soliquisto (Andy Black) Original Bristol performance
Music	Vivian Stanshall
Lyrics	Vivian Stanshall & Ki Longfellow-Stanshall
Book	Ki Longfellow-Stanshall & Vivian Stanshall
Basis	Ki Longfellow children's book Stinkfoot, the Cat
Productions	1985 Old Profanity Showboat Bristol, England 1988 Bloomsbury Theatre revival

Stinkfoot, a Comic Opera is an English musical with book, music, and lyrics by Vivian Stanshall and Ki Longfellow-Stanshall written for the Crackpot Theatre Company aboard the Old Profanity Showboat in Bristol, England. The show is based on a series of tales written by Longfellow about Stinkfoot, a New York City alley cat, a bit of a rogue and more than a bit of a rake. It had been intended for children, but when told by a New York City literary agent that “No mother in America would want her child identifying with Stinkfoot the alley cat, never mind its name,” the story went into a drawer for many years. It came out with the meeting in 1977 of Vivian and Ki, at which point the story became bedtime reading for Vivian's son Rupert Stanshall (born 1968), and later for his daughter with Ki, Silky Longfellow-Stanshall (born 1979). In 1985 it “grew up” when Vivian and Ki decided to base a musical on its lead character, Stinkfoot. At that point, it became a melding of two very different visions and two very different musical traditions: Vivian’s days as frontman for the Bonzo Dog Band and his childhood in Leigh-on-Sea with Ki’s love of America’s Broadway.

The plot of Stinkfoot is about a once great music hall artiste, the mournful Soliquisto, who believes he has come to the end of his career. Once he headlined halls like the Hackney Empire, now he’s lucky to play small rooms at the end of piers. His act has always consisted of trained animals: a singing parakeet (Parakeet to Meet You), and two all-dancing, all-singing cats, one male, Stinkfoot, and one female, Persian Moll. Each of these were creations of true brilliance, but all he has left now is Moll, his ventriloquist's dummy Screwy, and his eager nephew and assistant Buster. He and his company ("Soliquisto & His Not So Dumb Friends") have returned for a week’s engagement at the very end-of-the-pier venue where nine years before he had mysteriously lost his famous songbird and his most precious creation, the even more famous Stinkfoot. Buster works with him, acting in all capacities: props, costumes, manager, and even as a ludicrous stand-in for the lost Stinkfoot. Buster is ambitious. He knows his uncle was once the best. He is convinced there’s a secret to being a true artist and if only Solisquisto would tell him that secret, Buster too could be a great artist. Soliquisto has told Buster in every way he can what the secret is, most pointedly in the song: Follow Your Nose. But Buster cannot “hear” him.