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From the Authors of

"Carry on Phil"

"The majority of people have regarded the Extravaganza over the years as something relatively low on the scale of theatrical activity. Whether this is justified or not we do not propose to debate. As the authors of "Carry on Phil" we would urge you to regard the show as a serious attempt to present to the public of New Zealand a musical in a modern style.

There are those who have suggested that the Extrav's of today are not the same as those of ten or twenty years ago. Then they were made up of folk songs and Gilbert and Sullivan tunes and were (it is said) strangely allegorical in flavour. This is true but we make no apology for taking as our standard the modern American musical comedy. Serious theatre writers such as Eric Bentley and Kenneth Tyman acknowledge that this form is one of the most vital and progressive in the theatre today. To say that "Vat 59" or "Carry on Phil" are not like "Peter in Blunderland" or "Zealous Zombies" is equivalent to saying that "The Pyjama Game" or "West Side Story" are not like "Rose Marie" or "The Vagabond King".

Times change and styles change in the theatre as in every other walk of life. In New Zealand we have strong Opera, Ballet and Theatre companies. We look forward to the day when we will have a strong musical theatre: to the day when someone writes and stages a New Zealand musical comedy. The style will, we think be more that of current Americal musical comedy than that of the Operettas of 30 years ago.

Inscfar as Extravaganza 1960 is in the American style we like to regard it as a step on the way to a New Zealand musical comedy. The elements of straight drama, music, dance and spectacle have been used wherever necessary to carry the story along or to make a point. The writing also makes considerable demands as far as the technical side of the production is concerned. The sequence of scenes calls for great fluidity of Staging. There are eight scenes in the first half alone. We have written the show in this way because we know the effects which can be achieved and we want to try and achieve them.

Extravaganza 1960 is no biting social satire. It does comment on some of the less satisfactory aspects of the local scene but without the deliberate griding of an axe of any particular colour. There are no hidden messages, no moral and no great theme to the story except that of the little man fighting the machine of the modern world.

We ask you to accept the show as what it is—an attempt to entertain. We think that the bringing of enjoyment to a large number of people is a virtue in itself.