A Musical Story of a Cornish Fishing Village in the Year 1942.
Peter Cork wrote 'The White Bird' between April 1972 and July 1973; the dates are written on the last page of the score. The operetta was performed at Clapham County School on the 28th and 29th March 1974.
Page 4 of the programme is reproduced on the right, as it gives a good indication of the plot. Setting the tale in war-time goes some way to explaining the absence of male characters in the cast; they are either away serving their country or much needed fisherman away in their boats. It also enables Peter to introduce two evacuees from the East End of London, adding enourmously to the scope for emotion and upset. On a purely practical level, it makes this musical eminently suitable for Clapham County School which was, of course, a girl's school.
The musical is in two Acts with three Scenes in each Act.There follows a list of the musical numbers and where they appear in the production.
Act I
Scene 1 - The Harbour at Poldoon late in March
Day By Day We Mend Our Nets
It's So Hard To Believe There's A War On
Entrance Of The Busybodies
This Is My Daughter, Daphne
I Ran A Teashop In Poldoon Just Before The War
Doing your bit for Britain
Nylon Blues
The Dance Of The White Bird
White Bird Of Peace
Interval
Scene 2 - The Kitchen of the Pengelly's home on the same day
Cooking the dinner in war-time
And I love him so
The Legend Of The White Bird
Scene 3 - The Village Square, a few weeks later
Such important ladies are we
Entrance Of The Evacuees
Cor, wot A war!
Storm Warning (We're All One Nation Now)
Interval
Act II
Scene 1 - The morning of the Pageant, early in May
On A Fine May Morning
The Children's Dance Of The White Bird
Let's All Go To The Pictures
The Film And The Pageant Of The White Bird (Opening Scene)
Scene 2 - A Street near the Harbour
Anxiety
We Do Miss Mum!
Scene 3 - The Afternoon of the Pageant
The Film And The Pageant Of The White Bird (Wedding Scene)
The Storm And Manifestation Of The Ghosts Of Hester And Widow Vale
The Film And The Pageant Of The White Bird (Funeral Scene)
And I Loved Him So
White Bird Of Peace
Page 4 of the Clapham County School programme
The front cover of The White Bird programme
Resources
The original score, written in black ball-point pen, is available but in poor condition. Peter had used sellotape to cut and paste dialogue between the staves and this is now failing and would need repair before the score could even be photocopied.
There are 17 performance copies (2 in poor condition) that could be used should there be any interest in staging the musical.
There are 2 copies of the Clapham County programme.
The White Bird at Crawford Primary School
The children at Crawford Primary School in Camberwell gave two performances of 'The White Bird' in May 1978. The actual dates were Tuesday, 20th May and Thursday, 22nd May 1978.
Peter had adapted the original musical giving us five scenes, with no mention of there being two acts, and just one interval after Scene 3. In all other respects the musical was unchanged.
Peter Cork taught part-time at Crawford Primary School after he left Walsingham School in 1977.
Further Resources
There is just one copy of the Crawford Primary School programme.
There is an open reel-to-reel tape recording of one of the performances at Crawford Primary School, which appears to be of reasonable quality.
The Crawford Primary School's programme
Sound Recordings
All of the links on this page were taken from open, reel-to-reel, half track mono tape recordings that were subsequently recorded to CD-R Audio and then converted at 256bps to mp3 files. The numbers are arranged in the order in which they would be heard in an actual performance.
The links in this column enable you to listen to the musical number detailed in the left hand column.
'Doing your bit for Britain'
by the Full Company This recording was taken from a concert performance at Walsingham School in 1977 just before Peter Cork left full-time teaching.
'Nylon Blues'
a duet by Molly Turfcutter and Elsie Plum This recording was taken from a concert performance at Walsingham School in 1977 just before Peter Cork left full-time teaching.
'Cooking the dinner in war-time'
a trio by Mrs Vale, Mrs Pengelly and Sylvia This recording was taken from a concert performance at Walsingham School in 1977 just before Peter Cork left full-time teaching.
'And I love him so'
a duet by Helen and Sylvia This recording was taken from a concert performance at Walsingham School in 1977 just before Peter Cork left full-time teaching.
'Such important ladies are we'
a trio by Mrs d'Arcy Jones, Mrs Muldoon and Sybil Pringle This recording was taken from a concert performance at Walsingham School in 1977 just before Peter Cork left full-time teaching.
'Cor, wot a war!'
Gert, Marlene, and the three busybodies This recording was taken from a concert performance at Walsingham School in 1977 just before Peter Cork left full-time teaching.
'Let's all go to the pictures'
Elsie and Chorus This recording was taken from a concert performance at Walsingham School in 1977 just before Peter Cork left full-time teaching.
'We do miss Mum!'
Gert and Marlene This recording was taken from a concert performance at Walsingham School in 1977 just before Peter Cork left full-time teaching.
