PG7 - PIAS

Play it again Sam (1979)

This is some of the cast of Malcolm Knight’s 1979 tour of Woody Allen’s stage comedy “Play it again Sam”. It starred Melvyn Hayes in the Woody Allen roll of Allan Felix. Mireille was one of the ‘go-go’ dancers. The tour lasted about 13 weeks in the spring of 1979. Playing theatres like: The New Theatre Cardiff, Grand Wolverhampton, Alexandra Birmingham, Theatre Royal Newcastle upon Tyne, The Kings South sea, Kirkcaldy, Swindon and Hayes.

In the top left of the picture you see John Challis (Boycie from Only fools and horses). But I have it on good authority that he wasn’t in the show; he was there visiting a friend and ended up in the photograph.

Synopsis – Play it again Sam

Neurotic New York film critic Allan Felix (Melvyn Hayes) has just broken up with his wife, Nancy (Moira Downey), causing him to spiral into a deep depression and look for solace in the classic movies that he loves, particularly the romantic saga 'Casablanca'. Allan begins to have conversations with the fantasy ghost of the film idol, Humphrey Bogart (Roger Fox), who gives him advice on romance and masculinity. Allan's married friends, Linda and Dick (Glory Annen, Richard Borthwick), worry about their insecure and neurotic friend, pushing him to get on with his life and meet new women. This advice leads to a series of disastrously funny blind dates in which Allan attempts to follow the prosaic words of his idol, Bogart; he tries to act cool and macho but ends up only destroying his apartment and humiliating himself further. Allan's love life is going nowhere until his quest for romance leads him into the arms of his friend, Linda. As Allan's romance with Linda begins to get serious, he must decide whether he can betray his good friend and steal his wife or sacrifice his love for the good of his friends' marriage, in a tribute to the moral dilemma and finale of Bogart's 'Casablanca'