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HELLO DOLLY, GOODBYE MUMMY

1996  15′  Music Drama
BBC Sound on Film Series
Vasilissa lives in a big house in a nice part of town. Her mum is dead, her dad’s away a lot on business, and her live-in wicked stepmother (complete with two ugly sisters) makes her life a misery. Things get worse. Stepmother parcels Vasilissa up and sends her off to Baba-Yaga, the World’s Scariest Russian Grandmother. Baba-Yaga’s hobby is eating. She loves to cook tasty things, especially children. But, with the help of her Magic Russian Doll, Vasilissa fixes a truly memorable snack for Baba-Yaga, and also manages to sort things out back home.
HELLO DOLLY, GOODBYE MUMMY

R E V I E W S

‘Best of all though is the wickedly camp score by Judith Weir for Margaret Williams’
HELLO DOLLY, GOODBYE MUMMY, a grimly amusing fairy tale in which a little girl outwits her wicked stepmother and stepsisters with the help of a magic doll.

Weir’s score leaps vertiginously from music-hall to Tin Pan Alley via the House of Hammer, all brilliantly conjured from tiny resources (one singer – Linda Hirst – and two instrumentalists). Here at last, the musical rhythm appears to guide the witty grotesqueries of the action without enslaving them; here too, the BBC’s claim to have established a ‘new form’ don’t seem quite so wide of the mark.’
The Times

C R E D I T S

director
MARGARET WILLIAMS

composer
JUDITH WEIR

director of photography
DAVID SCOTT

performers
NICK HERRETT
SIAN STEVENSON
KELLY WEST

editor
JOHN MIDDLEWICK

Producer
ANNE BERESFORD
MJW PRODUCTIONS