Summer Holiday (film)

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Summer Holiday is a British musical released in 1962, featuring singer Cliff Richard. The musical was directed by Peter Yates (his debut) and was produced by Kenneth Harper for the Associated British Studios at Elstree. The original screenplay was written by Peter Myers and Ronald Cass (who also wrote most of the song numbers and lyrics). The cast included Lauri Peters, Melvyn Hayes, Teddy Green, Jeremy Bulloch, Una Stubbs, Pamela Hart, Jacqueline Daryl, Lionel Murton, Madge Ryan, David Kossoff, Nicholas Phipps, Ron Moody, and The Shadows. Herbert Ross choreographed the musical numbers. Ross's choreography undoubtedly contributed to the critical view of Summer Holiday as a "breakthrough musical" in the British cinema, with the majority of the numbers integrating dance with song and not merely serving as scenes to promote a number of "hit-parade" songs. Ross, an American actor, dancer and choreographer later became a film director in his own right (his works include the musical Goodbye, Mr Chips, 1969, and the dance drama The Turning Point, 1977).

The story concerns Richard and his mates (Hayes, Green and Bulloch) who are bus mechanics at the huge London Transport bus overhaul works in Aldenham, Hertfordshire. During a miserably wet British summer lunch break, they have the idea converting a London Transport AEC Regent "RT" double-decker bus (and not a later Routemaster as often quoted) into a holiday caravan which they drive across the European continent. Their final destination is Athens. On the way, they are joined by a girl trio (Stubbs, Hart and Daryl) and a runaway singer (Lauri Peters), pursued by her mother (Ryan) and agent (Murton). The movie was a huge box-office hit, thus repeating the success of Richard's earlier film The Young Ones (1961). There were 16 song and musical numbers all told: "Seven Days to a Holiday", "Let Us Take You for a Ride", "Stranger in Town", "Swinging Affair", "Really Waltzing", "Yugoslavian Wedding", "All At Once", "Summer Holiday", "Bachelor Boy", "Dancing Shoes", "Foot Tapper", "Big News", "The Next Time", "Les Girls", "Round and Round" and "Orlando's Mime".

Summer Holiday, The Next Time, Bachelor Boy and Foot Tapper all reached Number one in the British charts during the first three months of 1963.

The film has some cultural significance, as it is the best known film of a major singing star, Cliff Richard, and both the film and the title song captured something of the popular mood as relatively cheap continental holidays became available in Britain around that time.

It was voted the 99th greatest family film in a Channel 4 poll.

Summer Holiday was also turned into a musical in the mid 90's starring Darren Day in the role that Cliff Richard played. It was a national tour and was very successful. It was also taped and released on Video, entitled "Summer Holiday-The Hits", which was all the musical numbers strung together by clips of Darren Day writing postcards to his friends, and describing what was happening in the story as he wrote. The video has now been deleted and is quite rare to find, but does occasionally come up on Ebay. The first revival was by an amateur theatre school for children called Sands Theatre Arts School. This version included the same Musical Director (partner of the director) of the original professional performance and the theatre school only obtained copyright due to his ties with the original. It was revived yet again in 2003, starring Stephan Booth but later starring Darren Day again, but also his future partner Suzanne Shaw, from the pop group Hear'say, as Bobby and, as Shaw's mother, the "lovely" Aimi MacDonald from the 1960s comedy series At Last the 1948 Show. This tour was also very successful.