Poetry

In 1992 London Weekend Television produced a South Bank Show special about Willy Russell and his career. The programme opened with him reciting I Hate The Arts poem.

There have been several versions of this poem over the years. A musical version was performed during the singing playwrights tour in 2004.

I Hate Poems

I hate poems
I hate poets too
Because mixing with poets gives you the flu
If you don’t believe me and you think that I’m mad
Just look what it’s done to Melvin Bragg
He’s all bunged up with snot and cattarh
From mixing with poets, see there you are
Bring back Hughie
Bring back Hughie
Bring back Hughie Green

I hate the opera and the ballet
It makes you go bleedin’ doodle…allee
And your balls go deformed
They do, they do, I know cos I’ve seen it on BBC2
They stick right out like cling filmed plums
If you go the ballet
You get the runs, distemper and salmonella
And it means that you’re not a proper fella
Bring back Come
Bring back Come
Bring back Come Dancin’
I hate art and art galleries
If you go to them, well you get the disease
If you’re looking at paintin’s you’d better say your prayers
Or you might be carried off in a Damien Hearse
And look at that silly twit Van Gogh
Who tried to cut his ear ole off
If I painted like him, I’d do the same
But I wouldn’t stop cuttin’ till I reached the brain
Bring back Dick
Give us more Dick
Bring back Dickson of Dock Green

I hate the theatre
And watchin’ plays
that go on… and on… and on for days
till you’ve got the stiff necks and the paralysed bums
waitin’ for Godot and he never bleedin’ comes
and do you know if you go down to that Barbican
its full of vegetarians
All eating lettuce off pebble dash bread
And tara.. mar.. solata
They look half dead
They don’t serve Spam
They don’t serve Spam
They don’t serve Spam at the Barbican

But I like the Arts Council
There should be more of that you know
They say no.. they say no.. they say no
They say, if you’re looking for funding then don’t come to me
Get they to a lottery
They make all the artists drop their pants
And then they cut off their arts council grants
One day soon their going to set us free
From all this awful artistry
And then they’ll be no more Orchestra’s, an painter’s an poets
And then they’ll
Bring back Hughie
Bring back Hughie
Bring back Hughie Green

The Soldier’s Tale

“I've got no regrets whatsoever. I loved writing it and playing it. Why the Ramuz estate objected was never made fully clear; I did take the narrative in something of a different direction and certainly the verse that I wrote was much more detailed and robust than the (English translation of) original. But as the tale was, anyway, a tale that Ramuz must have taken from the public domain it seemed that I was perfectly at liberty to create my own version. The tale of the soldier and his fiddle is just one of many versions of the folktale in which man makes a pact with the devil - Faust, Everyman, The Devil At The Crossroad etc. After the objection however I decided to just leave it at that. It was something I really enjoyed but not something that I was prepared to fight about.”

Willy Russell

“I asked Willy Russell if he would be willing to narrate The Soldier’s Tale. He read it and wanted to re-write it. Try to imagine the story to be the negative of an old black and white film - he has taken away scratches, tinted with colour, edited, added sections using video camera and shot events from different angles."

Ken Johnson


Willy spent 3 months working on the text and in 1991 The soldier’s tale narrated by Willy, directed by Glen Walford and conducted by Ken Johnson was performed at the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic.

This was the only performance of The Soldiers Tale as representatives of Ramuz (the original Swiss librettist) took exception to Willy Russell's version and refused to licence further performances.