Three Very English Plays

“This is great! The last time you took me to a musical, it was Always.”

That’s what my brother said as we reentered the hall at the Gillian Lynne Theatre for act two of Standing at the Sky’s Edge. And it’s true. Way back in 1997, when my wife and I were first visiting England together, I chose the first show, and it remains the worst British musical I’ve ever seen (and I’ve seen Diana.)

This is why I let my wife choose the shows. That way I can say I told you so, but I never have to say I told you so. She choose a lot of things because her track record is unimpeachable.

We saw three shows over four days during our brief stay in the UK. We had arrived via the Queen Mary 2, a transatlantic crossing to celebrate our silver anniversary, and spent some time in a canal boat Airbnb before flying home. The shows we saw were each uniquely British, and all exceeded expectations.

"People, Places & Things"
(Trafalgar Theatre, 2024)

Friday we took the train to Maidstone, near Kent, to see the Russett Players production of A Bunch of Amateurs by Nick Newman and Ian Hislop. An “am dram” production, directed by my sister-in-law Brenda and featuring my brother Henrik, it was opening night for a two-day run (two shows on Saturday) and I was delighted how absolutely packed the hall was.

The play is about an arrogant Hollywood actor whose career is on the downslide who decides to brush up his resume with a classic credit, not realizing he has been roped into a production of King Lear at community theater in Stratford – but not that Stratford, England has a lot of Stratfords. It was a celebration of the form and high hilarity ensued.

Saturday, back in London, we attended a revival of People, Places and Things by Duncan Macmillan at Trafalgar Theatre, starring Denise Gough, Sinéad Cusack, Malachi Kirby and a strong ensemble of performers. A tale of addiction and recovery, it’s loud (and sometimes very loud) and frenetic, with swoops and turns and tricks which are disorienting for the audience as well as the protagonist, and a marathon for the lead performer, who was aggressive, vulnerable and deceptive.

"Standing at the Sky's Edge"
Gillian Lynne Theatre, 2024

But oh my, we loved Standing at the Sky’s Edge (book by Chris Bush, songs by Richard Hawley) at the Gillian Lynne Theatre. A musical which chronicles three generations at Park Hill, a brutalist housing estate in Sheffield, North Yorkshire. Taking place from 1960 to 2020, with each timeline thoughtfully threaded, we experience the decline of empire told from the vantage point of its most vulnerable subjects. It’s about class and race and gender and family and hope and despair and so much love. So so so much love.

The piece won the Olivier for Best Musical, 2023. It's a vast ensemble, impossible to point to one standout performance, the songs are gorgeous, the choreography is mesmerizing, but there’s no chance it will transfer to America. Its so entirely about England. Laughter in the crowd clued this Anglophile in on the many references I could not catch. But we bought the cast recording on CD and when was the last time we bought a CD?

UPDATE: BorderLight Theater Festival presents The Right Room, a new play by David Hansen and directed by Jasmine Renee, July 16 - 19, 2025. Help support our production by dropping a donation on our GoFundMe campaign! 

Diana: The Musical

So, I finally watched the ill-fated musical Diana: The Musical and left comments on Facebook.

Thursday night:

I’m going in. 🧵 #dianathemusical

• “Underestimated“ is not so much and “I want” song, it’s more like a threat. I am eager to find out what terrible things she is going to do.
• I’M CAMILLA PARKER-BOWLES
• The Queen looks like Olivia Coleman and Imelda Staunton, merged.
• Oh, dear. “The Worst Song in England.”
• Black sheep symbolism.
• I wish there was an audience.
• In spite of the dozen early 1980s pop bands mentioned in twenty seconds, I don’t really believe this takes place in the early 1980s because all of the dresses look rather nice.
• Extra points for “Hot Lunch Jam” reference in “This Is How Your People Dance.”
• Alas, I can already state that “Always” holds its place the worst musical about doomed Windsor romances.
• “Snap, Click” … so far every other song is really bad. But every other song is also pretty nice.
• “Most of all — read other books.” Well done.
• When I was nineteen, I was very stupid. I don’t know what I world do if the Prince of Wales proposed to me.
• So far, Camilla is the smartest character in this play. Do you suppose it’s also true in real life?
• “I Will” slaps. Yes, it does, too.
• Oh! Trick wedding dress.
• DID YOU KNOW ..? Charles was the first Prince of Wales to learn how to speak Welsh. I learned that on “The Crown.“
• I’ve learned a lot about Wales from watching “Welcome to Wrexham.“
• I honestly do not understand how this show closed. I’m serious.
• “Happiness/Breathe” is SO CLOSE to being Mötley Crüe’s “Home Sweet Home”!
• … sung by Bonnie Tyler.
• Harry: I will not be for one more second second!
• “Ay, madam. It is … COMMON.”
• I have had “Diana (The Rage)” in my head for the past six months, and I am in heaven here.
• “I Miss You Most on Sundays” is the second best song defending adultery in any musical.
• I think this is intermission. Act II … tomorrow.
  
  

Friday night:

… and we’re back. #dianathemusical

• Well. If that wasn’t the most spectacular second act opening in theater history. #IYKYK
• Wait. Only that dialogue was made up?
• By the way, season five of “The Crown” just dropped. It’s just like this but not as catchy.
• The timeline in this musical supports the fact that Harry is not the son of James Hewitt, so we can all stop talking about it.
• The thing about the musical “Always” was it tried to make Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson seem like sympathetic, nice people. I like the fact that there’s almost no sympathetic people in this entire play.
• Yeah! Fuck Thatcher!
• Ooh. Mother Teresa reference. Bad omen.
• I like “Secrets & Lies.” That was sweet.
• Rather than “put up with this shit” I would’ve preferred “put up with this twit.”
• Who is the protagonist in this thing?
• Andrew Morton was a very lucky journalist!
• Book choreography!
• 
  Here’s the thing … having decided to produce a musical called “Diana, the Musical” this is absolutely the only way it could have turned out. I say that with all due respect. There wasn’t some “better” musical of this story that might have been made, by anyone.
• … and with “The Dress” this is once again the greatest musical of the ‘20s.
• Oh, dear. The Queen makes a decapitation joke. (I took this photo last October.)
• I’m just thinking how every character in “Hamilton” had, like, only three costumes.
• Just clocked the Union Jack in the floor. Nice.
• “The people who will change the world are not the ones you think will change the world.” Cool.
• and scene

England, 1997 (Week One)

Last year we made plans to visit England during the holidays. I am downright resentful this did not happen. Not that we should have gone regardless, that would have been foolhardy. If I had had my way we would have gone as soon as possible after my mother died. I wanted a family trip with my high school aged children, perhaps our last big journey together for some time, perhaps ever.

England is the land of my ancestors, and I wanted to share that with them. They have touched British soil on two occasions. Neither of them remember very much. They were one and two, and three and four years old in 2006 and 2007.

Old Sarum, Wiltshire (1977/1997)

My first visit was in 1977, the summer of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee. Twenty-five years ago, in June 1997, my girlfriend and I visited. It was her first time off the Americas.

At that time I was in the middle of my tenure with Dobama’s Night Kitchen, and treated these vacations like archaeological excursions, digging for inspiration by seeing as many shows as possible. Unfortunately, our first choice was the notoriously awful Edward & Mrs. Simpson musical Always (see post) and I felt particularly bad about this because I had campaigned to see it.

We made for it the next night by checking out The Herbal Bed by Peter Whelan, an RSC production at the Duchess. Based on one historic document in which Shakespeare’s son-in-law Dr. John Hall sues a man for slandering his wife (stating publicly that Susanna Hall “had been naught with Rafe Smith”) it starts like some romantic fan-fiction until it suddenly becomes The Crucible.

Tue, June 3: “Everyone was sympathetic and you hated yourself for rooting for anyone … ethical matters are rarely ever cut and dry. They’d fuck it up in America, change the ending or something.”

Teresa Banham, Richard Hawley
"The Herbal Bed"
(Duchess Theatre, 1997)

At that time, having spent the better part of five years either managing Guerrilla Theater Company or Dobama’s Night Kitchen, I was a bit obsessed with the new theater company I just assumed I would inevitably found. Every road trip we took I would observe spaces and customs.

“Ice cream is served in theaters during the interval by vendors in the house. You can place a drink order before the show and have it waiting for you in the lobby.”

“My next theater project should be called The Other Theater Company”.

Our third night we got half-price tickets to see The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) performed by the present iteration of the Reduced Shakespeare Company. Even then I understood that the star of the show were the topical references, and not the text itself. There was a line in the “comedies” section where they bust into the refrain of Wannabe by the Spice Girls.

Matthew: Meanwhile, the six brothers fall in love with six Italian sisters, three of whom are contentious, sharp-tongued little shrews, while the other three are submissive, airheaded bimbos.

All three sing in falsetto: "Tell me what you want, what you really, really want!"
Adam: (aside) I want to hit you in the face with a shovel, that’s what I want.

Clive Carter. Jan Hartley
"Always"
(Victoria Palace Theatre, 1997)

Everybody laugh. Comedians are horrid.

On our journey, I also picked up a number of books. Big books, little books. Perhaps most significantly visiting the bookstore at the National Theatre I purchased Hamlet: A User’s Guide by Michael Pennington. The RSC veteran breaks down the entire text by each evident action, and not some psychological interpretation, which I found refreshingly clear. Since that time I have ordered dozens of copies to provide for actor-teachers.

The book was also an invaluable tool when I would direct Hamlet, The Prince of Denmark two years later. Reading over my journal, my thoughts were roiling about my life as an artist.

Sun, June 8: “I worry my artistic future. Sometimes I wish I were younger, or that I was clever when I was younger – that I had accomplished more earlier, so I would be further along now.”

“Look at the Reduced Shakespeare Company. They started ten years ago in California, putting on a simple, goofy show … and they have touring companies, radio programs and an ongoing run in the West End … I want to start an ensemble, and have a theater, and teach classes …”

My anxiety was no doubt fueled by the fact that I was about to turn twenty-nine.

"Hamlet: A User's Guide"
by Michael Pennington

At the same time, I refer almost daily to my “Eliot Ness play” which I never did write. He played a role in These Are The Times, which also remains unfinished. I was inspired by the books on the so-called “Torso murders” I had read, and Paul Heimel’s biography. But also Paul Auster’s New York Trilogy of existential urban mysteries, and the current fascination with modern popular jazz ensembles like the Squirrel Nut Zippers.

I didn’t actually want to start my own theater company, ego made me think that I did. What I really wanted to do was to write plays. We rounded out our first week with a trip to Canterbury Cathedral, where I conceived of and jotted down a short play which I only recalled a couple of years ago, typed up and posted at New Play Exchange. It is titled Museum. You should read it.

To be continued.

Always (musical)

There are those who point to the Abdication as the moment the British Monarchy began its inexorable decline.

Then there are those who believe it has been downhill since the Magna Carta.

Today would be a good day for this American President to “abdicate.” Most days are. Unlike Edward VIII, Trump has been impeached (this time) for inciting insurrection. All poor David Windsor ever did was to fall in love. It’s the stuff of Shakespearean drama, falling in love with the wrong person.

And so it happened that a musical was created during the 1990s (that most trivial of decades) to celebrate what was blurbed as “the ultimate love story.”

Even die-hard monarchist enthusiasts might choose Victoria and Albert as the ultimate love story, but who wants to see a musical in which the groom dies after the first song and the rest is the bride in mourning. Bit upsetting.

The story of King Edward VIII and Mrs. Wallis Simpson at least has what you might call a bittersweet ending, he loses the crown, but at least they have each other.

And that’s the problem, because the they that each of them had were awful. By all accounts shallow and selfish, and living off the British dime. They were perfect for each other.

An auspicious meeting. (1937)

My wife and I visited England in 1997. It was her first trip to Europe and for two weeks we traveled and saw many plays and performances and the first was the new musical Always at the Victoria Palace Theatre, which was in previews.

A musical about the Abdication! What a brilliant idea! We were not yet, however, into the modern era of arch, satiric, or darkly-themed musicals, at least not those intended for the West End or for Broadway. Not unless you were Sondheim.

Always is an unapologetic valentine to Edward and Mrs. Simpson, chronicling the unfairness of the world, and the nobility of romantic sacrifice. The story is even bracketed by the widow Duchess of Windsor following the funeral of her beloved David in 1972, making it a memory play.

There is no mention of their documented history as Nazi sympathizers or their visiting Hitler, not any other controversies but the main: she was a twice-divorced American, a “commoner.” And he loved her!

 
The production starred Clive Carter as David, who I had seen play Prince Charming in Into the Woods in the West End several years earlier, and Jan Hartley as Wallis, who played Christine in Phantom for over a year. 

It had some other ringers, too. Sheila Ferguson is an American singer, whose biggest hit was When Will I See You Again with the group the Three Degrees. Credited as only The Chanteuse (and the only person of color in the entire production) she sang Love’s Carousel, a song about the irresistible power of love that was meant to be a first act show-stopper.

Only it wasn’t because, like Hearts Have Their Reasons, The Reason For Life Is To Love, and (oh my goodness) If Always Were a Place, Love's Carousel is a horrible song. The show is packed with horrible songs made even more horrible because they are about horrible people.

If you didn’t know the show was in trouble already, Love’s Carousel left no doubt. Every single cast member was thrown onstage for this number, set in a Parisian cabaret, as it rose and rose to a feverish pitch. 

Once concluded, a few individuals in the balcony rose to their feet, shouting with delight, who were then loudly mocked by others -- yes, many more audience members hooted and shouted things like, “OH, COME ON, NOW” at those audience members who were likely paid to attempt a standing O during the first act. Maybe they were just huge Sheila Ferguson fans, which is a fine thing to be.

During the interval we discussed the possibility of leaving. Many others did, but this was a fiasco and I was intent on seeing what happened next. I did not, at that time, purchase one of the CDs, which I regretted for many years until that Christmas my brother gifted me a copy he found in a 99p bin.

Duchess & Duke of Windsor
(Richard Avedon, 1957)

The play officially opened on July 10 and ran for three weekends, closing on my birthday when I was safely out of the country. The review in the Times of London read “Wallis & Vomit.”

The following year, we visited my other brother, the one in Minnesota, and took in an exhibit of the photographer Richard Avedon. Avedon could be kind of a dick in his attempts to make famous people not pose fake. 

Knowing that the Duke and Duchess of Windsor reportedly loved dogs more than people (more than certain people, anyway) he idly told them a made up story of how his taxi had run over and killed a dog on his way to the studio. The result, seen here, is less than glamorous.

Source: Lisa's History Room, The Duke and Duchess of Windsor: We Are Not Amused (10/9/2009)

Edward VIII & Mrs. Simpson

There was a time we may have had an American Queen of England. 

Okay, not really. But wouldn't it be nice to think so? 

Following the death of his father, King George V, Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David Windsor (though his friends all called him David) ascended the throne of England on January 20, 1936. 

He more famously abdicated on December 11. Though he was quite a popular man as Prince of Wales, beloved especially by the working classes, no one it seems could stand his lover, the twice-divorced American Wallis Simpson. This did not stop some unfortunate producers from creating the worst musical I have ever seen, based on this subject matter. 

Always debuted at the Victoria Palace Theatre in Spring, 1997 where my wife and I caught it during previews. The review in the Sunday Times included my favorite headline for the theater review ever; Wallis and Vomit. As suggested in on the musical-oriented website Record Cabinet:

By the time "Always" surfaced, attitudes to the royal family were drastically changing, and were indeed to be further affected by the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, later that year. And this perhaps is the show's mistake - its 'ultimate love story' is about two apparently selfish, uninspiring and uninteresting people for whom it is impossible to feel sympathy.

Though even during intermission I scoffed at the idea of buying on the CDs they were hawking, I soon regretted that decision as I had no proof to offer any one as to what I had experienced. In the past several years I began searching on eBay - but it was my brother in London who found it first on (duh) eBay.co.uk. 

And oy, it's all naff. 

This contemptuous attitude springs no doubt from the negative taint David left on the monarchy, though his grand-nephew Charles could show him a thing our two about rehabilitating one's reputation. 

However, if people think you are shallow enough to abandon monarchy for love - and spend the rest of your life living shallowly and, it must be mentioned, for example, being seen socially with Hitler ... well, maybe you were a dick in the first place. And not the proper subject for a romantic, entirely unironic musical.

For the first time ever, Time Magazine gave its Man of the Year award (1936) to a woman, Mrs. Wallis Simpson. This may have been because she had a penis.

UPDATE: More "Always" memories to be found here.