Return of Privates on Parade
The Times, December 29, 1977
The Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Peter Nichols's award-winning comedy Privates on Parade returns to open at the Piccadilly Theatre on February 8 (previews from February 2). The play was first given at the Aldwych early last year and has since won both Clarence Derwent and Society of West End Theatre awards including that for "Comedy of the Year" (from SWET). The production is being presented by Eddie Kulukundis and Michael Medwin.
Denis Quilley again plays Captain Terri Dennis, for which he received the SWET award for "Comedy Performance of the Year". Nigel Hawthorne repeats his role as Major Giles Flack. For his performance he received two awards: the Clarence Derwent award for "Best Supporting Actor" and the SWET award for "Actor of the Year in a Supporting Role".
Ian Gelder, now at Stratford in three leading roles, returns to play Private Steven Flowers. Simon Jones also returns to play Leading Aircraftman Eric Young-Love.
The music for the many songs in Privates on Parade is by Denis King and an LP of songs from the show will shortly be released by EMI.
Sunday Times, February 2 1978
The Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Peter Nichols's Privates on Parade is now, out of repertoire, at the PiccadiIly. It has improved; much of the clogging p1ot has gone, and the concert-party turns are even more polished. So are the performances; Denis Quilley's outrageous drag-queen, camp as a field of tents, is still not overdone, but has become more lovingly studied in physical and vocal detail. And Nigel Hawthorne as the fanatical Major with a convulsing verson of what he imagines is squaddies' talk is more wonderfully mad than ever: rebuking a soldier for profanity, he tells him gravely that if he takes the Lord's name in vain he may, when be has to call on Christ in earnest, receive the daunting reply: "Look here, I'm an extremely busy bloke."
Privates on Parade
Michael Billington, Guardian, February 9 1978
COMBINED Services Entertainment, playing to uncomprehending native audiences in Singapore and Malaya, trekking through jungles in the cause of low art and slightly higher political ideals, must have been an exercise in absurdity � the bounds between make belief and soldiering constantly crossed. And out of this raw-life material Peter Nichols has created a play which is at once a military musical, a camp entertainment, a pastiche a period melodrama and a sharp if muted attack upon Britain's political posture east of Suez. It is remarkable that these aspects are so smoothly integrated and that what might have been a mere theatrical rendering of television's It Ain't Half Hot Mum, could emerge in a distinctive form.
Michael Blakemore's original Royal Shakespeare production which I saw at a preview played for 36 performances last year, has arrived in the West End. On Michael Annals mobile, swiftly transforming stage, the vast space of the Piccadilly is used to convey the span of army life East of Suez - steeped in period theatrcality and all the behaviour that went with it.
A song, dance and speaking unit in 1948 is composed of a collection of military stereotypes headed by a very Gay Queen indeed, Acting Captain Terri Dennis, who is all too game for acts then considered highly illegal; an innocent and overserious young 20-year-old, Private Flowers, who sees education as the cure for all an exploited Welsh-West Indian dancer; a corporal born in the "sewers of Birmingham " - these are seen moving fluently and fluidly between army living and
entertainment.
Captain Dennis, in a repertoire of gowns and disguises rouges and eyeshadow is Dietrich, Carmen Miranda and Noel Coward, excuding nostalgia for those lost times and camp manners.
The first half of the evening depends upon a life of cntertainment and the 20 year-old's initiation into the role playing and vulgarity. "I can hardly wait to attach you to my section," says the Acting Captain, whose cleverly recreated reminiscences
of flinging himself briefly into heterosexuality or of loftily dismissing "Bernadette Shaw" for the sin of keeping his virginity till 58 are typical. But this exclusive and appealing portrayal of the crazy fringes of show business does not delay the progress of romantic and melodramatic themes: the Private falling in love with the half-cast girl, the sergeant-major revealed as a gun-running renegade. These incidents are rather sentimental and extraneous, only acceptable in the small doses which Mr Nichols allows.
It is in the last stage that political concerns begin to emerge and grow important in their grim intimations. The Major commanding, "Save Malaya from the new age of atheists" puts God before country and reminds that luxury leads to everything Red and rotten. He is a reminder of the aimlessness and the violent dangers of the whole expedition. His final invitations to his troops, inviting them to the exclusive luxury of his Elizabethan home, reminds one that even in 1948 his world was disappearing. And Mr Nichols precisely captures a sense of surprised insecurity which accompanies the dawn of the Attlee age.
It is an evening of joy, nostalgia and affection, its seriousness secondary. Denis Quilley's beautiful performance as the Acting Captain seems to me one of the most important and praiseworthy impersonations of a camp homosexual I have ever seen. Without affectation, without any resort to stereotypes and usual impersonations, redolent of contempt and superiority, he creates a singing and living human being.
Nigel Hawthorne's Major, bristling with mad enthusiasms, swinging his legs like stilts gives a major creative performance. In his vocal, physical and emotional observations Mr Hawthorne is faultless and extracts every nuance of humour. Michael Blakemore's production, even though the play could do with 15 minutes' cutting, moves lucidly and swiftly through a minefield of technical dangers. This is not a profound or important play but one which makes you glad to be in a theatre and delighted to escape among stage characters whose company is a delight.
Army camping
Milton Shulman, Evening Standard, January 9 1978
PRIVATES ON PARADE by
Peter Nichols won the Evening Standard's award as the best comedy of 1977; and how right we were: Last night, at the Piccadilly, where it has come from the Aldwych, the cascades of audience laughter amply confirmed the judgment of the panel.
Perhaps, to be best appreciated, one has to have some sort of awareness of the events and characters Mr Nichols so wittily parodies. The young may find some of them too distant for enjoyment.
Because it is a war story about non-combatants in uniform when all fighting was officially over, the formalities of military discipline and the hang-over values from the Nazi War acquire an anarchic quality of nutty irrelevance.
It was a historical freak that British troops should have found themselves in the Malaysian jungle in 1948 being attacked by Communists who were once our allies.
The idea that our soldiers could be remotely entertained by a troupe of homosexuals, callow youths, amateur conjurors and working-class layabouts was one of those well-meaning aberrations generals suffer when they have more men around them than they know what to do with.
Facing an audience of stony-faced Gurkhas bewildered by tired music- hall jokes, and
send- ups of Carmen Miranda, Denis Quilley, the troupe's "queer" captain, complains that it's like staring into a bowl of prunes.
"They're enjoying it in their own way," comes back the reassuring reply from his senior officer.
The melodramatic plot of a young recruit who gets mixed up with a villainous sergeant-major and a soft- hearted Welsh-Indian girl is fortunately swamped by the ribald antics of the men; and the hilarious samples of corny sbowbiz that only desperation could justify as entertainment.
Denis Quilley is again rapturously funny whether he is standing on his dignity shouting: "If you dare to speak to an officer like that, I'll scream the place down!" or giving marvellously camp versions of Noel Coward and Vera Lynn.
Joe Melia, who never stops swearing like a trouper, makes very funny Army fodder; while Nigel Hawthorne is brilliant as a Major who believes that God is an Englishman who grows roses, plays cricket and destroys foreigners!
The music, by Denis King, takes one back to the innocense of tinkling tunes; and Michael Blakemore's direction keeps the gags and skits moving at such a brisk pace there is little time to worry about the preposterous storyline.
Theatre: The Army in drag
PRIVATE LIVES
By FRANK MARCUS, Daily Telegraph, February 12 1978
PRIVATES ON PARADE looks even
better a year after its first brief appearance in the repertoire of the R.S.C. at the Aldwych. Peter Nichols has taken another rewarding stroll down memory (or Forget-Me-Not) lane and come back with a bouquet of exotic, ludicrous, and carnivorous blooms.
As in most of his other plays,
he has drawn on fundamentally
painful experiences, transmuted
by vaudeville techniques into a wildly funny revue. In this
instance, the result is very nearly pure farce; a logical development, given an Army Entertainment unit operating in post-war Malaya. There is a sketchy melodramatic plot, involving spies, Communist guerrillas and a Eurasian maiden
(Emma Williams), loved by the new recruit (Ian Gelder) and ill-used by the wicked Sergeant Major (Shaun Curry). But the- laughter easily accommodates even sudden death, and the dirty song leads to a lyrical lovers' consummation, enacted to a crescendo of "Greensleeves." The skill involved in achieving this must be credited to a large extent to the director, Michael Blakemore.
The author's compassion ensures that we come to care for this absurd band of idiots, and the actors are so marvellous that they are capable of suggesting the truth behind the caricatures with a mere look or a gesture. Denis Quilley's Terri, the star of the outfit and a raging homosexual, has a poignant moment of reminiscence of a lost lover. Elsewhere, he brings the house down with impersonations of Marlene Dietrich, Noel Coward, Carmen Miranda, and, best of all, Vera Lynn.
-
In complete contrast, Nigel Hawthorne's Major is a blinkered but zealous advocate of a somewbat simplistic kind of Christianity. He is a buffoon, but also suggests en innate decency. It is a subtle, as well as uproariously funny, performance.
Joe Melia's foul-mouthed Corporal and Tim Wylton's fragile queen contribute a Flanagan & Allen parody, and the earnest Simon Jones is jilted by his girl. The two native servants, Cecil Cheng and Eiji Kusuhara, indulge in effortless spying. Denis King's songs catch the precise flavour of the period, and the settings by Michael Annals' convey the makeshift nature of the jungle camp.
Privates on Parade
B. A. Young, Financial Times, February 9 1978
The Royal Shakespeare Company's productions always seem better at a second visit, no doubt because they open cold, or at best, only with the chill off. Let me now say that Peter Nichol's Privates on Parade must surely be the happiest evening in the London theatre to-day.What seems to have bugged me last year was a melodramatic quality in the serious sub-pIot concerning the gun-running black-marketing Sergeant-Major played now by Shaun Curt. Any such objection is banished this time by the excellence of almost, everything else. The story is only incidentally what matters: it is there to prove a foundation for Mr. Nichol's vivid characterisation of the members of the Combined Services Entertainment Unit whose adventures we follow: for his trenchant remarks on the politics of the British in Malaya in 1948: and for his nimble talent of comedy and lyric-writing.
Half the unit are gay. the leading man, Acting Captain Terri Dennis the gayest of all. Denis Quilley has already had awards for this glittering performance, and it glitters, brightly as ever. He speaks the camp lines ("that Bernadette Shaw! She's such a chatterbox!") as to the manner born and tears of splendid imitations of Marlene Dietnich, Vera Lynn, Noel Coward, and Carmen Miranda (with a set of long red reach-me-down fingernails). Not only are these fine imitations, the songs themselves contain the element of mockery, in the lyrics and in Denis King's music, that is necessary for good parody. The innocent play on words in the play's title gives rise to similar puns almost endlessly throughout the evening, and never with the least sign strain or cheapess.
Nigel Hawthorne repeats his outstanding performance as Major Flack, the muscular Christian officer in command of the unit, always ready to go into an improving speech to his men about their duty to God and King, his gently rolling periods given sudden emphasis on the final words of each speech and larded with the phrases he imagines will appeal to the troops, such as "Cor, stone the crows." Too bad that when he actually has to make tactical use of his strolling players he should discuss his operation in front of two Chinese mess servants who belong to the Chinese Communist forces, and so involves them in an ambush.
The rank-and-file of the unit are polished now into a row of sharply-chiselled cameos. Joe Melia as the stores corporal from (as Flack says) the sewers of Birmingbam shows a deep pathos as a simple, normal man accepting the ministrations of his gay friend Corporal Bishop (Tim Wylton) out of loneliness and lack of imagination. Steven Flowers, the youngster with liberal ideas about education, Young-love, the aggressively lovesick conjurer, Kevin Cartwright who wanted to be a bomber navigator, are sympathetically played by Ian Gelder, Simon Jones and Neil McCaul, and Emma Williams is as radiant as ever as the Anglo-Indian girl with her touching illusions. Even the two non-speaking Orientals, Cecil Cheng and Eiji Kusuhara, offer individual personalities.
Michael Blakemore's direction, coupled with the ingenious sets by Michael Annals, keeps things moving at a great pace from scene to scene; by my reckoning the running time is 15, minutes or so less than before. At two hours and three-quarters, it is not a moment too long. I would have been happy to stay in my seat and see it all over again.
Ivor Novello sings the praises of the RSC
Evening Standard, May 12 1978
APART from being the food of love music is turning into the staple diet of the Royal Shakespeare Company. For the second year running the RSC has proved itself as good at musical comedy as it is at classical Shakespeare by winning the Ivor Novello Award for the Best Musical of the Year.
Today Michael Blakemore's production of Privates on Parade carried off the same award which last year went to Trevor Nunn's Comedy of Errors. Although its author Peter Nichols and Denis King, who wrote the songs, may be a little bemused to hear the play described as "a musical" no one who has seen the winsome frolics of Captain Terri (Denis Quilley) belle of the ball In the Army entertainments unit could doubt the wisdom of the Song-writers Guild in bringing the total number of awards Privates on Parade has won up to six.
Trevor Nunn was not there to receive the award in person as he is currently in New York organising the RSC's musical debut on Broadway.
Comedy of Errors will open In New York in November.
There is still more song and dance to come from the RSC who are performing
Hamlet on Ice at the Young Vic on May 21. This is a pantomime version of Hamlet in which Jill Baker plays the Prince of Denmark as a principal boy and Geoffrey Hutchings is Buttons. Proceeds go to the 'Barbican Appeal fund.
