Manchester’s Hope Mill Theatre marks its 10th birthday this year, and a celebratory season that will culminate with Young Frankenstein in the autumn kicks off with a smaller but perfectly formed comedy, whose title does a lot of the heavy lifting in giving us the message that there’s something special afoot.
Peter Quilter’s Glorious tells the true story of Florence Foster Jenkins, widely regarded as the worst operatic soprano of all time. In 2016 Meryl Streep made the singer known to cinema audiences in the eponymous feature film, while Catherine Frot’s Margueritte the previous year gave a fictionalized account of the same story. It was a decade before either of these, however, that Quilter’s stage play took the West End by storm with Maureen Lipman in the title role.
This revival, co-produced by Hope Mill with Thomas Hopkins and Jana Robbins, presents a splendid Florence in Wendi Peters. Peters’ characterization goes full throttle Hyacinth Bucket for much of the spoken dialogue, but it is in her singing performances that she has really captured the spirit of Foster Jenkins’ truly extraordinary performance style. Of course we have the famous Mellotone recordings to document her actual sound, and more recently some rare film footage that gives us a flavour of her physical delivery. Peters succeeds beautifully on both counts. The stage presence is, to put it mildly, eccentric, and the vocal gymnastics are something to behold. This is a very thoughtfully crafted performance, and it is remarkably clever to see her demolishing all sense of rhythm and searching for the notes, and there is a genuine sense of triumph when she actually manages to find one. There’s almost an air of pantomime about the over-the-top personality, but we know from contemporary and documentary evidence that this is genuinely what Foster Jenkins was like.
Alongside Peter’s is someone else who deserves star billing. Film and television audiences may already be familiar with Charlie Hiscock (Ted Lasso / Poor Things) but surprisingly he makes his professional stage debut in this performance. Move over Timothée Chalamet and your guitar—Hiscock, already a guitar player, has learned the piano especially to bring authenticity to his portrayal of Foster Jenkins’ long-suffering accompanist Cosmé McMoon. He brings remarkable dramatic subtlety to the part, helping to balance the obvious comedy of the situation with a warm heart. After getting over his initial astonishment at her voice and personality, Cosmé develops a great affection for his employer, and becomes one of her most staunch supporters and defenders.
Hiscock turns out to be a perfect choice for the role, moving effortlessly back and forth between the main dialogue and the compere-like narrative sections, and there is a great rapport between the two leads.
Anita Booth completes the cast, deftly multi-tasking as Foster Jenkins’ close friend Dorothy, her reluctant Italian housekeeper/maid Maria, and her artistic nemesis Mrs Verrinder-Gedge, who tries to put a stop to the musical soirées.
Glorious could be thought almost an imposter on the pages of Musical Theatre Review, as it is more of a play with songs than a musical per-se. Nonetheless, it has the love of music at its heart, and features a great many astonishingly crafted musical performances. As Foster Jenkins herself famously remarked —Many people said that she couldn’t sing, but nobody could claim that she didn’t sing. The score features the music of Lyadov, Delibes, Johann Strauss II, Bizet and Mozart, deftly assembled and linked by musical supervisor Nick Barstow.
Director Kirk Jamieson draws affectionate performances from his cast and balances the comedy delicately with the underpinning pathos of the story. Quilter’s text skims a little over the surface of the sad history of Foster Jenkins, and the domineering father who prevented her from achieving her dreams until after his death, but there are sufficient references to give us the gist. Here and there the play has extended passages in which the energy could sag, but Jamieson does a skilful job of pushing through and keeping the flow going.
Ingrid Hu’s settings and costumes are simply but exquisitely done and are very evocative of the 1940s era, and lighting and sound design from Mike Robertson and Mark Goggins are of the sort of quality that we have come to expect at Hope Mill.
Glorious is a witty and joyful portrait of one of the musical world’s most unforgettable characters, and this new production graces it with genuinely glorious performances from Peters and Hiscock.
Glorious Continues at Hope Mill Theatre Manchester until 30th March.
Star Rating: Four stars ★★★★
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| Charlie Hiscock as Cosmé McMoon and Wendi Peters as Florence Foster Jenkins - Photo © Cian O'Ryan |
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| Anita Booth, Charlie Hiscock and Wendi Peters in Glorious! - Photo © Cian O'Ryan |
This review was originally written for Musical Theatre Review
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