Hope Mill’s latest production is a play rather than a musical, but one with a musical theme. Peter Quilter’s 20-year-old play centres on the true story of Florence Foster Jenkins, the American socialite from the early twentieth century who was proclaimed as one of the worst opera singers in history but who sold out Carnegie Hall in 1944 at the age of 76, a month before her death.
Jenkins was originally played by Maureen Lipman in this play and portrayed on film in an Oscar-nominated performance by Meryl Streep, but here Wendi Peters takes the role of the woman who gained a cult following and was completely convinced of her great gift, with admirers including Cole Porter and Enrico Caruso, though it isn’t certain whether she was in on the joke.
She was certainly aware that there were people who mocked her at her concerts, which she self-funded using the large inheritance she received after her father’s death, and to try to keep out those who were ‘jealous’ of her voice, she interviewed them all personally before they were allowed a ticket. All 800 of them. This is what she tells young pianist Cosmé McMoon when she is interviewing him to be her new accompanist.
McMoon, who narrates the story, is keen to escape playing background music in a restaurant for this well-paid gig, though when he eventually hears her sing—the writer holds off that anticipated moment until quite far into the scene—he does have second thoughts. But Jenkins isn’t a great listener, especially to other people’s doubts, and when she offers him three times his current salary, he can’t really refuse.
In the recording studio, McMoon does his best to adjust his playing to Jenkins’s unpredictable changes in timing and pitch, which can still be heard on some surviving recordings—she sold 78RPM records of her singing to her friends. He soon grows to love this woman who genuinely loves to perform and to get the flowers and applause, even if many treat it as a joke. When opera-lover Mrs Verrinder-Gedge presents her with a petition on stage to stop her from singing, it is McMoon who tears it up and eats it.
When she is offered a spot at Carnegie Hall, she sold out all 3,000 seats, and it is said that another 2,000 were turned away, but this time she wasn’t able to vet everyone in the audience, so there were those in the audience who mocked her performance, as well as professional critics who weren’t too kind in their reviews.
Charlie Hiscock is quite Stan Laurel-like with his physical and facial expressions when reacting to Jenkins’s singing and some of the wild things that she says in a very nice comic performance. His piano playing is very convincing, although it sounds a little dull as though coming from somewhere behind the scenery…
Someone said to me in the interval that Peters’s portrayal reminded her of Hyacinth Bucket from TV’s Keeping Up Appearances, and it was hard for me to not see her as that through the second half, perhaps with some pantomime dame thrown in, but it is certainly full-on with some impressively bad singing—which isn’t easy to do.
The play is very selective on Jenkins’s life story—her manager and long-term partner St Clair Bayfield isn’t mentioned—and the cast is kept to just three, with Anita Booth as disrupter Verrinder-Gedge, Jenkins’s friend Dorothy and her uncooperative Italian maid Maria. there are plenty of witty lines, which the cast make the most of, but also a bit too much static explanation and repetition with very little plot for nearly two hours (including the interval) and it dwells in sentimentality towards the end.
While the cast list is small for a Hope Mill production, there is still a large team behind the scenes, including impressive set and costume design from Ingrid Hu with wigs by Helen Keane, lit nicely by Mike Robertson, and with musical supervision from Nick Barstow.
It may not be a great play, but it’s a fun night with plenty of laughs and some good performances.
Reviewer: David Chadderton