When Kenneth Tynan took a scalpel to the Lord Chamberlain’s official duties in his memorable article, ‘The Royal Smut Hound’ (the position was that of second highest official at Her Majesty’s court responsible for the reception and care of visiting nabobs and potentates) the office had been under attack for decades from a host of notable writers who thought its bailliwick a deterrent to many other potential dramatists not willing to have their work mangled by an appointee with less credentials than a postmistress needed in order to issue stamps. After sex, religion and politics (apparently the realms of the easily offended) were the primary targets of the Lord Chamberlain’s blue pencil. In 1937, the year at the start of the play, it was the naked female form that exercised his Lordship. Everyone knows that you can sell anything with sex so with dwindling audiences it was a no brainer to ask the girls to slide their kit off to get bums on seats at the recently acquired Windmill.
Tracie Bennett’s Mrs Henderson is doughty woman, a ‘mover and shaker’ you feel could conquer any realm, but who chanced on West End revue, having bought herself The Windmill after being charmed by the theatricals who, ‘..mince around in their scanties and call each other darling all the time’.
In the baleful circumstances of WWII whilst Hitler was trying to bury our grandparents under the rubble of Georgian and Victorian London it seems that what ‘our boys’ needed in order to keep their pecker up was an eyeful of English rose in all its natural glory – and of course in the best possible taste. And so the legend was born of, ‘we never closed.’
This is a play about age, fortitude, life, sex and much else, with a nod to the indignities of censorship. If I was at times a little lost as to where the play was taking me it didn’t really matter since, like the revue it documents and dramatises it is a gallimaufry of cameos, not least Graham Hoadly’s, Lord Cromer whose Lord Chamberlain’s song is a clever blend of Gilbert and Sullivan, Monty Python with a dash of Benny Hill.
The music by George Fenton and Simon Chamberlain has some fun with the sounds of both the period and genre and make of it something worthy of revival. Don Black’s lyrics are sharp and lyrical by turns with a well judged pathos that allows the characters to find their emotional depth. Whatever Time I Have, for example, is the emotional dynamo for Mrs Henderson and in construction and execution stands alongside Send in the Clowns as a character defining solo. As the Girl Friday turned star attraction, Emma Williams turns in a powerful and moving showstopper with, If Mountains Were Easy to Climb, which becomes a duet with Mrs Henderson and serves as both a personal and feminist anthem.
Ian Bartholomew’s, Vivian Van Damm is the creative force behind Mrs Henderson’s determination. His unpretentious theatricality raises ‘matter of fact’ to an art form and with his, Now Is Not The Time, joins in the theme of life in later middle age without any suggestion of seediness.
The slick routines and chirpy numbers of the revue-within-a-play are a frothy counterpoint to the rest of the action which takes us through to the defiant ‘show must go on’ spirit of 1940 and the Blitz.
The songs allow an insight into the characters, which was not possible in the film and give the show an added dimension which justifiably had last night’s audience on their feet at the end for a well earned standing ovation. Terry Johnson’s witty and sensitive direction of his own play takes on a lot, but in the end provides a rich, moving and entertaining tapestry of a significant era in the nation’s history. ★★★★★ Graham Wyles 26/08/15
Photos by Nobby Clark
