Plague Over England

Archive Listings for Plague Over England

T02002848113 (DUCHESS09) Running time 2hours 30minsProducer Bill Kenwright. Producer Ambassador Theatre Group. Director Tamara Harvey. Design Alex Marker. Lighting James Farncombe. Costume Penn O'Gara. Sound Theo Holloway. Costume Trish Wilkinson. Music Alexander S. Bermange. Performer Michael Feast (John Gielgud). Performer David Burt. Performer Simon Dutton. Performer Celia Imrie (Dame Sybil Thorndike). Performer Hugh Ross. Performer John Warnaby. Performer Michael Brown. Performer Steven Hansell. Performer Sam Heughan. Performer Leon Ockenden.
12 Feb 09 to 2 May 09	Duchess Theatre, West End :: V391 listing details L0368031866
T348165487 (FINBOROUGH08) Performance length 2 hours.Producer Chantelle Staynings. Producer Neil McPherson (for the Finborough Theatre). Director Tamara Harvey. Design Alex Marker. Lighting James Farncombe. Costume Penn O'Gara. Sound Colin Pink. Performer Jasper Britton. Performer David Burt. Performer Simon Dutton. Performer Steve Hansell. Performer Nichola McAuliffe. Performer Leon Ockenden. Performer John Warnaby. Performer Timothy Watson. Performer Robin Whiting.
27 Feb 08 to 22 Mar 08	Finborough, Inner London :: V199 listing details L0304541287

Details

Play :: In Autumn 1953, Sir John Gielgud, then at the height of his fame as an actor, was arrested in a Chelsea public lavatory. He pleaded guilty the following morning to the charge of persistently importuning men for immoral purposes. Poised to appear in the West End in a play he was directing and recently knighted, his conviction caused a national sensation - breaking the great taboo of public discussion of homosexuality. More than just a dramatisation of a scandalous event in one actor's life, this controversial new play shows how Gielgud's arrest played a small but distinct part in the battle to make homosexuality legal. It captures the spirit of Britain in the early 1950s when judges, politicians and the national press were describing homosexuality as a cancer, an epidemic and a threat to national life. It casts light on the political and social anxieties of the period and the witch-hunting of men who had sex with men. Framed by scenes of contemporary celebration at a civil partnership ceremony and ranging from close encounters in Hyde Park to a Gentlemen’s gay club in Piccadilly, from Scotland Yard where pretty policeman were taught how to seduce men in lavatories to the Home Secretary’s office in Whitehall, Plague over England offers an extraordinary insight into the dramatic changes in social attitudes to gay life in the last fifty years.

Author

Nicholas de Jongh