–written by guest blogger Gay Soper—
To those of you who still haven’t seen Marguerite… we had our notice the other day; and our final performance will be September 13th. Very sad. We have been getting great houses and lots of cheers at the end, each night, but in this current financial climate, not enough people are going to any of the West End Theatres. Many shows have already closed. We have done better than many, but sadly we couldn’t do enough to keep open as long as was originally planned! It will probably start to do really brilliant business now it’s going to finish, so hurry, hurry!!
Our show is set in World War Two, Nazi-occupied Paris, and revolves around a group of French society sophisticates who are all tacitly collaborating with the Germans; and the hypocrisy of their glittering lives and how at the end they change sides and pretend they were always part of The Resistance and never anti Semitic or pro Nazi at all. In the midst of this setting, Marguerite (Ruthie Henshall) is the mistress of a German General ( Alexander Hansen) , living in the lap of luxury. It’s the story of her journey into a dangerous obsession; and the German General’s real love for her and his revenge after she’s betrayed him with a poor French musician, played by the charismatic Julian Ovenden. And it has a sub-plot involving three young idealistic Resistance fighters.
The music is by Michel Legrand and has typically French, romantic, swooping melodies. As you might know, the writing team is Shoenberg and Bloublil who wrote Les Mis and Miss Saigon.
It’s a NEW musical, not a re-hash. The director is Jonathan Kent, one of the top classical theatre directors in this country, who also directs opera internationally. And besides, maybe even more importantly, I’m in it, and have my own solo song…. some of it in French (!) at the climax of the entire show in the Tabarin Scene when there is a dramatic… oooooh, I shan’t tell you what happens. It will spoil it for you. The frock is rather fab too. And I am somewhat more glamorous than I was in, say, Sunday In the Park With George!!
There are great ticket deals to be had for Marguerite . Go to Marguerite, they have deals for £25.00, great seats. Or try one of the other websites that do tickets such as this is theatre and so on. And of course, anyone with an Equity card, or any kind of Concession… i.e. Freedom Pass, Student Card etc., can also do well, if they go direct to the box office.
Hope to see you there!!!
Edit: I forgot to mention how Gay and I know each other. Our son Thomas, then a ten-year-old playing a minor role, and Gay were “colleagues” when they performed in the musical Cabaret which ran at the English Theatre in Frankfurt from Nov 2004 – Mar 2005. (Look for it in archives/Season 2004/2005/Cabaret)
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