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Performance

VenueDuchess Theatre
TownWest End
CountyGreater London
From12th February 2009
Opened23rd February 2009
To2nd May 2009
PricesFrom £26.00. To £46.00.
Duchess Theatre (V391)
Current/Future Listings
Listings Archive

Plague Over England

Plague Over England

Work:: Plague Over England (S029913626)

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

Production:: (T02002848113)

Running time 2hours 30mins
Producer 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

Listing:: L0368031866




Production details

Running time 2hours 30mins

Reviews

No UKTW or User reviews available.
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