Glorious!

Peter Quilter’s 2005 play Glorious! is the story of singer Florence Foster Jenkins, a soprano who for three decades gave private concerts and made recordings, apparently unaware that she was singing out of tune.  Quilter’s play takes a wonderfully ironic approach to Jenkins’s obliviousness, using double entendres to great effect.

Despite its inherent cleverness, the script could be dreary if overemphasised and overacted.  So it was a pleasure to have seen it masterfully handled by Diana McLean, as Jenkins; Alister Kingsley, as Jenkins’s accompanist, Cosmé McMoon; and Kaarin Fairfax, with three roles.  The performance was all the more impressive because Kingsley filled in at the last moment for Joshua Sanders, put out of action just before the Q’s season began.  Though performing with script in hand, Kingsley was so natural that the script was hardly noticeable.

In the role of Jenkins, Diana McLean sang as somebody unable to hear the tuning of her own voice, yet without the horror that accompanies the truly dreadful rendition.  Only a singer with talent and skill can pull this off as McLean did.  As well, she conveyed irresistible charisma and self-assuredness.  The piano accompaniment was cleverly managed, Kingsley playing jazzy pieces on stage, Colin Forth playing others off stage.  And Kaarin Fairfax deserves special mention as the amusingly indignant Mrs Verrinder-Gedge.

John P. Harvey

Image: Diana McLean, in Glorious!  Photographer: Chris Eicher.