REVIEW: “Glorious!” at the Bear Pit Theatre

Tony Homer reviews “Glorious!” at the Bear Pit Theatre, Stratford-Upon-Avon, which played from the 18th to the 22nd of June 2024.

Happy and Glorious

We’re all familiar with the phrases, ‘you’ve read the book, now see the film’ (or vice verse), or ‘based on a true story’, or ‘based on the original play’. Seeing a film or play after you’ve read the book brings to life characters that up to now have been in your imagination. But seeing a film or TV series before seeing a play offers an interesting challenge for the cast who are competing with your predetermined ideas of what the character looks and sounds like. Which is a long winded way of saying that on Saturday night I went to see ‘Glorious!’ (the 2005 play which was turned into a film starring Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant in 2016). And having seen the film, I already had something to compare it to.

The good news from my perspective was that I felt I enjoyed this stage production even more than the film. From the set to the music, from the acting to the costumes it was utterly brilliant, endearing and so full of humour. With respect to the humour it was delivered with such perfect timing and understatement that the lines zinged between each actor. It very much reminded me of Neil Simon’s ‘Barefoot In The Park’ which I watched recently, in so much as every other line had a huge amount of wit. 

For those not familiar with the story of Florence Foster Jenkins, she achieved notoriety for her musical recitals, because her singing whilst enthusiastic was rarely in tune. Having inherited a sizeable trust fund following her father’s death she was able to pursue her passion with zeal. For over 30 years she organised and performed musical recitals to her own group of friends, the so called Verdi Club. We hear that she selected her audience through some form of audition process and so enamoured were these friends that it seems no one was prepared to tell her honestly that she lacked a singing voice.

And so to the Bearpit Production. Angela Minto took the leading role and delivered a strong, endearing, compassionate, at times hilarious and musically brilliant performance. I’m sure I was not the only one who was reminded about Les Dawson and his amusingly terrible piano playing. In order to achieve such comedy he needed to be a good pianist in the first place. I’ve seen Angela singing before in Calendar Girls so knew she had a voice. Her ability to turn that on its head was fantastic and dare I say, pitch perfect. Her fellow cast members were equally great in support. Mark Ewins as Cosme, her new accompanist, had wit and charm throughout, his journey from honest sceptic to faithful friend was delicately played. Paul Tomlinson was suitably debonair as Florence’s love interest, a failing actor with a zest for the good times, always joking and ready for a drink. Viv Tomlinson was hilarious as the loyal friend who is constantly making costumes or encouraging Florence to perform. And by no means was she upstaged by her pet dog, but little Ricky very nearly stole the show with his various appearances. Suffice to say we were all deceived in the second half when he exited stage left, metaphorically.

Margot McCleary gave us the lone critic of Jenkins, storming into a recital and planning to derail any future performance. The audience were more than happy to boo her off the stage, but only because she appeared so forthright in her condemnation. And finally, another scene stealer, Lynn Taylor as the Mexican maid who must have lived in Mexico previously or been on an intense duolingo course. She rattled through her lines which amusingly no one understood with such confidence. “I’m sure she’s Mexican just to spite me”, I think was the riposte from Jenkins. 

Huge congratulations to Phil Beeson who brought this all together and designed the staggeringly brilliant set. Costumes, props, music, lighting and sound were all as professional as always at The Bear Pit.

A huge hit with the audiences all week, this was truly a performance to remember. Bravo, Florence!

-Tony Homer