Privates on Parade

Synopsis

Privates on Parade tells the story of Private Steven Flowers, who is posted to the Song and Dance Unit in South East Asia where serving under the flamboyant Captain Terri Dennis discovers it takes more than just a uniform to become a man.

Simon Russell Beale plays the cross-dressing Captain Dennis whose performances of Marlene Dietrich, Vera Lynn and Carmen Miranda form the centrepiece of Peter Nichols' award-winning comedy set against the murderous backdrop of the Malaysian campaign at the end of the Second World War.

Directed by Michael Grandage, with set and costume design by Christopher Oram and lighting by Paule Constable.

Don't miss the first in Grandage's season of five plays - book tickets now.

Our Review:

Michael Coveney - 11 December 2012

The Michael Grandage Company is launched with what might seem a safe choice, apart from all the swearing, blasphemy and male nudity: a return by director Grandage, ten years after his impeccable Donmar Warehouse revival with Roger Allam and Malcolm Sinclair, to Peter Nichols' 1977 cunning vaudeville of a British army entertainments unit moving up country in Malaysia in 1948.

Those leads are now deliciously taken by Simon Russell Beale and Angus Wright as, respectively, Acting Captain Terri Dennis and Major Flack, the first a blissfully camp cabaret turn of the sort Nichols knew at first hand in his own South East Asia unit alongside Kenneth Williams and Stanley Baxter, the second an absurd authority figure with an over-developed sense of patriotism as, in this period, Communism replaces Hitler as Public Enemy Number One.

The Commies, of course, are also "Johnny Foreigner",...

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Latest User Review

David Baxter - 14 February 2013:

The Michael Grandage season gets off to a fantastic start with this brilliant revival of Peter Nichols' riotously funny musical comedy which also emphasises how much Grandage is missed at the Donamr. His time there may not have been particularly noted for comedies but the laughter is in full flow from the start, some of it deliciously filthy, but there are also plaenty of touchingly human moments and no stinting on the shocking racism of the period and there is a masterstroke at the end wich I think is Grandage;s addition. Angus Wright is superb as the incompetent officer filled with Christian missionary fervour and there is great support throughout. Until playing Stalin and Timon the great SRB had been getting camper with each performance and here he is let off the leash and revels in a quite wonderful portrayal of the cross-dressing Captain Dennis but also brilliantly captures his essential kindness and decency beneath the glitter. Mind you, when he plays Lear next year it will be difficult to banish the memory of his plump and cheeky (literally) Marlene Dietrich. If the rest of the season lives up to this superb production it's going to be a memorable year at the Noel Coward....

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