Tomorrow is another day”, they sing towards the end of Gone with the Wind, but by the time we got to it, tomorrow was very nearly today. Despite last night’s first night starting a half an hour earlier than usual, and despite cuts that were put into the show since I first reported on the first preview here that meant it was said to be running three and a half hours instead of over four, we didn’t get out till 10.45pm - or at least those of us who had lasted the course and didn’t flee at the 9pm interval, as I counted at least three non-reviewing colleagues do, as well as Vanessa Feltz, amongst numerous others. Before he left, one of them complained about a different sort of wind emanating from the person sitting next to him: apparently his neighbour had repeatedly farted throughout the first act. But the bad smell, I should have assured him, was coming from the stage, too.
“Why did they do Gone With the Wind? Because, like Everest, it was there: purpose and heart were all that the show lacked, but in their place were glamorous dancers and the belief that if you sing loud, dance hard, act big and build scenery high, even success is possible.” No, that isn’t a quote from any of today’s reviews, but rather the late Sheridan Morley, describing an earlier hapless 1971 Drury Lane musical version of the story in his book Spread a Little Happiness.
That one was staged by Joe Layton, and according to Sheridan, it apparently “offered spectacle-crazed audiences the Burning of Atlanta, as performed by dozens of extras and at least one horse. Giving value for money seemed to be the aim here: lavish set changes, thirty songs by Harold Rome, children carefully trained to be as objectionable as Deanna Durbin, and an air of solid, if misplaced, confidence in the material.”
We don’t have exactly lavish set changes here - or, for that matter, a live horse either - but director Trevor Nunn’s production certainly has an air of solid, if misplaced, confidence in the material that he takes personal credit for adapting Margaret Martin’s book and lyrics to, so presumably he needs to take personal blame for it, too. And, of course, for that interminable-seeming running time; but as Charles Spencer points out in his Telegraph review today, “There is a puzzle here. Three hours and 40 minutes isn’t actually that long… In fact, Trevor Nunn’s production achieves the kind of paradox normally only found in the baffling field of quantum mechanics. It feels interminable, but moment by moment it also seems ridiculously rushed, so that incidents that really make a mark in the film go for almost nothing on stage.”
Hope will follow on the wings of a dove, sing the freed black slaves, late in the day and play; and the multiple producers here may need a whole flock of them. Charlie Spencer spares a thought for them, too: “The only people likely to give a damn about this Gone with the Wind are the investors, who risk losing their shirts.”
I’m intrigued to note that two of them are Bernie Shaw and Patricia Hearst. Hearst, the heiress and kidnap victim of an urban guerrilla group called the Symbionese Liberation Army, subsequently joined their ranks and was eventually imprisoned for taking part in a bank robbery with them - though her sentence was subsequently commuted by President Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton gave her a full presidential pardon on the last day of his presidency. She subsequently married her former bodyguard, Bernard Shaw, and has more recently cultivated a career as a sometime actress.
Will there be a presidential pardon for her involvement in this, too?
Deanna Durbin started out late as a "child star" at about 13 years of age, but was extremely successful. Thankfully, she got off the Hollywood highway to hell before it completely destroyed her. She is now 86 and living in peace in France.
Gosh, I hadn't noticed the backers' names. So Patty Hearst is continuing to inflict acts of terror on the public at large, eh? (Note for legal: that's meant as a joke, and I unreservedly withdraw it and apologise for any distress it may cause!)