While everybody with a dog in the fight on Broadway was at the Tony Awards on Sunday — the “Kinky Boots” team dancing and cheering, the “Matilda” team scowling and cursing — another group of theater swells were sipping fine wine at Andrew Lloyd Webber’s house.
Not a house, exactly — more like an estate. Sydmonton is Lloyd Webber’s vast country getaway outside London. Almost every year, the composer hosts a weekend house party during which he premieres excerpts from his latest show. The Sydmonton Festival, as the party’s called, usually takes place after the Tonys, so all the New York muckety-mucks — Shuberts, Nederlanders, Jujamcyn Theater executives — can attend. But this year, Lloyd Webber wanted the event to be a celebration of his son Alastair’s 21st birthday. Alastair is a budding music producer himself, and Lloyd Webber, I’m told, thought it would be nice to combine his music with his son’s. So this year’s festival, while short on New Yorkers, was a nice mix of Lloyd Webber’s old pals and his son’s young friends, sources say.
“It was a sort of passing of the baton,” someone who attended said.
Lloyd Webber lifted the curtain on “Stephen Ward,” a new musical about the British osteopath who got caught up the Profumo Affair, a political and sexual scandal that helped bring down Harold Macmillan’s government in the early ’60s. Guests were treated to the first 30 minutes of Act I and the final 20 minutes of Act II. My spies say Lloyd Webber’s music is gorgeous and quite haunting. They say Don Black (“Sunset Boulevard”) has written some of his best lyrics in years, and they were impressed with Christopher Hampton’s script: A source says the show plays almost like a political thriller with songs.
Richard Eyre, who staged “Mary Poppins,” is directing. The producer is Robert Fox (“The Boy From Oz”). They were at Sydmonton, along with Black and Hampton.
Ward, if you remember, is the Harley Street doctor who introduced John Profumo, then England’s Secretary of State for War, to showgirl Christine Keeler, who was also canoodling with a top military official from the Soviet Embassy in London. This nice little love triangle was set against the backdrop of the Cold War. When the press got wind of the affair, Profumo denied it in the House of Commons. He was later forced to admit he’d lied and resigned from office. But much of the blame fell on Ward, who was accused of acting as Keeler’s pimp. On the last day of his trial, he committed suicide.
At Sydmonton, the role of Stephen Ward was played by Alex Hanson, who gave a fine performance in the revival of “A Little Night Music” a few seasons ago. Hanson was up for the role of Simon Cowell in the upcoming “X-Factor” musical, but I hear he’s decided to cast his lot with Lloyd Webber instead.
Auditions are being held for other roles this week in London. Other characters include the notorious gangster brothers Ronnie and Reggie Kray and Robert Boothby, who served in Churchill’s cabinet and was a leading member of the Conservative party. Boothby was bisexual at a time when homosexuality was outlawed in England. His nickname was “The Palladium” because “he was twice nightly.”
(Boothby has another claim to fame: He once met Hermann Göring in Berlin before the outbreak of World War II. When Goering greeted him with “Heil, Hitler!” Boothby put up his right hand, shrugged and said, “Heil . . . Boothby.”)
“Stephen Ward” begins performances in October at the Aldwych Theatre. Opening night will be in November.
LONDON bitchiness: Kim Cattrall got some nice reviews yesterday for her performance as a fading movie star in the revival of “Sweet Bird of Youth” at the Old Vic. But some of my spies in the audience were less than thrilled with her red wig: “My God — she looks like Lucille Ball playing Norma Desmond!”