Monday 1st July 2013 by Will Langdale
You've never had it so good!
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| Harold Macmillan's 1967 Downing Street portrait by Vivienne |
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s world premiere of his brand new show, Stephen Ward, was announced this week. Slated to open in December, the subject of the show is the 1963 Profumo Affair, a scandal embroiled in sex, sleaze and Cold War politics – all fantastic subjects for a raunchy night at the theatre!
The Profumo Affair was named after John Profumo, the then-Minister for War in Harold MacMillan’s Conservative government. Profumo became involved in an extramarital affair with Christine Keeler, who at the time worked as a showgirl. Yet Keeler was involved with someone else – a mistress to a naval attaché from the London embassy of the Soviet Union named Yevgeni Ivanov. With the Cold War at its height, and international relations between the Soviet Union and the UK strained, when the story broke it forced the resignation of Profumo and was incredibly damaging to the Conservative government.
Yet interestingly, it is not Profumo, Keeler or Ivanov that Webber has chosen to focus on. Dr Stephen Ward was a skilled and renowned Osteopath, who gained immense social influence after becoming known as the “best Osteopath in London”, with many famous clients such as Winston Churchill and Ava Gardner. From the late 40s onwards, Stephen Ward mixed with some of the most powerful members of society, utilising both suave social skills, charming bonhomie, and the reputation of his job to gain influence. It is when Ward became close friends with Christine Keeler that she was able to meet such influential figures as Profumo and Ivanov. Ward was something of a playboy, having numerous affairs, and introducing many attractive young women to rich and powerful establishment figures.
The involvement of government spies adds a layer of derring-do to the story, and Ward had certainly been involved with people in MI5 such as Keith Wagstaffe, and head of MI5 Roger Hollis, who was later notoriously accused of being a mole in Peter Wright’s autobiography, Spycatcher. Indeed, in the same autobiography Wright became convinced that Keeler had indeed been primed by Ivanov to collect nuclear secrets from Profumo, after hearing her use the neologism “nuclear payload”, a term not in common use at the time.
When Profumo and Keeler’s affair came to light in the press, it wasn’t just Profumo that was destroyed. Stephen Ward’s reputation as a socialite doctor had a third noun added: pimp. It was discovered that Ward associated with several women known to be working as prostitutes, some of whom testified at his trial, and eventually charges were laid against Ward that he had been living on ‘immoral earnings’. To some, this was a natural come-uppance to a “connoisseur of love making” who had embroiled upstanding British institutions in sleaze and scandal, but to others, these were trumped up charges aimed at taking Ward down for murky reasons. There were rumours Ward worked for MI5, and when he committed suicide on the last day of the trial, a conspiracy theory that he was murdered arose. Certainly one of the notes left before his death – “The ritual sacrifice is demanded and I cannot face it” – can be read in many ways.
Webber’s musical follows in the footsteps of the film Scandal (1989), starring John Hurt as Stephen Ward, which also has the doctor as its protagonist. We’re extremely excited for the upcoming show, with music by Webber himself, book by Don Black and lyrics by Christopher Hampton. Webber himself has said that “this is going to be the antithesis of 'Love Never Dies’ or 'Phantom’”, so we’re looking forward to something really different for the West End this December!
Stephen Ward opens on December 3rd at the Aldwych Theatre, and to get you in the mood, take a look at the musical trailer, and have a listen to classical guitarist Miloš Karadaglic’s Theme from Stephen Ward, released as a single earlier this year!