Send for Mr Plim

A delightful lunchtime in the company of Maggie Forsyth with Julian Forsyth and fellow members of the cast of An American in Paris at the Soho Theatre, watching a performance of Send for Mr Plim!, a comic cabaret opera from 1932 by Mischa Spoliansky, adapted into English by Julian Forsyth and Steve Edis. (German original: Rufen Sie Herrn Plim!)

We were in good company, as Barry Humphries (an expert in Weimar era music & cabaret), Jane Asher, Bill Patterson & Spoliansky's two grandsons were there too!  Sadly their Mum, Spoli, has died since the last production, but she was there in spirit, of course.

We, TLQ, played the management of the Wertheim's (the Berlin shop where this piece is set) in the production at Battersea Arts Centre in 1999; and it was wonderful to hear the score again.
Julian & Steve have added a prologue of Spoliansky music, with pithy, brilliant lyrics exploring the alarming atmosphere of Germany in the early 1930s.

The cast rehearsed all this in their spare time (of which there is not much when you are playing in a long show 8 performances a week!); and they were fantastic of course, looking and sounding ace.  Very much a workshop performance, but utterly compelling.
Let's hope this is the first of very many performances & it goes on to huge success.

Wonderful to see our old friends, The Forsyths & Spoli's sons.
A lovely way to spend a London lunchtime.