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[0:00] ♪ Musical number: "The Boyfriend" — performed by The Boyfriend Cast ♪

[1:04] David Armstrong: Welcome to another episode of Broadway Nation, the podcast that tells the remarkable story of how immigrants, Jews, queers, African-Americans, and dynamic women invented the Broadway musical and how they changed America in the process. I'm David Armstrong, and this is the second half of my recent conversation with author Deborah Phillips, whose fascinating new book is titled And This Is My Friend Sandy, Sandy Wilson's The Boyfriend, London Theatre, and Gay Culture. The Boyfriend is one of the most popular and successful British musicals of all time. On the previous episode, Deborah Phillips shared with us how its creator, Sandy Wilson, grew up as a musical theatre-obsessed child whose idols were Noel Coward, Ivor Novello, and Binky Beaumont, the three dynamic gay theatre artists who dominated London's West End in the 1930s and 40s. And she also described London's vibrant but secretive gay theatrical subculture in the early 1950s, out of which Sandy Wilson and The Boyfriend would emerge.

And we even heard a bit about the secret gay language of chorus boys and sailors called Polari, and the hilarious BBC radio series named Round the Horn that introduced Polari to its millions of listeners in the mid-1960s, even if most of those listeners had no idea what it was or of its connections to gay culture. All of that, of course, was happening at a time in England when you could be sent to prison for being homosexual. In just a few minutes you'll hear a clip from Round the Horn featuring two very camp characters named Julian and Sandy who pepper their dialogue with Polari words and phrases, and who inspired Deborah Phillips to title her book And This Is My Friend Sandy. If you missed that previous episode you may want to catch up with it before listening to this one.

This episode is made possible in part by the generous support of our producer-level patrons Gary Fuller and Randy Everett. If you would like to help support the work of Broadway Nation, I'll have information at the end of the podcast about how you too can become a patron. As we pick up our conversation, Sandy Wilson is just about to stage the very first production of The Boyfriend at a private theatre club in London's Soho called the Players' Theatre. Here we go!

[3:34] Deborah Phillips: So, all of these elements sort of come together to provide this launchpad for The Boyfriend. And just to emphasize, Sandy Wilson writes the book, the music, and the lyrics for The Boyfriend.

[3:45] David Armstrong: Yeah.

[3:46] Deborah Phillips: Which is always extraordinary when so few people have done that successfully in the history of the musical theatre. How does The Boyfriend come about? Sandy Wilson already has a relationship with the Players' Theatre Club.

[3:59] David Armstrong: Yes, I think he's a member of it. Certainly, he would have been part of that culture and that community.

[4:07] Deborah Phillips: And do they commission him to write this?

[4:09] David Armstrong: They do. It's initially just one actor. Then they commission him to do a second act. And it's a huge hit. A huge hit. Which should be said, even before The Boyfriend, the Players' was actually a very fashionable place to be seen. Noel Coward went there, Princess Margaret went there. Princess Margaret loved The Boyfriend and took Her Late Majesty the Queen to see it. It was the theatrical moment of the period.

[4:35] Deborah Phillips: So as you said, The Boyfriend debuts there. It keeps coming back. They keep adding more to it.

[4:41] David Armstrong: Yes.

[4:42] Deborah Phillips: And we've seen this with a few other shows throughout history. Probably the biggest equivalent, which is interesting because it's also a very similar piece, which would be Dames at Sea, which started off-Broadway in the 1960s and starts as a small one-act version and starts to build this audience, which then keeps encouraging them to add more to it, to turn it into a full-length evening of theatre.

[5:03] David Armstrong: How do you describe The Boyfriend to somebody who's never seen it? What would you tell people The Boyfriend is?

[5:09] Deborah Phillips: I think it's absolutely charming. It's a fantasy about the 1920s, where Polly is at a finishing school in Nice. Remember, this is London, 1954, rationing. It's grey. It's miserable. And The Boyfriend is set in Nice, and it's sunny, and everybody's wealthy, although they're all pretending that they're not. It's a classic boy meets girl. Girl misinterprets boy's motivations, broken hearts. All is well in the end, and everybody gets married off, and the musical ends with a series of marriage proposals, and everybody falls into each other's arms at the carnival ball.

[5:57] David Armstrong: May I have this dance, Pierrette?

[5:59] Deborah Phillips: I'm afraid I can't dance with a stranger.

[6:02] David Armstrong: But I am Pierrot, and you are Pierrette. Surely we are not strangers.

[6:07] Deborah Phillips: But I don't know who you are.

[6:10] David Armstrong: Perhaps this will remind you.

[6:16] Deborah Phillips: It isn't! It isn't!

[6:18] David Armstrong: Yes, Polly, it's me!

[6:20] Deborah Phillips: Terry!

[6:20] David Armstrong: Polly!

[6:22] Deborah Phillips: Oh, la la, it seems that love is in the air tonight.

[6:26] David Armstrong: It is indeed. Polly, I too have some news.

[6:29] Deborah Phillips: Have you, Daddy? How thrilling.

[6:32] David Armstrong: May I tell her, Kiki?

[6:33] Deborah Phillips: But of course, she should be the first to know.

[6:36] David Armstrong: Very well, then. Polly, Madame de Bonny has just consented to become my wife.

[6:43] Deborah Phillips: Maisie, it's midnight. Have you thought it over?

[6:47] David Armstrong: Et toi?

[6:47] Deborah Phillips: Et toi?

[6:48] David Armstrong: Et toi?

[6:49] Deborah Phillips: After due consideration, we have come to the conclusion that the answer is unanimously...

[6:57] David Armstrong: Yes!

[6:58] Deborah Phillips: Oh, well, now how about that jouster?

[7:05] David Armstrong: We've got to have, we've got to have, for it's so clear enough to have that certain thing called a boyfriend.

[7:10] Deborah Phillips: We scheme about and dream about and we've been known to scream about that certain thing called the boyfriend.

[7:22] David Armstrong: Why, without us it's quite impossible and devoid of all charms. No one out of idle gossip will keep them out of our arms. We'll do without, I'll do without, our dreams just won't come true without that certain thing called the boyfriend.

[7:43] Deborah Phillips: And was the attempt to create a musical that was identical to musicals from the 1920s, what was Sandy Wilson's intent behind this?

[7:50] David Armstrong: It's a pastiche, but it's a very loving tribute to that period.

[7:57] Deborah Phillips: It's the music that he grew up on. It's so very much 1920s jazz in the tradition of Novello and Gershwin and its swings. And it has at least half a dozen memorable tunes. It has at least two show-stopping numbers, which apparently never fail to get encores. It's a beautiful, beautiful piece of theatre craft. It just works.

[8:23] David Armstrong: And you mentioned that authenticity was very important to him in this. This is not a spoof or a burlesque on 1920s musicals.

[8:32] Deborah Phillips: No, and that's why he loathed the New York production, which was, despite his reservations, a huge hit. But he felt that the American producers were laughing at the 20s rather than gently celebrating them. He was horrified, much as he was horrified by the film.

[8:52] David Armstrong: This becomes sort of a breath of fresh air for British theatre. Talk about The Boyfriend compared to what else is happening in British musical theatre at that moment.

[9:02] Deborah Phillips: Well, he's rapidly followed by Julian Slade's Salad Days, which eventually actually becomes even more successful than The Boyfriend. And Salad Days is another musical set in the 1920s.

[9:15] David Armstrong: Yes, it's also nostalgic and it's centered around a magic piano which makes everybody dance. It's also very charming. And that's a show that Americans will know almost nothing about because it didn't come to Broadway and didn't enter the canon the way The Boyfriend has.

[9:31] Deborah Phillips: No, and was never turned into a film. Although, again, Salad Days is regularly revived in amateur productions and student productions. Oh, it should be said that in Round the Horn, the two very camp characters are known as Julian and Sandy. And Julian is Julian Slade and Sandy is Sandy Wilson.

[9:46] David Armstrong: I was going to Cornwall for a few days rest and I wanted to take some reading matter with me. You know, there's nothing worse than being in lieu with nothing to read. So I popped into a bookshop in the King's Road. It was called Boner Books.

[10:09] Deborah Phillips: Hello, anybody there?

[10:10] David Armstrong: Oh, hello. I'm Julian and this is my friend Sandy.

[10:12] Deborah Phillips: Oh, hello, Mr. Orne.

[10:14] David Armstrong: How lovely.

[10:16] Deborah Phillips: Oh, lovely to see you, Mr. Orne. Come in, troll round.

[10:22] David Armstrong: Are you, um, are you looking for something between hardcovers or something to slip in your pocket? We have an enormous selection of livres de poches. That is your actual French for posh books. Livres de poches.

[10:34] Deborah Phillips: Poches, yeah.

[10:36] David Armstrong: How about a nice classic? We stock every Omi's edition. Would you be interested in Spencer's Fairy Queen?

[10:42] Deborah Phillips: No, he's...

[10:44] David Armstrong: He's not interested in mine.

[10:45] Deborah Phillips: Oh, me bold.

[10:50] David Armstrong: Oh, there's your Wilkie Collins. Pologne in white. Or how about a nice Moroccan band, Poe? That's nice.

[10:57] Deborah Phillips: That is nice.

[10:59] David Armstrong: That is nice. Including such masterpieces of the macabre as The Tell-Tale Heartface, Fall of Asher's Letty and his masterpiece... Poe's Raven.

[11:11] Deborah Phillips: Is he?

[11:17] David Armstrong: Never listen to gossip, ducky. And then with all your poetry here, Long Go Miss Hiawatha. Comes nice in your quarto, doesn't it?

[11:27] Deborah Phillips: Look, I'm not too keen on poetry except Shakespeare, of course.

[11:30] David Armstrong: Oh, well, we do our own edition of Shakespeare, don't we?

[11:33] Deborah Phillips: Yes, we've rewritten it ourselves in up-to-date Polari. Includes such things as Much Ado About Nanty, All's Boner That Ends Boner, Two Omis of Verona and As They Like It.

[11:51] David Armstrong: Isn't that as you like it?

[11:52] Deborah Phillips: Not really, but live and let live, I say. Apparently, Julian Slade immediately recognised himself and rang Sandy and said, have you heard? And Sandy said, what? Had listened to the programme, but had no idea. Didn't understand he was being referenced in it.

[12:12] David Armstrong: That's so funny. So these two shows, these two little light, charming 1920s musical comedy pastiches are playing across the street from what in the West End?

[12:21] Deborah Phillips: About to overwhelm them are all the big blockbuster American musicals. All these productions are coming their way.

[12:30] David Armstrong: And so I think it's one brief shining moment that the British could show what they do, but they're very small compared to what America is bringing.

[12:40] Deborah Phillips: Beginning with Oklahoma, which opens the Drury Lane. I recently had Barry Kester, as the author with a new book about Carousel, on as a guest. And he talks about how the Drury Lane was the Rodgers and Hammerstein Theatre for 15 years, I guess, between Oklahoma, Carousel, South Pacific, just one after another, all the way through The King and I, just dominating the theatre scene there.

[13:03] David Armstrong: That's why these shows were held up as, look, it's not just the Americans who could do this. We have these British authors who also can create delightful musicals.

[13:12] Deborah Phillips: Yes, but in the end, I think, couldn't compete. But at the moment, we're seen as the heirs to Coward and Novello.

[13:19] David Armstrong: Yes, and I think in the case of both Julian Slade and Sandy Wilson, that's how they saw themselves, both as gay men and as writers of musicals. That they were going to be the next generation. But I think the trouble was with both of them, that they couldn't ever get past that, that neither of them ever managed to do anything that hit the zeitgeist like The Boyfriend and Salad Days did.

[13:44] Deborah Phillips: It was that one moment, I think, of post-war optimism. So the sequel to The Boyfriend, Divorce Me Darling, which was set in the 30s, that's not really a decade of escapism, either in Britain or America, and all the characters had aged by a decade. And it just didn't have the youthful optimism and charm that The Boyfriend and Salad Days had.

[14:11] David Armstrong: The characters of The Boy Friend and creating a sequel to it was a little bit of a back tread after trying to do other things, which is a very interesting part of your book. The follow-up to a big hit is always challenging for any writer. And you title one of the chapters "What Comes Next," because that was the big dilemma he faced after a show that runs five years in the West End and has become a hit on Broadway despite his misgivings about it. He still got to reap the benefits of this Broadway success as well, in terms of his stature and who he is and the stature of The Boy Friend. He has one production that is relatively successful, The Buccaneer, which is again a kind of assertion of the British spirit against American attempts at a takeover.

It's about a boy's own magazine, which an American publisher is about to buy. And it made a star out of Kenneth Williams, who was later very scathing about it. And that has a certain charm, but it just didn't hit the nerve. It was a hit, but not a giant hit. It didn't run and run. And it had relatively good reviews, but just wasn't in the same league. But what's clear in the archives is that he was fizzing with ideas. This was a moment where he was the toast of the West End. This was a moment where he could do anything. His friend Tony Richardson at the Royal Court writes and says, what would you like to do? Remember, this is the Royal Court just before the production of Look Back in Anger, where the Royal Court is going to be the place to be.

So Sandy Wilson says what he'd really like to do is a musical around Ronald Furbank's novel called Valmuth. And I don't know if you're familiar with Ronald Furbank or Valmuth. It's seriously strange and perverse and very Catholic. And it's not very good on racial identities, but it has voracious older women flagellating themselves with thorns. It's got all sorts of really extraordinary things. Ronald Furbank is one of the people Susan Sontag cites as the epitome of camp in her lists. Not, you would have thought, the sort of thing that the Royal Court would go ahead and want to do, being your supposed space for masculine kitchen sink drama. But they said, fine. Sandy Wilson produces the script, writes the music.

And George Devine, who Sandy Wilson knows from having studied at the Old Vic, writes a letter to say, we love the script. However, we're not sure about the music. Would you mind very much if we brought somebody else to do the orchestrations? Sandy Wilson goes off on one and is clearly deeply, deeply hurt and storms out and says, I'll produce it myself. So it has an opening at the Lyric Hammersmith, where most of the critics say this is for a specialized audience only. And is that a coded reference? Oh, yes. Yes. It's too gay. It's too camp. It is highly camp. It's Catholic camp. I recommend you read it. The music, however, I think is lovely. Music is one of the things that people remember.

[18:39] David Armstrong: It had its real admirers. Ian McKellen loved it. But you just think, oh, Sandy Wilson, if only you'd be prepared to compromise, you would have been at the Royal Court the moment the Royal Court takes off. His best friend, Paul Guennery, said, Paul Sandy, he was a master of bad timing. And there are two terrible examples of the way he missed the moment. I was fascinated by those. Talk about those two moments. Again, as you say, as he's at the height of British theatre, he had the opportunity to be first in line, and yet it doesn't work out. It doesn't quite happen.

[19:32] David Armstrong: Don't go away. Deborah and I will be back with more on Sandy Wilson right after this quick break. Hi, this is David Armstrong, and if you're enjoying this episode, I strongly suspect that you will want to read my new book, Broadway Nation, How Immigrant, Jewish, Queer, and Black Artists Invented the Broadway Musical. On sale now wherever books are sold, and I'm very happy to report that the early reviews have been terrific. The esteemed author Jeffrey Block says that Broadway Nation is a fascinating, comprehensive, and timely gem of a book that more than lives up to its promise of delivering no less than five books in one. Kudos to David Armstrong. And Tony Award-winning lyricist David Zippel says that David Armstrong's insightful history of the evolution of the Broadway musical and its creators is captivating and comprehensive as well as indispensable.

The book is, of course, available on Amazon, but I recommend that you go to the publisher's website, bloomsbury.com, where you will currently receive a 10% discount. Again, like the podcast that inspired it, the book is titled Broadway Nation, How Immigrant, Jewish, Queer, and Black Artists Invented the Broadway Musical. Now, back to the show.

[20:47] David Armstrong: It doesn't quite happen. What were those shows? Well, he very carefully transposes Christopher Isherwood's Goodbye to Berlin into a musical, which is very faithful to the novel. And he's great friends with Christopher Isherwood. And he's friends with Christopher Isherwood, except Christopher Isherwood was not keen on Stanley Wilson's then-partner, John Rose. He writes in his diaries, he is a bit of a difficult character, but they're friends. Christopher Isherwood is delighted that Stanley Wilson is doing it. He writes the script and he is flown to New York to play the score to Hal Prince, who says it's not sufficiently Weimar. The music doesn't quite have the edge we want. And the big challenge here is that Christopher Isherwood doesn't control the rights to the play I Am a Camera, which is what they want to adapt.

Exactly. And Hal Prince has the rights and hands them over to what are their names? Joe Masteroff and Kander and Ebb. Yes, it goes to Kander and Ebb. Masteroff is at the meeting with Stanley Wilson and writes an account in which he is being really disingenuous and said it was nothing to do with me, when obviously it was something to do with him. Anyway, Prince gives the rights to Kander and Ebb. The musical becomes Cabaret, and the rest is history. It's literally history. And prior to that, he had a similar experience with Pygmalion, right? He did. He wrote a treatment of Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion, only to be trumped by the fact that My Fair Lady is, meanwhile, in the process of production. He knew what would work. He had his finger on the pulse, but in two major moments, he missed. And that's what sort of sets the stage for Divorce Me, Darling.

[23:11] Deborah Phillips: Yes. Yes, I think he's licking his wounds after the treatment of Valmuth and of Pygmalion and of Goodbye to Berlin, and goes back to familiar territory. And that doesn't fly either, really. Again, Divorce Me, Darling becomes a semi-success, I guess is the way to say it. And it's still produced quite a bit. It's still produced. And quite often, because The Boy Friend is very short, Divorce Me, Darling is very short. It's quite often combined into a single evening, which I think is probably a bit much. But you can do it with the same cast, right? And the same sets, which is interesting, I guess, as an exercise. Yeah. But as you said, the setting of the 30s. And also, I just wonder if he wasn't as inspired to do it like most sequels. Sequels don't usually turn out to be very good, because it's an afterthought.

[24:11] Deborah Phillips: Yes. And I think he was a bit cloth-eared, both about setting this fantasy of wealthy finishing school ladies in the 1930s, and also cloth-eared in terms of what was happening musically. I mean, he was still kind of stuck in the 20s and the 30s. And now you're into the 60s, and it's not as charming anymore. New things are happening, and he's not hearing them. And you talk about that in terms of Valmuth also. The cast album of Valmuth is given new orchestrations that John Dankworth is in charge of, and Bess Cleolain is the star of Valmuth, at least that iteration of it. And he's very unhappy with these, what sounded to me like, quite wonderful orchestrations. I think this is a story that comes up again and again in his productions.

He's terribly protective of his work, and he wants it done just as he wrote it. I was quite taken aback when I read this letter to Cleolain, in which he's appalled. Cleolain is a jazz singer who is very famous for her scat, for her improvisation. And he hated that. And he wrote this really vindictive letter saying, I'm ashamed of you and of Johnny Dankworth. Now, this was another mistake, because Cleolain and Johnny Dankworth were both very associated with the Royal Court and with the film production company, Woodfall Films, that people at the Royal Court were involved with, Tony Richardson most notably. And Johnny Dankworth did the music for many of Woodfall Films, like Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.

So he burnt his bridges with two of the great stars of the jazz world and the Royal Court again. And this was probably not diplomatic. And it seems Cleolain was still very fond of that music, because my first exposure to Valmuth was, she has a live recording at Carnegie Hall, and she performs one of the songs from Valmuth in that appearance. She could choose any song she wanted to do at Carnegie Hall and record it. And clearly, she has great affection for that score and her appearance in that show, even years later.

[26:18] Deborah Phillips: Many years ago, I'm not going to tell you how many years ago, I appeared in a musical in London called Valmuth. It was a musical written by Sandy Wilson, and it was a very zany musical. And I played an even zanier lady in the part. And her name was Mrs. Yadj Nabelka. And this song that I'm going to sing for you now was one of her big numbers in the show.

[27:05] ♪ Musical number: "I Like Dressing Up" — performed by Deborah Phillips ♪

[28:04] I stick a purple or blue feather or two in my hair. What do I care if the people stare? Then from my jewelry case, every space I just fill, till I am glittering fit to...

[28:22] Deborah Phillips: It's interesting that that bridge couldn't be mended in some way. I mean, she must be very forgiving, is all I can say, because it was a horrible letter. How she responded is not kept in the archive, whether she responded at all. Maybe this was her response 20 years later to say, I'm going to do one of your songs. I still like him. Still, it does come up again that he had a temper and he would get angry if things weren't done just so. I never got to the bottom of what happened to his involvement in the production of Divorce Me, Darling. There is this very tactful letter from Reginald Waring saying, you're doing the right thing. You know, it is the gracious thing to do to withdraw after all that's gone on.

I just don't know. Nobody's alive who remembers. But it seems like there was a conflict with the actors, perhaps, or you quote a letter from one of the actors saying they wouldn't dream of harming his production, which usually means there's some kind of conflict going on.

[29:36] David Armstrong: Yes.

[29:37] Deborah Phillips: Something happened. And I don't think, love him though I do, I don't think Sandy Wilson was entirely innocent. When speaking of productions that he was not happy with, the movie The Boy Friend may be top of that list. He wasn't directly involved with it because the way that works is the movie rights were sold years before and finally the movie gets made with Twiggy and Ken Russell, which is perhaps the oddest director you could think of for The Boy Friend.

[30:02] David Armstrong: Yes.

[30:03] Deborah Phillips: He's not the right fit, is he?

[30:04] David Armstrong: Not at all.

[30:05] Deborah Phillips: They make no attempt to put The Boy Friend as it was onto the screen, which, as you say, probably wasn't possible. But even Sandy Wilson says he doesn't think it's filmable.

[30:11] David Armstrong: No.

[30:12] Deborah Phillips: It's very much a thing of the theatre, but actually watching it again, I saw it when it first came out and I just thought it was magic and Twiggy was beautiful and Christopher Gable was beautiful and it was just magic. But watching it again, I can see how upsetting it must have been because the film is framed as a dusty, repertory production of The Boy Friend, which is touting its way around regional theatres in Britain and it's down at heel and it's shabby. The audience is asleep and nobody's coming and the film, it centres on the fantasies of an American producer who turns every sequence into a Busby Berkeley spectacular. I love Busby Berkeley spectaculars, but they don't go together. The Boy Friend is a fragile thing and it kind of collapsed under the weight of all that extravagant spectacle.

[31:08] Deborah Phillips: One thing I will say for the film, and I agree with that completely, that going back and forth between those two versions becomes sort of a tired gimmick, I think, in a way. But some of those songs do get fabulous productions performed quite well in those fantasy sequences. So in a way, some of the songs actually are oddly celebrated, I guess. As you say, most people who know something about The Boy Friend in this day and age, the movie is their point of reference.

[31:36] David Armstrong: Which I think is a real pity.

[31:38] Deborah Phillips: I'm not sure that's necessarily true now. That might not be true in the UK. I think there must be hundreds and hundreds of people who've seen or been involved in a production somehow, somewhere in the world. But if you think of the sequence around All I Want is a Room in Bloomsbury, the song itself is a modest aspiration. All I want is a room in Bloomsbury. All I want is a room in Bloomsbury. Just a room that will do for you and me. Just a room that will do for you and me. It's lovely. One room's enough for us, though it's on the top floor. Life may be rough for us, but it's couples we'll ignore. While I'm reading a book, I'll cook a stew. Then I'll bake a plumbed up dinner for two. You'll be sitting, and you'll be knitting, and so contented we'll be in my beautiful room in Bloomsbury. It's lovely. It's touching.

[33:00] Deborah Phillips: The fantasy sequence is psychedelic. There's Twiggy and Christopher Gable twirling in gold lamé around magic mushrooms.

[33:10] David Armstrong: That is a bizarre moment.

[33:12] Deborah Phillips: Well, it was the 70s.

[33:13] David Armstrong: Yeah.

[33:14] Deborah Phillips: It's interesting that he has this long life, but the work he does in his 20s is still the high point of his career. How would you say he handles that? How does he deal with never being able to recapture that success again?

[33:28] Deborah Phillips: I think really rather well. I mean, when I went into the archives, I thought, well, he could be seen as a one-hit wonder who had this great moment in 1954 which he never repeated. But he was one of those wonderful people who never gave up. He was always doing something. I think his archives are worth revisiting. There's a lot of stuff there, most notably two autobiographical novels, which are very closely based on his own time at Oxford. What's interesting about them, written a decade or so apart, one of them is a closeted version and one of them is an out version. And I think somebody ought to publish them because they are a very particular moment of British gay history.

[34:11] David Armstrong: Fascinating. Do we know why they weren't published at the time?

[34:14] Deborah Phillips: No. The archives are very full, but he didn't keep his rejection letters. So I don't know.

[34:20] David Armstrong: Crumbled up and into the trash can, probably.

[34:22] Deborah Phillips: I'm going back to Harry Ransom in October and I'm going to get copies made. So if you have any ideas of publishers who might. Do you think they would be published together in one volume? Would that be the interesting way to read them, back to back, or just one or the other?

[34:36] David Armstrong: I think probably just one. I think actually the closeted one is actually the most interesting. I think it would need a contextual introduction.

[34:44] Deborah Phillips: Which you should be the one to write.

[34:46] David Armstrong: Well, I'm rather surprised to find myself an expert on Sandy Wilson.

[34:51] Deborah Phillips: But the really sad thing is that I was the very first person to read his archives.

[34:56] David Armstrong: You were the first person to read these archives after they were sent there.

[34:59] Deborah Phillips: And so I feel really glad that I've done it. Do you think that would have been different if his archives were in the UK and not in Texas?

[35:07] David Armstrong: I don't know.

[35:09] Deborah Phillips: He chose to give them to Texas. It was his decision. And he wasn't paid for them. It was a philanthropic act. Why, I don't know. I thought he would be going into the material. I say this at the end of the book. I thought he would be this sad, one-hit wonder. And not a bit of it. He clearly had a very strong, loving group of friends, many of whom dated back to Oxford. He went to the theatre a lot. He went to every production of The Boyfriend Festival. He went to his nieces' school production of The Boyfriend. And you say you saved the playbills from all of those.

[35:46] David Armstrong: Yes, they're all there, including an all-male production that was done in San Francisco in the early 70s.

[35:52] Deborah Phillips: And so clearly he still took great delight in The Boyfriend and great pride in it. And I think with reason. I think it is a beautifully crafted piece of work by any standards. And the music is delightful.

[36:05] David Armstrong: What is Sandy Wilson's place in the history of British musical theatre?

[36:08] Deborah Phillips: I think much more than a footnote. I mean, if you go through the standard works, he appears in a phrase with Julian Slade and both of them are noted as the writers of the hit musicals of 1954. But I don't think anybody really goes into why they were such a success. I mean, I think the historical moment is very much part of that success. But they are lovely, lovely things, both of them. I think he's an important transitional figure from the heyday of the HM Tin and Binky Beaumont Ivor Novello musical into the rather more austerity days of post-war Britain. I think he wasn't an experimental writer. He wasn't experimental musically. I think he took on brave choices of material, but they were always retrospective rather than looking forward. And I think reluctantly, I think that limited him.

[37:08] David Armstrong: And in terms of queer history, gay culture, what is his legacy?

[37:13] Deborah Phillips: I think complicating a clear trajectory from the repression of the 1950s to the flamboyant, joyous liberation of the 1960s. It wasn't that simple. Strategies for resistance had to be coded, but they were absolutely there. And they're there in The Boyfriend, they're in The Players Theatre, they're there in those review songs, some of which are really witty. And that version, I think, needs to be acknowledged and recognised. It's not that 1967 happened and everything suddenly came up roses. There'd been a lot of hard work. I think there's also lessons to be drawn from the complicated strategies that had to be undertaken. Peter Wilderblood and the Campaign for Homosexual Equality were recruiting the most respectable men.

They deliberately wore three-piece suits and looked like the epitome of the establishment. I think we're basically saying nothing to be scared of here. And that was, at the time, necessary. I mean, there's one critic in the musical theatre who condemns Sandy Wilson and Julian Slade for their emotional restraint. Well, of course they were restrained. They couldn't but be restrained. And it's important to remember what a terrible time it was. I showed the manuscript of the book to a very good friend of mine who I've watched coming out, and he said, I had no idea that it was that bad and that it happened that fast. And I think it needs to be remembered that it was that bad.

[39:01] David Armstrong: And I love that you say that that resistance needs to be acknowledged and celebrated because, in a way, it's just as important as the later resistance and perhaps more brave.

[39:04] Deborah Phillips: Yeah, absolutely. And I think, in part, this is a celebration of the 1950s and there was more going on than is often acknowledged.

[39:13] David Armstrong: Within the repression.

[39:15] Deborah Phillips: Yeah. In spite of the repression, I guess.

[39:18] David Armstrong: Or because of it.

[39:20] Deborah Phillips: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, I think you've opened our eyes to the next time any of us see The Boyfriend to think about it within the context of which it was written and the liberation message that maybe is hidden inside of it.

[39:32] David Armstrong: Yeah.

[39:33] Deborah Phillips: In a way, it's a things will be all right.

[39:36] David Armstrong: Exactly.

[39:37] Deborah Phillips: That all you need is love and joy. When you think about those men sitting there watching it in its first incarnation at the Players Theatre and being delighted by the camp element of it, which is a unifying force. Camp is something that tells you that you are part of the crowd.

[39:55] David Armstrong: Yeah, absolutely.

[39:56] Deborah Phillips: That's something anti-militarist says that sometimes, when things are bad, what you really need is a jolly good camp.

[40:04] David Armstrong: Exactly.

[40:05] Deborah Phillips: And to then have that spread out into mainstream culture in the way that it has, not losing that element, which may now be subliminal for people, but is still very much there. And I think that must have been immensely pleasurable. If there's anything about my understanding of camp which is that there's a pleasure in watching a lot of people just not get it.

[40:29] David Armstrong: Exactly.

[40:30] Deborah Phillips: Because it puts you in the strong position because you get something that the other people don't.

[40:34] David Armstrong: Yeah.

[40:35] Deborah Phillips: Thank you, Deborah Phillips. It's been a delight to talk to you about And This Is My Friend Sandy, Sandy Wilson's The Boyfriend, London Theatre and Gay Culture.

[40:43] David Armstrong: Thank you so much.

[40:44] Deborah Phillips: And thank you for your questions.

[40:46] David Armstrong: My pleasure. I enjoyed reading the book immensely.

[40:48] Deborah Phillips: Thank you.

[40:49] ♪ Musical number: "Big Bass Shoes" — performed by Deborah Phillips ♪

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