Review by Paul Towers, 25/2/26
Glorious! by Peter Quilter
Directed by Kirk Jameson
Produced by Hope Mill Productions
At Derby Theatre til Saturday 28 th February
2026
Many years a go I happened upon a music
cassette in a battered box. It was a recording of one Florence Foster Jenkins,
an American opera singer. For the few pence I paid for the cracked case and
unrewound tape, I was willing to gamble on it being of interest. It was. But
for all the wrong reasons.
Miss Foster Jenkins was possibly the very
worst singer ever to appear before an audience, let alone preserve her
performance on acetate. Unbelievably she committed her warblings for posterity
on a series of five 78rpm records. She self-published them and sold them to her
‘adoring fans’ for $2.50 a time. As she was a wealthy widow she donated
proceeds to her favourite charitable cause, rumoured to be abused penguins.
In 1944 she ‘bowed to public pressure’ and
sold out Carnagie Hall in New York. Several weeks later she died supposedly of
syphilis.
Glorious! is an hilarious interpretation of
her life as an entertainer and how her undying self belief, despite so may
indications of her total lack of talent as a singer, buoyed her up in her later
years to such an extent that she allegedly died with a beatific smile on her
face.
Wendi Peters (Coronation Street’s Cilla
Battersby) plays her hysterically as a cross between Hyacinth Bucket and Hinge
& Bracket. Of course in order to sing so badly, as Miss Foster Jenkins
does, you need to be able sing well and Ms Peters sure can sing.
Peters puts in a very physical performance
alongside Matthew James Morrison as
Cosme McMoon, her pianist, Sioned Jones as her confident Dorothy and Caroline
Gruber as Spanish maid Maria and Mrs Gedge.
The comedy comes quickly and fast as Cosme
starts off front of curtain assuring us that this a true-ish story.
While Glorious! runs at Derby Theatre until
Saturday 28 Feb the tour continues nationwide.
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