Composer Kath Gotts and writer Maureen Chadwick of the camp lesbian musical Crush talk to Jill Gardiner.
A new musical comedy with a lesbian twist at the Theatre Royal, Brighton? That has to be a first, and judging by the performance I saw, Crush is fabulously camp and hilarious: St Trinian’s meets Marlene Dietrich, set in a girls’ school where rebellion is seething, on the verge of the swinging sixties.
From a lively tap-dance routine in hockey boots, with navy-knickered schoolgirls swooning over sexy new games mistress Miss Givings, to a butch guardian angel, in leathers on a motorbike, leading the way to a gay London nightclub, this is a coming out story, a triumph of lesbian camp and a great night out.
After opening at Belgrade Theatre, Coventry (Sept 4), it’s at Brighton’s Theatre Royal (Sept 22–26), then London’s Richmond Theatre (Sept 29–Oct 3).
Crush is the latest production from the talented and successful partners who brought us Bad Girls, the ITV prison drama, and Bad Girls: The Musical, Kath Gotts the composer and Maureen Chadwick the writer. I caught up with them between rehearsals.
So, how do you write a musical?
Maureen: “Well, the story comes first, it absolutely has to have a story to make the audience want to find out what comes next.”
Kath: “Although the story has developed over time, the characters have remained constant.”
Maureen: “I write what’s called the book.”
Kath: “You’ve got to set up the situation. With a song like Navy Knicks, we knew there would be a song for the entrance of the games mistress, so I sit and think about the lyrics, but they’re always attached to a bit of tune.”
Maureen: “You start singing them in your head, don’t you?”
Kath: “I sit and sing at my desk, writing down things, and then it gradually takes a musical shape and a lyrical form. I’ll then say, ‘Oh, I’ve got what this song is going to do’.”
Maureen: “I do chip in some lyrics, if I’m allowed.”
Kath: “I’ll chip in bits of dialogue too.”
Maureen: “We read bits of the script aloud all the time. That means further edits. And we’re also trying to make the songs reveal something about a character or advance the plot.”
Kath: “It’s constant finessing and workshopping, sometimes in front of an audience. We go over it until we’ve put in so much fun and humour that, hopefully, it’ll be irresistible. It’s our version of lesbian camp, it’s frothy lesbian fun.”
How did you get the idea for Crush?
Kath: “It’s slightly influenced by my schooldays, a love of St Trinian’s films and schoolgirl fiction. It came from us wanting to write a musical about a lesbian romance that would excite us, and also from loving old-fashioned musical comedy. We used to watch Fred and Ginger movies all the time and just loved that easy romance, and wanted a piece of it for ourselves.”
Maureen: “Our school in Crush was always ahead of the times, since it’s founded by a suffragette, with a proud tradition of fostering free spirits from all walks of life. But it’s under threat from the new headmistress, Miss Bleacher, who is our Mrs Thatcher, a reactionary tyrant, trying to hold back the sexual revolution and bring back Victorian values. Top of her hit list are the two sixth formers accused of ‘unnatural behaviour’ in the Art Room. But hope is revived by a glamorous Games Mistress and it’s hockey sticks to the fore in an all-out battle to save the school and the course of true love.”
Crush is full of archetypal gay experiences, isn’t it?
Maureen: “The opening number for Act II is set in Piccadilly Circus: they’ve run away to London, as so many of us do, and that’s traditionally where anybody who’s escaping from somewhere and coming to London starts off.”
Kath: “London is that mecca for gay runaways, where you think you’re going to find your people and your life. It’s a dream sequence. There you are, feeling sad, a suicidal teenager, and along comes your fantasy guardian angel, striding through the dry ice getting off a motorbike…”
Maureen: “…To whisk you off to an underground nightclub, which in our minds was modelled on Gateways. In this version it’s the Stairways Club, hosted by Marlene Dietrich. Within this dream sequence Susan has to wake up and work out what she wants.”
Kath: “She’s imagined this club which of course is far more fabulous than anybody’s first club, and people there look interesting and arty, fabulous and decadent.”
Maureen: “And glamorous, and alternative, and they welcome her, which isn’t necessarily the experience we’ve all had when we first enter into the gay scene!”
Kath: “Finding a place where everyone’s embracing you into their world. Through that dream sequence, she realises who it is she truly loves, and what she has to do.”
How is it possible to get Crush into mainstream theatres and for school parties to be among those buying tickets?
Maureen: “The major thing is the shift in social attitudes to homosexuality. Now there’s an obligation on schools to recognise that kind of diversity.”
Kath: “When Bad Girls: The Musical was first on about nine years ago, there was still debate about whether or not Helen and Nikki at the end should just hold hands or kiss! Now we’re coming up to a hundred amateur productions of Bad Girls, around the world, all of which include Helen and Nikki kissing at the end. Great!”
Crush The Musical is sponsoring some school workshops by Diversity Role Models (acclaimed for their success in encouraging greater understanding of gay people among teenagers) as well as giving everyone a fun night out with toe-tapping tunes, camp comedy, and a tweak of the heart strings.
Event: Crush The Musical
Where: Theatre Royal, New Road, Brighton
When: September 22-26
Time: 7.30p, daily plus 2.30pm matinees on Thursday and Saturday afternoons
Tickets: £12.90 – £38.90 plus £2.85 transaction fee
To book online, click here:
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