Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell

Last updated

Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell is a play by Keith Waterhouse about real-life journalist Jeffrey Bernard. Bernard was still alive at the time the play was first performed in the West End in 1989.

Contents

Background

Bernard wrote the "Low Life" column in The Spectator . [1] The play's title refers to the magazine's habit of printing a one-line apology on a blank page when he was too drunk or hung-over to produce the required copy and a substitute article could not be found before the deadline for publication. Its premise is that Bernard has found himself locked in overnight at his favourite public house, The Coach and Horses, and uses the occasion to share anecdotes from his life with the audience. A highlight of the play is a trick involving a glass of water, a matchbox, and an egg which must remain unbroken at the end of the trick. [2] This trick is more fully described in an obituary of Keith Waterhouse in The Guardian . [3]

Original run

Often remembered as a one-man show, but in fact packed with characters performed by a versatile supporting cast of four, Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell was a highly successful vehicle for its original star Peter O'Toole. The show opened in Brighton in September 1989, moved to Bath and made its triumphant London debut at the Apollo Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue in October. O'Toole also appeared in a later revival at the Old Vic. The Old Vic run was sold out and on 23 August 1999 the London Evening Standard published a 'Bluffer's Guide' to enable readers to pretend they had seen it: "thereby allowing dinner party conversations and watercooler debates to run their course unhindered by ignorance."

A filmed version of the stage play was shot at the Old Vic Theatre with a live audience and was released in both full and abridged versions.

Later versions

O'Toole was followed in the part by Tom Conti who starred in a revival of the play until September 2006 at the Garrick Theatre in London. The part has also been played by James Bolam, Dennis Waterman, Robert Powell and more recently Simon Hill in the Frayed Knot Production of the play. [4]

A radio adaptation starring John Hurt was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 15 August 2015 and repeated on 18 February 2017 following the death of John Hurt. [5]

The play’s American premiere was in 1993 at the Kavinoky Theatre in Buffalo, NY. It starred David Lamb and was directed by Robert Waterhouse, the author’s son. (Keith Waterhouse attended the preview and gave a single note, about a sound cue. He cites it as his favourite ‘out of town production’ in his memoir, Streets Ahead.) The team reprised the production in 2004.

In May 2019 the play was adapted as a one man show to be performed in The Coach and Horses, starring Robert Bathurst with the adaptation and direction by James Hillier. The production, running from May 7 to June 1, featured Saturday evening performances starting at midnight, followed by a traditional Soho "lock in" until 5:00 a.m. [6] The sold-out production was extended with additional performances. The site specific version with Bathurst once again in the title role was revived at the The Coach and Horses in October & November 2023 and extended through February 2024 [7]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter O'Toole</span> British actor (1932–2013)

Peter Seamus O'Toole was an English stage and film actor. He attended RADA and began working in the theatre, gaining recognition as a Shakespearean actor at the Bristol Old Vic and with the English Stage Company. In 1959 he made his West End debut in The Long and the Short and the Tall, and played the title role in Hamlet in the National Theatre's first production in 1963. Excelling on the London stage, O'Toole was known for his "hellraiser" lifestyle off it.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Siân Phillips</span> Welsh actress, born 1933

Dame Jane Elizabeth Ailwên Phillips, known professionally as Siân Phillips, is a Welsh actress. She has performed the title roles in Ibsen's Hedda Gabler and George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan and is also particularly known for her performance as Livia in the 1976 BBC television series I, Claudius.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tom Conti</span> Scottish actor (born 1941)

Tommaso Antonio Conti is a Scottish actor. Conti has received numerous accolades including a Tony Award and a Laurence Olivier Award as well as nominations for an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award and two Golden Globe Awards.

James Christopher Bolam is an English actor. He is best known for his roles as Terry Collier in The Likely Lads and its sequel Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?, Jack Ford in When the Boat Comes In, Roy Figgis in Only When I Laugh, Trevor Chaplin in The Beiderbecke Trilogy, Arthur Gilder in Born and Bred, Jack Halford in New Tricks and the title character of Grandpa in the CBeebies programme Grandpa in My Pocket.

Keith Spencer Waterhouse was a British novelist and newspaper columnist and the writer of many television series.

<i>An Ideal Husband</i> 1895 play by Oscar Wilde

An Ideal Husband is a four-act play by Oscar Wilde that revolves around blackmail and political corruption, and touches on the themes of public and private honour. It was first produced at the Haymarket Theatre, London in 1895 and ran for 124 performances. It has been revived in many theatre productions and adapted for the cinema, radio and television.

Michael John Heath is a British strip cartoonist and illustrator. He has been cartoon editor of The Spectator since 1991.

Patricia Ann Hodge, OBE is an English actress. She is known on-screen for playing Phyllida Erskine-Brown in Rumpole of the Bailey (1978–1992), Jemima Shore in Jemima Shore Investigates (1983), Penny in Miranda (2009–2015) and Mrs Pumphrey in All Creatures Great and Small (2021–present).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Willis Hall</span> English playwright and radio, television and film writer

Willis Edward Hall was an English playwright and radio, television and film writer who drew on his working-class roots in Leeds for much of his writing. Willis formed an extremely prolific partnership with his life-long friend Keith Waterhouse producing over 250 works. He wrote plays such as Billy Liar, The Long and the Short and the Tall, and Celebration; the screenplays for Whistle Down the Wind, A Kind of Loving and Alfred Hitchcock's Torn Curtain; and television programmes including Budgie, Worzel Gummidge and Minder. His passion for musical theatre led to a string of hits, including Wind in the Willows, The Card, and George Stiles' and Anthony Drewe's Peter Pan: A Musical Adventure.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Margaretta Scott</span> British actress (1912–2005)

Margaretta Mary Winifred Scott was an English stage, screen and television actress whose career spanned over seventy years. She is best remembered for playing the eccentric widow Mrs. Pumphrey in the BBC television series All Creatures Great and Small (1978–1990).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeffrey Bernard</span> English journalist (1932–1997)

Jeffrey Joseph Bernard was an English journalist, best known for his weekly column "Low Life" in The Spectator magazine, and also notorious for a feckless and chaotic career and life of alcohol abuse.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coach and Horses, Soho</span> Pub in Soho, London

The Coach and Horses at 29 Greek Street on the corner with Romilly Street in Soho, London, is a grade II listed public house.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Bathurst</span> English theatre and television actor

Robert Guy Bathurst is an English actor. Bathurst was born in The Gold Coast in 1957, where his father was working as a management consultant. In 1959 his family moved to Ballybrack, Dublin, Republic of Ireland, and Bathurst attended school in Killiney and later was enrolled at Headfort, an Irish boarding school. In 1966, the family moved back to England and Bathurst transferred to Worth School in Sussex, where he took up amateur dramatics. At the age of 18, he read law at Pembroke College, Cambridge, and joined the Footlights group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Bachman</span> English comedian, actor and writer

James Hamilton Bachman is an English comedian, actor and writer. He has written for and acted in many British television and radio programmes, including That Mitchell and Webb Look, Saxondale, Bleak Expectations and Sorry, I've Got No Head. In 2014, he had a small role in the film Transformers: Age of Extinction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Denis Shaw</span> British actor (1921–1971)

Denis Shaw was a British character actor specializing in slimy villains.

Sir Timothy John Robert Whyte Ackroyd, 3rd Baronet, known as Timothy Ackroyd, is an English actor.

<i>Three Men on a Horse</i>

Three Men on a Horse is a three-act farce co-authored by John Cecil Holm and George Abbott. The comedy focuses on a man who discovers he has a talent for choosing the winning horse in a race as long as he never places a bet himself. Originally titled Hobby Horse by John Cecil Holm, Three Men On A Horse was a property controlled and produced by Alex Yokel, who reached out to Warner Bros. for financial assistance; Warners agreed to provide financing on the condition Yokel find someone to doctor the script and direct the Broadway production. George Abbott, the director, who had since 1932 directed and produced each of his Broadway productions, immediately saw the potential and rewrote the script and agreed to direct if he received co-author credit and split the author's royalties with Holm. Abbott wrote a third act, resulting in a new three-act play titled Three Men on a Horse.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frank Barrie</span> British stage and television actor

Frank Barrie is a British actor, director and writer. He made his acting debut in 1959 in a production of Henry IV, Part 2 at the York Theatre Royal. He proved to be a successful Shakespearean actor throughout his career. More recently, he starred in Lunch with Marlene, a 2008 tribute to Noël Coward and Marlene Dietrich and in 2010 was cast as Edward Bishop, a gentleman friend of Dot Cotton in Eastenders.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Bathurst filmography</span>

The filmography of English actor Robert Bathurst comprises both film and television roles spanning almost 30 years. Bathurst made his acting debut for television in 1982 in the never-broadcast pilot episode for the BBC sitcom Blackadder, though his character Prince Henry was recast when the Black Adder series was commissioned. Throughout the rest of the 1980s, Bathurst appeared in episodes of The Lenny Henry Show, Who Dares Wins, The District Nurse, Red Dwarf, and Chelmsford 123, before starring alongside his Cambridge Footlights colleague Stephen Fry in the short-run series Anything More Would Be Greedy. He also appeared in the films Whoops Apocalypse (1986) and Just Ask for Diamond (1988).

Valentine Gilbert Delabere "Val" May, CBE was an English theatre director and artistic director. He led the Bristol Old Vic from 1961 to 1975, and the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre from 1975 to 1992.

References

  1. ↑ In the same period, and continuing at least until May 2021, the magazine has a column by Taki Theodoracopulos called "High Life"
  2. ↑ Brown, Peter (20 June 2006). "Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell". London Theatre. Archived from the original on 26 November 2010. Retrieved 15 April 2010.
  3. ↑ Molloy, Mike (2009-09-04). "Keith Waterhouse obituary". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 2012-11-07.
  4. ↑ Brien, Jeremy (28 March 2011). "Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell". The Stage. Archived from the original on 16 September 2011. Retrieved 7 April 2011.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  5. ↑ "Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell". BBC. Retrieved 2015-08-15.
  6. ↑ "Robert Bathurst in Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell". coachsoho.co.uk. 4 April 2019. Archived from the original on 24 May 2019. Retrieved 24 May 2019.
  7. ↑ "Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell revival to return to Soho starring Robert Bathurst". Westendtheatre.com. Retrieved 24 January 2024.


Comedy and tragedy masks.svg

This article on a play from the 1980s is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.