The Guardian

Tantrum of the opera: how Palin’s angry dad inspired new show

Vanessa Thorpe Arts and Media Correspondent

Theatres are about to embark on a new “golden age” thanks to the combination of freshly enthused audiences and a drive for new adventurous work, according to Michael Palin.

Ahead of the opening of a new opera based on a play by Palin, inspired by his grumpy father, the former Monty Python star told the Observer he is happy to be part of a national return to the theatre.

“We have seen just how much live performance has been missed and what a vital role it plays in our lives. I hope that this will be celebrated not just with great revivals but with bold new work as well,” he said. “This could be a golden age of theatre.” Palin, 78, said the power of opera has given an unexpected “grandeur” to a dark comic study of middle-class family life he first wrote 25 years ago. A story inspired by bittersweet personal memories, it is now the centre of a fulllength modern piece of lyric theatre.

“It’s a different beast, and it works,” he said after visiting rehearsals of The Weekend, a new operatic production with a jazz-influenced score, based on Palin’s 1994 play of the same name. “The opera form takes the pretension, suspicion, lies and jealousies and allows them to be played out on a grand scale, taking the comedy to a whole new level,” added Palin.

His play was first produced in the West End in 1994, starring Richard

Wilson, who played the famously grumpy Victor Meldrew in the BBC sitcom One Foot in the Grave.

It tells of Stephen Frebble, a retired father who has retreated from family life, relying for comfort on his copy of the Daily Telegraph and a glass of whisky. The character, Palin said, was “loosely based” on his own father, Edward Palin, a man who was “pretty angry with the world genera ally”. Frebble’s peace is invaded by visits from his grown-up children and, eventually, by the unwelcome news that he and his wife are hosting a cocktail party.

It is a tale of suburban dyspepsia that Palin was surprised to learn had inspired a north London opera company. At first he thought the composer, Scott Scroman, was “pulling his leg”. But with a cast that includes chorus of 25 singers and a libretto by Tamsin Collison, the production by Highbury Opera Theatre is to open at the Bloomsbury Theatre on 25 September.

Palin said the “real quality” of the score struck him immediately and he was happy to give his blessing, particularly when he heard the chorus “echoing the banality” of his character’s lines to comic effect. “The presence of the chorus and the intimacy of the music score counterpoints the darker moments,” said Palin.

Highbury Opera Theatre company made headlines four years ago when it staged an adaptation of Fever Pitch, Nick Hornby’s bestselling book about football.

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2021-09-19T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-09-19T07:00:00.0000000Z

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