Alfie (play)

Alfie is a 1963 stage play written by Bill Naughton.[1] Developed from a radio drama, the original London production starred John Neville, and the Broadway transfer starred Terence Stamp.[2][3]

Alfie
Written byBill Naughton
CharactersAlfie Elkins
Date premiered1963
Original languageEnglish
GenreDrama, comedy
SettingIn and around South London of the present day

The play recounts the life of a working-class London ladies man, Alfie Elkins, and the many women who pass through his life. The play was adapted into a film twice, a 1966 version starring Michael Caine and a 2004 version starring Jude Law, with the location switched to Manhattan and the character being an ex-pat Cockney.[4]

Origins

The character originated in a play for the BBC Third Programme entitled Alfie Elkins and His Little Life first broadcast on 7 January 1962.[5] The life of Alfie (born about 1916) is retold from the early days of World War II to the late 1950s.[4] In this version, the character was played by Bill Owen, later known for his role in Last of the Summer Wine.[6] In the radio play, according to Robert Murphy in Sixties British Cinema, the character is placed in the world of spivs and semi-criminality rather than the swinging London of the first film. Murphy describes the character's personality in this version as possessing "an almost psychopathic vulgarity which links women, clothes and cars as commodities to be flaunted to prove to the world that he has achieved success without the privileges of birth or education".[7]

Bernard Miles of the Mermaid Theatre commissioned Naughton to adapt his radio play for the stage.[4]

Original production

Directed by Donald McWhinnie, the play ran at London's Mermaid Theatre from 19 June - 13 July 1963. It then transferred to the Duchess Theatre in the West End, where it opened on 22 July and closed on 30 November 1963.[2]

Norman Wynne was cast as the abortionist.[8] To gain a licence from the Lord Chamberlain's Office, then required for the play to be legally performed in the UK, the abortion had to occur off-stage.[5] In the original script it was to take place behind a screen, but the censors readers' report commented it was "complete with groans and cries of pain, which I cannot think can be allowed". Among other changes, it was required that in the production "There must not be any jingle of instruments" and "Mr Smith scrubbing away is not to be seen or heard".[9]

Harold Hobson wrote positively of the play in his review for The Sunday Times published on 4 August 1963:

"Some of the scenes are melodramatic. ... Many episodes, however, are remarkably good. The best two are Alfie's official medical examination and preparation for and the aftermath of the abortion. ... It would seem improbable that an abortion scene should be dramatic, terrible and beautiful. This one is all three. Here only does Alfie, in a disjointed, uninhibited and profoundly moving and disturbing speech, see right into himself."[8]

Hobson described Alfie's monologue as "the high point of the play and of Mr. Neville's performance."[8]

Broadway production

Directed by Gilchrist Calder, Alfie opened at New York's Morosco Theatre on 17 December 1964, and closed on 2 January 1965 after 21 performances.[3]

Naughton's 1992 obituary in The New York Times reported that the play had received extremely positive reviews despite the short run.[1]

Other productions

The play was revived at the Octagon, Bolton in 2012 with David Ricardo-Pearce in the lead. Lyn Gardner in The Guardian, reviewing this production, wrote that the consequences of Alfie's actions begin to turn the drama into "a morality play, albeit one in which the (anti)hero addresses the audience directly to explain his philosophy of life. That device, and a taut, tight scene with a back-street abortionist hint at what this play might have been, and could perhaps be in a pared-down and edited version." As it is, the play, "like Alfie, feels like a bit of dinosaur".[10]

References
  1. Collins, Glenn (11 January 1992). "Bill Naughton, 81, a British Playwright Who Created 'Alfie'". The New York Times. Retrieved 19 June 2012.
  2. "Production of Alfie - Theatricalia". theatricalia.com.
  3. League, The Broadway. "Alfie! – Broadway Play – Original - IBDB". www.ibdb.com.
  4. French, Philip (24 October 2004). "Alfie". The Observer. Retrieved 11 December 2020.
  5. Marwick, Arthur (1998). The Sixties: Cultural Revolution in Britain, France, Italy, and the United States, c.1958-c.1974. Oxford & New York City: Oxford University Press. p. 139.
  6. Caine, Michael (1992). What's It All About. London: Arrow Books. p. 215. ISBN 9780099553199.
  7. Murphy, Robert (2015) [1992]. Sixties British Cinema. London: Bloomsbury. p. 143. ISBN 9781838718251.
  8. Elsom, John, ed. (2014) [1981]. Post-War British Theatre Criticism. London: Routledge. pp. 119–120. ISBN 9781317557517.
  9. Nicholson, Steve (2015). The Censorship of British Drama 1900–1968 Volume 4: The Sixties. Exeter: University of Exeter Press. pp. 169–170. ISBN 9780859899888.
  10. Gardner, Lyn (27 January 2012). "Alfie – review". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 December 2020.
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