After the recent opening of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Stephen Ward,” about one of swinging London’s most famous scandals, the London critics were something of a hung jury.
“Lloyd Webber’s instinctive romanticism sits oddly with a social and political critique,” wrote the Guardian’s Michael Billington of the musical, which attempts to vindicate its eponymous hero. “If the show is intended as a blistering attack on the British Establishment’s victimization of Stephen Ward, it is only partly successful.”
Charles Spencer of the Telegraph opined that the musical, directed by Richard Eyre, was “a delightful surprise” with songs filled with “wit and fun.”
While most found the libretto wanting, there was almost universal praise for the rich variety of Lloyd Webber’s songs in telling this sex-and-politics scandal known as the Profumo Affair, which in 1963 had a hand in bringing down the conservative government of Harold Macmillan. Two songs in particular caught the attention of the critics: “I’m Hopeless When it Comes to You,” a love ballad sung by Joanna Riding as Profumo’s wife; and “You Never Had it So Good,” which, followed by the line, “You’ve never had it so often,” sets the tempo for an orgy scene.
In 1963 London, the horny dilemma between prurience and prudishness among the British was brought into focus in the media frenzy that followed the news that John Profumo, then secretary of state for war, had been having an affair with Christine Keeler, a party girl to whom he’d been introduced by Ward, a high-flying society osteopath. The rub came when it was discovered that she was having a concurrent affair with a Soviet attaché during this Cold War period. What is usually fodder for British sex comedies turned tragic when Ward committed suicide shortly before a court found him guilty of effectively being a pimp not only for Keeler but also her friend Mandy Rice Davies.
Lloyd Webber has stated that he is very proud of the musical and its acclaimed cast, led by Alexander Hanson as Ward and the Charlottes — Spencer and Blackledge — as Keeler and Rice Davies, respectively. But the composer has expressed chagrin that it may not be commercially successful given the subject matter and the present climate for regurgitated fare, including movie-to-musical transfers and so-called “jukebox” musicals. All the more credit then to him for once again attempting something as wholly original, provocative, smart, and anti-heroic as one of his most enduring classics: “Evita.” He’s done this with the full awareness that he’s not had a hit musical in 22 years, since “Sunset Boulevard” in the West End. On Broadway, the dry spell has been three years longer, since 1988’s “Phantom of the Opera."
“The costs of doing musicals have risen absolutely hugely,” Lloyd Webber recently told the Telegraph. “I don’t think I’ve got enough money to do very many more.”
That has to be taken with a grain of sand since the West End production of “Stephen Ward” is modestly capitalized at $3.25 million and Lloyd Webber has an estimated fortune of $1.3 billion. “Phantom” alone has grossed $5.6 billion and is still going strong. But for a theater artist like Lloyd Webber, it has long since ceased being about money. It’s about vindication. And in that regard, it’s little wonder why he could be fascinated by the unloved Ward.
