Productions - The King and I
BASED on a true story, the magic of The King & I is irrefutable. Any little girl who chances on the 1956 film version, starring Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr, will have her head filled with dreams of crinolines, travel to far off exotic lands and romance.
It was something that did not pass by Sarah Phillips when she was young and Anna became the role that she always dreamed of playing.
And tomorrow (Friday), when the curtain goes up on Hereford Amateur Operatic Society's production of The King & I, that dream will be realised.
When she was growing up, her grandmother, Olive, took her and her sister to see a London show every year, but it was the year they went to see Yul Brynner and Virginia McKenna in the legendary stage version that sticks in her mind.
"My mum woke us up on a Saturday morning and told us that that day Gran was going to take us to see my favourite show. I was so excited!"
An excitement that has not subsided.
"I still can't believe I'm going to play Anna," she said at Tuesday evening's costume call.
The crackling tension between The King of Siam played in this production by deputy head teacher Ian Burrell and the English governess he employs to teach his collection of wives and children, and the backdrop of political unrest, makes for great songs and great emotion.
"The King found her fascinating," said the production's director George Powell. "And although I've modernised their love story a bit, the fact that they were real characters and that their story is based on fact is the key."
Intrepid traveller Anna Leonowens stands her ground against the overpowering and self-opinionated King. No one hasquestioned his authority before, especially not a woman, and it is not easy for him to allow a woman like Anna under his skin.
"He has a clever way of asking her advice without her realising,"
Ian said. Sarah, a teacher at Hampton Dene school, is taking her second lead role for the society, having appeared as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady in 2001. She directed Annie a year later.
Since then she has worked on a little production of her own,
and nine-month-year-old Thomas has behaved beautifully
during rehearsals. "When the part came up I had to do it," said Sarah. "My husband has been great!" Her co-lead has risen to his own challenge during rehearsal committing to lose a couple of inches around his waistline. "The thought of baring my stomach on stage was incentive enough," said Ian. That's not all he lost his chest hair went too.
"I've kept the hair on my head, as the real King was not bald,"
he said. With support from his colleagues and pupils at Burley Gate Primary School, Ian has lost 15lbs on a sponsored diet, and raised £550 for three good causes into the bargain. Having been directed by his co-star when playing Daddy Warbucks in Annie, Ian is used to her telling him what to do exactly what the King hates!
"We've taken away some of the mellow from the original stage version," Ian said. "I purposefully didn't watch the Yul Brynner version when it was on television over Christmas, so our version is really off the pages rather than off the film. "I've pitched the King somewhere between where George and I think hes coming from.
"The initial sense of conflict between him and Anna soon disappears. He can relate to her qualities, and values her support."
"Both leads think they are right," said Sarah. And both refuse
to back down. Fifty years on, this tale of household strain against a glamorous backdrop still holds its own.
