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In 1918, little known author Edith Winstanley Hull, a pig breeder’s wife from a little English village, pens a sensational novel – The Sheik – that eventually will rocket a struggling actor on the other side of the world to international stardom. The equivalent to Fifty Shades of Grey for the era, it was a racy and sumptuous tale about female sexuality, and dared to be bold in a time when women still wore ankle-long tunics. Playwright Jo Denver rediscovers the author, and captures the time with a lavish sense of humour in her latest full length play The Making of a Great Lover.
The novel was written by Edith Winstanley Hull to fill in the lonely hours while her husband is away at WW1,
and has a profound influence on young women in the English-speaking world – much to the disgust of the male population (and her husband) it scandalises, shocks and titillates all who read it.
Around the same time, a young aspiring actor of Italian descent, is trying to break into the new silent movie industry. His looks and culture are against him, until The Sheik is made into a movie. The novel shoots to the top of the best-seller list and the movie makes a star of the young actor, Rudolph Valentino, earning him the title of The Great Lover.
Photography by fotoflair.com.au
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Maverick Musicals – :
“The Making of the Great Lover is a deliciously decadent tale of exotic desire…from the pen of the wife of an English Pig Breeder. As fate would have it, there is just the young Italian to play the sensual title role in the screenplay she comes up with, and it’s a hit! The Making of the Great Lover, a fantastic comedy to see with the other half or a bunch of good friends.” Paul Sabey, XS Entertainment
Maverick Musicals – :
“Edith is a writer who tells it as it is, and if it is the taboo subject of women’s sexuality, then so be it. Her husband, Percy, returns from WWI to find the woman he left behind has changed. How will he react to a woman who has turned ideas of women’s sexuality upside down and now seems to be leading a crusade against the rightful domain of men? Discover in this deliciously decadent tale of exotic desire. When playwright Jo Denver wrote The Making of the Great Lover, about Edith Winstanley Hull, her husband Percy, and their daughter Cecil, she had no idea that Edith’s relatives lived in Australia. Naomi MacKinnon, from Cairns, is married to one of many Hull descendants in that area. Jo said that when she was writing about someone who lived in a little village in England she had no idea that any of the Hull family had been residing in far north Queensland around the Ingham area since 1871. This new historical comedy is over-the-top Fifty Shades of Grey fun” Xanthe Coward
Maverick Musicals – :
This show’s professionally shot and photoshopped publicity images and its elegant and highly functional set quickly became first impression talking points of this production.
I mention this because lack of thought spent on these simple aspects of community theatre confines many a show to just another amateur lark. Nothing wrong with that, but audiences appreciate genuine effort and expertise expended on their behalf.
Similarly, if there’s been no care taken in casting, directing, learning lines and delivering fully energised performances, then why should the audience invest any?
Fortunately and gratifyingly – especially because this is an entirely locally conceived and created play – The Making of the Great Lover had all these aspects covered and was valued accordingly.
Playwright Jo Denver has again chosen as her central character a woman whose work fundamentally changed the way women see themselves and their place in the world. The story centres on Derbyshire novelist Edith Winstanley Hull, played with understated charm by Kirsty White, whose 1919 bodice-ripper “The Sheik” revealed, scandalously, that English women were in fact, not passive asexual beings, but seething hotbeds of desire.
The play also follows the rise of Italian-born, American film star Rudolph Valentino who became “The Sheik” on the silver screen. Shaun Bennett charmed in this role and his background as a comic saw him milk this udder cracked and blistered. I mean, in a good way. The rest of the cast were excellent in support.
Kathryn Barnes delivered an enjoyable transformation of the Derbyshire gossip into sexually liberated harem slave girl. Glenda Campi was fabulous as repressed schoolmistress Miss Fanshaw who leads a joyous dance lesson in “The Black Bottom”.
Importantly, The Making of the Great Lover also provided an opportunity for four young women – Riette de Jager, Alannah Courtney, Ashleigh Cooper and Gemma Cannon – to shine and delight, and they did.
Special mention must be made of Michelle Connolly who transferred her high energy performance ability into directing this production.
It seems each passing year brings a strengthening of the collective will to aspire to higher standards in community theatre, and this show was evidence of that.
The Making of the Great Lover By Jo Denver Lind Lane Theatre Review by Frank Wilkie