Writer: Peter Quilter
Director: Kirk Jameson
Florence Foster Jenkins was a phenomenon in New York in the first half of the 20th century. A coloratura soprano, she was known for her performances of some of the most demanding operatic arias ever written in small recitals and, eventually, Carnegie Hall itself. What separated Foster Jenkins from most sopranos was that she simply couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. Frequently heroically flat, then switching in a heartbeat to screechingly sharp, her phrasing was, at best, erratic and her diction poor, even when singing in English.
Glorious! opens following her dismissal of her accompanist; a friend, Dorothy, has heard Cosmé McMoon playing background music in a restaurant and approaches him on Foster Jenkins’ behalf; and so one of the most infamous musical partnerships begins.
Matthew Morrison, as McMoon, acts as our narrator, providing linking passages in front of the curtain as scenes are changed. His McMoon is an engaging, fey, camp character. Tall and angular, he uses his entire body to illustrate his emotions and reactions. And he does that par excellence, for example, when, after being admitted to Foster Jenkins’ apartment for an interview, he first hears Foster Jenkins’ powerful voice, he physically cringes, a look of horror and disbelief contorting his face.
Despite Foster Jenkins’ shortcomings, McMoon becomes her permanent accompanist, initially for the extravagant salary offered. For all the laughs, the play gradually becomes about the bond between the two of them, especially after the interval, when we see a genuine affection and regard build between them. Morrison’s performance as McMoon switches between fine nuance and physical comedy – never more so than when they dance, with McMoon towering over the diminutive and dumpy socialite.
Wendi Peters gives Foster Jenkins a towering confidence entirely out of step with reality. Her performance has echoes of Patricia Routledge’s portrayal of Hyacinth Bucket in her absolute and unshakeable belief in her own ‘rightness’. Despite her short stature, she dominates the stage – and McMoon – from the very beginning and fills the room with her voice, for good or ill.
Foster Jenkins herself, however, remains something of an enigma in that it’s unclear whether she was in on the joke or not – there’s evidence both ways. However, writer Peter Quilter and director Kirk Jameson are clear that, while she was aware of some of the mockery she was the subject of (‘I’m aware that some people say I can’t sing,’ she is reported as saying, ‘but no one can deny that I did sing!’), she firmly believed that she was comparable to the best contemporary sopranos. Peters makes her oddly innocent, blind to so much going on around her.
What works best is the way Peters and Morrison let the comedy soften into something more heartfelt.
Supporting them are Sioned Jones as Foster Jenkins’ gushing loyal friend, Dorothy, and Caroline Gruber, who is very funny as Foster Jenkins’ Italian housekeeper, neither of whom can understand the other. After the interval, Gruber also brings us Mrs Verrinder-Gedge, who stops a performance in its tracks to hand in a petition calling on Foster Jenkins to stop performing – and which is memorably disposed of by McMoon.
Glorious! is, indeed, glorious. Although it pokes fun at Foster Jenkins’ self-delusion, it’s always affectionate, and we find ourselves rooting for her, even as our ears are being assaulted with notes hitherto unknown to science. What begins as an amusing odd-couple pairing gradually becomes something rather more touching. By the end, it has thoroughly won us over.
Runs until 23 May 2026 and on tour
