Privates on Parade

Peter Nichols's 1977 play with songs by Denis King, offers a heady mix of personal memoir, musical parody and a jaundiced account of postwar colonial politics.

Set in Malaya in 1948, it shows a naive private, Steven Flowers, joining a song-and-dance unit whose job is to entertain troops engaged in keeping 5,000 Chinese communist guerillas at bay. Like an innocent Swindon Candide, Steven encounters built-in corruption, falls in love with a Eurasian girl and rubs up against, though not too closely, a flamboyant drag artist called Terri Dennis. Although the play is great fun, it also satirises bone-headed missionary zeal through the character of Major Flack and asks what British troops were doing in Malaya anyway: protecting a piece of the empire from communism or preserving the commercially vital rubber trade? 

Friday 8th to Saturday 16th March 2019 - 7:30pm

Tickets
Full Price £16, Concessions (Child / OAP) £14

Note: suitable for children but with parental guidance. Swearing and semi nudity.
 
Book
Venue
John Cooper, Studio Theatre
41 Monkgate
York
YO31 7PB