Sergeant Musgrave’s Dance was the first Alleyn’s School play to feature its own girls. The school had just started to take sixth-form girls that year.
I am not writing up this “50 years ago” series with a view to running contemporary parallels, nor am I reading my juvenile diaries in advance of writing the next episode.
It therefore came as a pleasant surprise today (21 April 2026) to stumble across the Sergeant Musgrave’s Dance reference, as, just the other day, I spent time at Lord’s with John Fry – brother of Tom Fry, who played the eponymous lead in 1975.
John might choose to extract and share some memories and 50-years-ago reflections on that production from his brother Tom.
I’m delighted to be able to report that my two word diary review of the 1975 production was:
Excellent performances.
That indicates, as I remember it, that I thought more of the production than I did of the play. I am pretty sure that my parents profoundly disliked the play and wondered why it had been chosen.
I have subsequently read most of Arden’s plays and tried hard to get my head around them. My conclusion is that I like the idea of Arden’s plays and the ideas in them, far more than I like them as works of drama that I could imagine enjoying on the stage.
According to Michael Lempriere’s Scribblerus review, the original idea had been to produce Julius Caesar, but that was cancelled for technical reasons. Possibly the fear of Alleyn’s School kids inappropriately shouting from the audience, “infamy, infamy, they’ve all got it in for me” and such like, at key moments during the drama.
More seriously, and with far more balance than my two-word review, here is Michael Lempriere’s review in full:
As is the case for almost all of that term of school, the rest of my week is only sparsely covered in my diary:
Allow me to translate:
Sunday, 23 November 1975 – classes good. Feld’s row [This might have been an early rebellion by Grandma Anne in the matter of Mr Feld’s borscht tasting watery and her accusation that he was watering it down]. (Fortunately?) won 10p [at kalooki]. TV Upstairs Downstairs
Monday, 24 November 1975 – OK. TV Goodies, Waltons.
Tuesday, 25 November 1975 – all OK. Great film (mouse film) [The Mouse On the Moon], Musical Time Machine.
Wednesday, 26 November 1975 – all OK. CCF great. Went to Sergeant Musgrave’s Dance. Excellent performances. [The irony of CCF being great ahead of seeing Sergeant Musgrave’s Dance might have been wasted on me then but is not wasted on me now].
Thursday, 27 November 1975 – drama good. TV $6 Million Man, Get Some In, Q6
Friday, 28 November 1975 – all OK. TV Tom and Jerry, Invisible Man, Pot Black, Porridge
Saturday, 29 November 1975 – school OK. TV Jerry Lewis film, very good. [3 Ring] Circus.
