TRUE ROMANCES

– From lunch to stage

Between Mark Bunyan’s two large-scale youth musical shows at the Cockpit Theatre  Just Good Friends in 1982 and Homes And Gardens in 1984, he worked on a piece for much smaller resources. What became True Romances in 1983 has a cast of three with the pianist for the piece also contributing as a character.

True Romances was suggested by a rather boozy lunch Mark had with a friend in the film industry who was trying to split up with a married man to whom she was mistress. Rather bizarrely, they ended up inviting him along to “referee”.

The action of the musical takes place mainly in a Soho piano wine bar, called “Romances” appropriately enough. The Dicksons, Richard and Marian, have been married for 25 years with Marian totally unaware of the string of affairs carried out by her husband, Richard. When Richard falls in love with Jane, the next in line, things become more complicated.

Mark Bunyan recounted how True Romances was born in this anecdote:

“In July 1982, a friend who should have known better was, to use the terms they themselves never used, the mistress of a married man. He declared passionate love to her and was going to leave his wife. As often in such matters, he went on declaring passionate love to her and went on going to leave his wife. She, already a divorcee, was keen to marry him once he had told and left his wife.  

“Whenever I saw her, she would tell me that he had still to tell his wife. Eventually she decided she was going to have a showdown lunch with him where she would tell him that he had to make up his mind between her and his wife.  She asked me to join her for a courage-building drink (in “The French” pub in Soho) before she went off to the lunch.      

“We met for the drinks (a large glass of wine each). Mine was nowhere near finished when she had to leave. I was still drinking solo when, some minutes later, someone from her office rushed into the pub and told me that she had rung the office and asked someone to dash down and find me before I left and ask me if I would join the duo for the lunch.  As referee!  An opportunity too good not to be leaped at (not least because it meant lunch at a more-than-expensive new restaurant).  

“I tried to be objective. The man was torn and tortured. He loved my friend but he also loved his wife and couldn’t bear the idea of hurting her – or, course, hurting either of them. In fact, so tortured was he that he had almost killed himself the night before because he couldn’t face hurting his wife.    

“I would have sympathised were he not managing the self-pity so perfectly well alone. As someone who had lived perfectly happily in a gay trio for five years, I couldn’t see the problem and said so. But they were all firmly locked into acting out social roles rather than finding suitable behaviours for their situation. Lunch ended. My diary entry for that day says “A musical will come out of this, mark my words.”

“And so it did. That is exactly what True Romances is. I imagined what would have happened if, in a miasma of drunken self-pity, he had tried to kill himself. I also, for the purposes of the drama, accepted his view of his innocent wife having no idea that he was not the perfect ever-faithful husband and family man. (I’ve always been curious to know what the actual situation was from the wife’s point of view.)

“I completed True Romances as a chamber piece. It’s been in front of an audience twice, both times directed by Joanna Brookes. In the mid-1990s it was given a rehearsed reading by a cast of Liz Izen, Trevor Jones and Jo Zorian  at the Castle Theatre, Wellingborough, to gales of appreciative laughter. In 2000, it again had a complete evening’s rehearsed reading at the MUSICAL FUTURES festival at Greenwich Theatre, with a cast of Mark Adams, Kirsty Bennett and Vivien Care, again to a very positive reaction by the audience. Hilary Strong, then director of the theatre, told me that if I could get a production together she’d book it immediately.    

“It’s not been seen since but I’ve been quietly working on it. And on occasions too numerous to mention, I’ve overheard chunks of my dialogue coming from secluded couples in bars who have sat just a little too close to me and spoken just a little too loudly.   This story, apparently, will run and run.  

“I’m very grateful to various students at the Royal Academy of Music who workshopped some of the piece in 2000, including Vivien Care, who played Jane at Greenwich and on the recording as well as; to Jo Zorian who took over as Marian at short notice at Wellingborough, and Kirsty Bennett who took over the same role at short notice at Greenwich and to Marilyn Cutts who played it on the recording; to Trevor Jones who played Richard at Wellingborough and Mark Adams who played Richard at Greenwich and on the recording; to Joanna Brookes as director; and finally to Mark Etherington who worked on the piece at the Royal Academy of Music and was musical director at Greenwich and Mark Warman who was musical director and producer of the recording.”