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Nelly – A Folk Musical
AN INTERVIEW with GRAHAM HOPKINS

I guess I’m just celebrating the love of my life , the trouble is, she died 335 years ago!
- Graham Hopkins, Writer, 59

Nell Gwynne first came into his life when he wrote his school’s sixth form play – “Oliver!” – which told the story of Oliver Cromwell but with reworked songs from the Lionel Bart musical Oliver! “It’s just taken me over 40 years to get it back on stage!” This time though the songs in Nelly - A Folk Musical are all original – and from some of the folk world’s finest songwriters: Jo Freya, Robb Johnson, Reg Meuross, Lucy Ward, Boff Whalley and Dave Wilson.

Hopkins’s biography of his female hero (Nell Gwynne – A Passionate Life)  came out in 2002. He dug out a quote in his research that said: “the whole world knows Nell Gwynne”. “And they do,” he says. “People have heard the name and might associate her with oranges. She sold fruit, sweetmeats and knick-knacks at one of the two newly opened theatres in London. But she became one of the finest comedy actresses of the age – which is, of course, how she caught the king’s eye.” It was the time in the 1660s when theatres were permitted again after Cromwell’s death – and women were allowed on the stage for the first time.

History marks her down as the mistress of King Charles II, but I believe the real reason we still know her name today is because she was funny.

History isn’t overburdened with funny women but only because it was usually men that chronicled the times. But even these men recognised her humour. Samuel Pepys, for example, called her “pretty, witty Nell”. A contemporary poem noted that no portrait “could show her wit”.

“What’s also lovely about her is that she never changed,” Hopkins says. “She was a commoner and the people loved her because she kept that common touch. She didn’t abuse her position – the king’s other main mistresses used their position to gain wealth and power. Nelly simply loved someone who happened to be king. The other mistresses saw the crown, Nelly saw the man. And Charles loved that. They were together for 17 years, until Charles’s death in 1685.”

Bringing Nelly alive is Emily Jane Brooks who, like Hopkins, was born in Coventry. “I was very drawn to the style of the piece,” she says, “I loved the script straight away with its mix of history, humour and heart. I would say a real challenge of playing Nell is authentically portraying her many facets. She was clearly someone as at home in Coal Yard Alley as she was in Whitehall Palace. She had a knack of rubbing along, and charmed most people who crossed her path, yet pursued the human connection rather than an elevated status. Quite a woman!

The humour and the humanity are also what excited Conor Lynam (who has the arduous task of playing all the male roles … from a disabled soldier, a raving preacher, the king (of course) and his favourite character, John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester – the wittiest man alive and one of Nelly’s best friends.

“One of the things that first attracted me to this play,” says Lynam, who is a keen Viking re-enactor, “was the passion of the director. He had a vision of how he wanted the historical characters of an incredible woman's life to see, breathe and feel and made it into a reality.”

Hopkins’s long-term plans for writing Nelly were seemingly scuppered a few years back with the success of the play “Nell Gwynn” by Jessica Swale. “I won’t lie I was heartbroken, utterly gutted,” he admits. “More fool me for taking so long to getting around to it. But I felt that that production was more about the theatre rather than getting to the heart of Nelly – so I went ahead anyway.” It also helped define a different take. “I was at first committed to the idea of authenticity – even in language and wanted every phrase to have been around at the time. But then Boff [Whalley, ex-Chumbawamba] sent me a cracking song about Nelly selling oranges and he namechecked Carry On and Barbara (Windsor) and Sid (James) in the lyrics. So that did for that. So, now we have modern cultural and political references – and even a scene entirely devoted to Carry On and Eric & Ernie!” Nell Gwynne “was the play what Ernie wrote” for the Morecambe & Wise 1975 Xmas Special. Diana Rigg played Nell with a vengeance. Glorious.

Robb Johnson, who has written seven of the play’s songs, cites “Graham’s creative energy and vision and writing” as his reasons for getting involved. He says: “The project has evolved into something really special. It’s a detailed history of a significant life that also knows how to hold up a mirror to our contemporary times too.” Fellow songwriter Dave Wilson adds, “Writing to a brief is always a challenge, but when the woman and her story are as fascinating as this one, who could resist?” It was similarly irresistible to his musical partner Kip Winter: “I'm a sucker for a good story about a strong and sassy woman,” she says.

Johnson adds: “It’s both seriously moving & seriously funny - a bit like (German playwright) Bertolt Brecht meets (Carry On screenwriter) Talbot Rothwell meets (Australian film-maker) Baz Luhrman – but without the budget!”

No budget? Hopkins agrees! But Brecht and Luhrman? He is less sure but agrees it indicates the deliberate mix of styles. “I utterly hold my hand up to the Talbot Rothwell reference though,” he says. “He scripted the famous “Infamy! Infamy!” line in Carry on Cleo. Which I’ve nicked for our play. Although to be honest Rothwell nicked it himself. He borrowed it from a Frank Muir and Denis Norden script. So, no qualms there! I did think about sub-titling the play – “Carry On Up the Restoration!” But maybe that can be my next project. Yes, I think I was born to write that film!”