Stephen Ward is focus of Lloyd Webber Musical

Stephen Ward

It has been reported that Andrew Lloyd Webber’s new musical about the 1963 Profumo Affair (reuniting him with Sunset Boulevard team, lyricist Don Black and playwright Christopher Hampton) is likely to be far more about the fate of the scandal’s scapegoat Stephen Ward, than Profumo.

In the past, the composer has spoken sympathetically about Ward who introduced showgirl Christine Keeler (the reputed mistress of an alleged Russian spy) to John Profumo, the Secretary of State for War in Prime Minister Harold Macmillan’s government, leading to what was Britain’s first political sex scandal in 1963.

Ward was prosecuted for living off the immoral earnings of prostitution but committed suicide on the last day of the trial (although conspiracy theorists think otherwise).

Lloyd Webber has been quoted as saying that this was a “terrible miscarriage of justice” and that Ward was “a scapegoat. They had to find a crime to fit him and, since MI6 said there was no security risk, why is it a closed file until 2046?”