Olivier-nominated musical theatre star Laura Pitt-Pulford is to play the title role in Sweet Charity, Pimlico Opera’s 23rd prison production at HMP Bronzefield next month. Bronzefield, in Ashford, Surrey, is the women’s prison where Pimlico staged Chicago in 2006 and Sister Act in 2014.
Pimlico is tackling Sweet Charity (Cy Coleman-Dorothy Fields from Neil Simon’s book) for the first time. Nikki Wollaston, who has worked with Pimlico before on West Side Story, directs the seven performances on 9, 10, 11, 14, 15, 16 and 17 November 2018. The main parts will be taken by Pimlico’s professionals with the prisoners performing the other roles and ensemble as well as helping in backstage work.
It is a format that has worked since Wasfi Kani, founder of Pimlico and Grange Park Opera, began taking musical theatre to prisons up and down the country with Sweeney Todd at Wormwood Scrubs in 1991.
West Side Story has been easily the most popular, with seven productions, three at Wandsworth and one each at Winchester, Bullingdon, Erlestoke and Mountjoy in Dublin. Last year they put on Les Misérables on their first visit to HMP High Down at Banstead, Surrey. Bronzefield, opened in 2004, is the largest female-only prison in Europe.
What happens is that two of the Pimlico team go round the prison wings asking: “Do you like acting?” which often elicits the cheeky response: “I tried that in court last time and look what happened!”
For five full weeks, the prisoners spend every weekday working all day rehearsing with the professional creatives and musicians, returning to their cells only for lunch. One or two have had theatrical or musical experience, not all of them last the course, most have never been to the theatre in their lives and their joy at actually being applauded, for the first time in their lives, is a sight to behold.
Since Pimlico Opera was founded, 55,000 members of the public have watched these performances, more than a thousand prisoners have acted and sung and 9,000 fellow inmates have watched them and discovered theatre as an aid to rehabilitation. The company receives no public subsidy and relies entirely on ticket sales and donations to fund productions.
It is a remarkable emotional experience that those who have been before come back to year after year. For tickets, go to the Pimlico Opera website. And don’t go to Ashford, Kent – it’s Ashford, Surrey!
Jeremy Chapman
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