Questories

QUESTSTORIES
THE QUESTORS NEW PLAYS FESTIVAL
3rd Festival 1962
NEXT TIME I'LL SING TO YOU

NEXT TIME I'LL SING TO YOU
by James Saunders

Directed by Shirley Butler
Cast:
Jo Arundel, Lawrence Irvin, Lawrence Nixon, George Ritchie, Peter Whelan

JAMES SAUNDERS

James Saunders (1925–2004) was one of the most distinctive British dramatists to emerge in the late 1950s and became particularly closely associated with The Questors. His early work combined theatrical experiment, philosophical enquiry and an acute ear for the ambiguities of language, leading to his recognition as a British exponent of the Theatre of the Absurd.

His Festival contributions were Ends and Echoes (1960), Next Time I’ll Sing to You (1962), The Pedagogue and Who Was Hilary Maconochie? (1963), The Borage Pigeon Affair (1969), Hans Kohlhaas (1972) and The Island (1975).

Next Time I’ll Sing to You transferred to the West End and New York and won him an Evening Standard award.

The Questors continued presenting and reviving Saunders’s work for more than forty years.

Interview with James Saunders 1966

James Saunders remembered by Peter Whelan and Larry Irvin (2004)

In Fond Memory - James Saunders

James Saunders' plays at The Questors
James Saunders on Wikipedia

JAMES SAUNDERS ON WIKIPEDIA

THE PLAY

Jimmy Mason, the hermit of Great Canfield in Essex, shut himself into an isolated hut in 1896 and remained there, seeing no one, until he died in 1942. The only time the outside world impinged on his solitude was in 1927, when he was invaded by instigation of an inquisitive press. An account of this true but incomprehensible occurrence was written by Raleigh Trevelyan in his book "A Hermit Disclosed". On this James Saunders has based his comedy which, while purporting to seek an explan- ation of the life of Jimmy Mason, in fact entertainingly explodes the fatuity of seeking an explanation of life full stop.

This play for the round was specially written for The Questors.

PRODUCTION PHOTOS

SHIRLEY BUTLER (Director)

Press cutting 1966:
"Shirley Butler got her first break because she knew a good thing when she saw it. An aspiring director, she tackled a play called Next Time I'll Sing To You by a little-known playwright, James Saunders, with a production budget of £1 and a cast of amateurs."

The full text of the article

This production of NEXT TIME I'LL SING TO YOU was spotted by West End producer Michael Codron who transferred it to the New Arts Theatre the following January with George Ritchie repeating his role as the Hermit, alongside Michael Caine, Barry Foster, Liz Fraser and Michael Bryant.

It moved to the Criterion Theatre in February with Victor Winding, Barry Foster, Liz Fraser, Peter McEnery and Denys Graham in the cast.

"The best play in London," said Harold Hobson in The Sunday Times, and other critics agreed. Robert Gellert, in The New Statesman, praised its "nervous and sophisticated brilliance", and Kenneth Tynan found it "a series of grotesque and disturbing observations on the nature of illusion and reality."

PRESS REACTION

James Saunders' Next Time I'll Sing to You emerged as the Festival's outstanding critical success and confirmed his growing reputation as one of Britain's most original young playwrights. The Stage hailed it as a major contribution to the Theatre of the Absurd, praising both its humour and its poignant exploration of human isolation, while Douglas McVay, writing in the Middlesex County Times, was far less convinced, dismissing its philosophical ideas as self-indulgent despite acknowledging its flashes of wit and lively performances.

The County Times

The Stage and Television Today

QUESTORS ARCHIVES
NEXT TIME I'LL SING TO YOU (1962) QUESTORS ARCHIVES
NEXT TIME I'LL SING TO YOU (1995)