QUESTSTORIES
THE QUESTORS NEW PLAYS FESTIVAL
7th FESTIVAL 1966
WHAT REALLY HAPPENED TO FIDELITYY HOPE?

WHAT REALLY HAPPENED TO FIDELITY HOPE?
by Malcolm Quantrill

Directed by Alan Chambers 
Cast: 
Jeanette Ambrose, Anna Brown, Geoffrey Burridge, Keith Godman, Jean Harding, Gerald Petch , Ted Scrivener, Richard Seall , John Turner, Philip Wright

THE AUTHOR

Malcolm Quantrill (1931–2009) was a British architect, academic, novelist and dramatist. Born in Norwich, he studied architecture at Liverpool and Pennsylvania and began writing while living in the United States. His early literary work included the Gotobed trilogy of novels and numerous radio plays for the BBC Third Programme and Swedish Radio. 

The Questors presented What Really Happened to Fidelity Hope? in the 1966 New Plays Festival and The Appointment in 1969, as well as Don’t Keep the Van Man Waiting in a 1968 programme of shorter plays.

Quantrill subsequently achieved distinction as an architectural historian and teacher, publishing influential studies of Alvar Aalto and Finnish modernism. He later became Distinguished Professor of Architecture at Texas A&M University. 

Malcolm Quantrill on WIKIPEDIA 

Malcolm Quantrill on GOODREADS.COM

THE PLAY

Questopics 
June 1966 
'What Really Happened to Fidelity Hope?' is his fourth stage play but the first.to reach the theatre. 'The Abbot Dies', a meditation for speaker, male chorus and musicians, with music by Elisabeth Lutyens, was recently given its first performance by the Third Programme, and 'The Life Room', a play specially commissioned by BBC television will be shown in the autumn. 

'What Really Happened to Fidelity Hope?' is described as a "suspense comedy". Every year thousands of Englishmen get married, seemingly oblivious of the fact that their wives may turn out to be reincarnations of their mothers or sisters. Each summer thousands of English girls go abroad for their holidays, in search of adventure. But how many of these girls are 'sent' by their fiances specifically for this purpose? 

Although this play has elements of Bondism and international intrigue the depths of human conflict are never far below the surface, and Mr Quantrill has himself described the piece as 'a Blackhall farce'.

PRODUCTION PHOTOS

PRESS RESPONSE

Malcolm Quantrill's surreal thriller attracted the largest body of criticism but little wholehearted enthusiasm. Reviewers admired the ingenuity of its central idea and its playful parody of spy fiction and avant-garde theatre, yet most felt the complex structure and succession of bewildering episodes obscured rather than illuminated the drama. Kenneth Tynan enjoyed its flashes of eccentric brilliance but thought the joke was sustained for too long, while other critics found it derivative of contemporary theatrical fashions and lacking emotional engagement. The consensus was that an inventive concept had been overwhelmed by its own stylistic exuberance.

The Middlesex County Times

The Financial Times

The Observer

The Stage and Television Today

QUESTORS ARCHIVES
WHAT REALLY HAPPENED TO FIDELITY HOPE?

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