Christopher Green’s new stage show Music Hall Monster, about doomed singer Fred Barnes, premieres tonight (2 May 2018) at Wilton’s Music Hall. Earlier this year, Green teamed up with entertainment legend Roy Hudd for a BBC Radio Four drama about Barnes. Watch Green and Hudd perform one of Barnes’ songs and see reactions to the radio broadcast below – and then get booking!
In Music Hall Monster: The Insatiable Fred Barnes, which gets its premiere at Wilton’s Music Hall from 2 to 12 May 2018 only, Christopher Green plays the famous music hall singer. Fred Barnes fell spectacularly from grace, brought down by a shockingly modern range of addictions: sex, shopping, alcohol, and a need for celebrity. At the pinnacle of his fame in the 1920s, he was fabulously wealthy and sported the height of extravagant fashion with a marmoset monkey on his shoulder. By the mid-1930s, he was singing for pennies in Southend pubs with a pet chicken.
Earlier this year, ahead of Music Hall Monster‘s premiere, creator Christopher Green teamed up with entertainment legend, and renowned music hall expert, Roy Hudd to present a different take on Barnes’ life, How Success Ruined Me, a critically acclaimed drama commissioned by BBC Radio 4, which was also recorded at Wilton’s Music Hall. The radio programme took its title from Barnes’ own account of his life.
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During recording of How Success Ruined Me, Christopher Green and Roy Hudd perform music hall song On Mother Kelly’s Doorstep, which was originally written for Fred Barnes but made famous by Randolph Sutton and, later, Danny La Rue.
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Twitter buzz
How Success Ruined Me – Curated tweets by MyTheatreMates
