Pat Kirkwood is Angry

Show Info

By Jessica Walker
Directed by Lee Blakeley
Musical Director Joseph Atkins
Musical Arrangements by James Holmes

In Pat Kirkwood is Angry - a co-production with Opera North in association with the Manchester Royal Exchange - singer and writer Jessica Walker re-imagines the life and songs of Pat Kirkwood, the once stellar, but now forgotten British singer and actress, in a funny and heart-breaking new solo show. 

Born in Salford in 1921, Kirkwood was named Britain’s first wartime star, aged only eighteen; she had shows written for her by Noel Coward and Cole Porter, was the highest paid entertainer in Britain in the 1940’s, and made famous songs such as My Heart Belongs to Daddy and Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered.  Recovering from a major nervous breakdown after her seven picture contract with MGM was cancelled after only one film, she rebuilt her career in Britain, first in variety, next becoming the first woman to have her own TV series on British television, but she soon became mired in the scandal surrounding an alleged affair with HRH the Duke of Edinburgh, the repercussions of which were to haunt her right up to her death from Alzheimer’s in an Ilkley nursing home, in 2007. In 2010, after the death of her fourth husband, Peter Knight, letters from the Duke himself, addressed to Kirkwood, came to light, settling the truth about the affair once and for all…

In this witty but poignant look at the ephemeral nature of fame, Jessica’s dynamic stage presence and superlative singing will bring Pat Kirkwood’s story to life again, with the help of director Lee Blakeley’s inventive staging and MD Jim Holmes’s arrangements of some of the most beautiful popular songs of the 20th century.