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JOHNNY THE PRIEST 'a musical drama', was presented
by Don Gemmell and Reginald Woolley for Players Ventures Ltd.
It opened in London at the Princes Theatre (now the Shaftesbury
Theatre) on 19 April 1960, and was withdrawn after 14 performances.
The story: In Maybury, somewhere in London's dockland, a young
priest, the Revd. Richard Highfield (Jeremy Brett), does his
best to put the youth of the district on the straight and narrow.
The amount of energy he uses in his crusade concerns the church
council, but his wife Mary (Stephanie Voss) supports him in his
endeavours. |
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- Bunny May as Johnny watched
by (left to right) Jeremy Brett, Stephanie Voss and Phillada
Sewell
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- A young delinquent, Johnny (Bunny May), is one of the vicar's
successes. Highfield gets Johnny into the Navy, but then the
boy steals a telescope. He asks Highfield to give the police
a false alibi, but Highfield cannot find it in his conscience
to do so, and Johnny is thus put back to an uncertain future.
- Johnny the Priest was a production mounted by the Players
Theatre in the wake of such shows as The Boy Friend, Twenty Minutes
South and The Crooked Mile. But Johnny the Priest was the only
one that dealt (supposedly) with the problems of the youth of
the day.
- Question Should we be interested in Johnny the Priest today?
Hasn't it dated terribly? Was it ever worth thinking about anyway?
- Answer We should, yes it has, and yes it was. For a reasoned
argument, click on to read what Icarus has to say about the show
in 'A View from the Gods'
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