British Comedy

The tree-lined streets of Rotherhithe are an odd place to unveil a West End musical. But this is a suitably odd situation. Graham Linehan – lauded comedy writer turned culture warrior – is about to unveil what he calls ‘a musical that may never be seen’.

For much of the past 30 years, the idea of turning Father Ted, cult sitcom of the 1990s, into a West End musical would have seemed a hot prospect – certainly to the legions of nerdy, largely male fans who still stream episodes decades later. Once upon a time, it looked destined for Shaftesbury Avenue, backed by one of the biggest names in theatre. Now it might be going nowhere.

The company which produced Father Ted offered Linehan £200,000 to take his name off the project

When we meet at his east London apartment, Linehan concedes that, by doing an impromptu read-through, I may end up as one of the last members of the small club of people who have ‘seen’ the show. Father Ted: The Final Episode may be almost oven-ready – songs included – but a Mexican stand-off between Linehan and his former producers means it’s stuck in purgatory.

Never one to hold his tongue, Linehan is eager to air his side of the story. Last month, he launched a social media campaign calling on his former backers to #FreeFatherTed and allow the show to be performed. But before we get to that, I have a bigger question: is it any good?

...

So why, then, is this musical stuck in limbo? Like many things in the culture war, it is a long and contested story. But both Linehan and his detractors would agree it largely boils down to one thing: his decision, in 2018, to take a public (and strident) position on questions around limiting access to single-sex spaces for transgender women.

Within months, Linehan’s public image had changed. No longer the affable comic who used social media to say fashionable things about the NHS, he was now – in the eyes of his detractors – a bigoted transphobe seeking to sow division. Naturally, this became a point of concern for the musical’s two major backers – West End supremo Sonia Friedman and the comedy mogul Jimmy Mulville.

Early in 2020, Linehan recalls being summoned to Friedman’s office for a discussion about toning down his social media positions. ‘I had already been getting a lot of pressure at this point about what I was saying,’ he tells me. ‘Then she said something that really triggered me and we ended up having a full on row. She said I was on the wrong side of history – and that really irked me.’

...

But there are questions, too, about why the project would have been so difficult. As Linehan points out, similar controversies around J.K. Rowling (who is also routinely branded a Terf, or ‘trans-exclusionary radical feminist’) haven’t dented the success of the Harry Potter stage play.

Could the show have been disrupted by demonstrators? Probably not: the West End has ramped up its security after protestors from Just Stop Oil managed to halt a performance of Les Misérables last year. The activists have since been convicted of aggravated trespass, having cost the show’s producers £60,000, and are due for sentencing.

Linehan has a more cynical assessment of it all. He thinks that Hat Trick Productions, Mulville’s multi-million-pound comedy company, pulled the show due to industry politics. ‘He doesn’t want to have the Derry Girls walking out in protest,’ he says. The show was a huge hit for Hat Trick, and one of its lead actresses, Nicola Coughlan, is a big advocate for gender politics. ‘I don’t think Jimmy actually believes any of this stuff about gender,’ he says. Instead, he suggests, Hat Trick is looking after its bottom line.

Speaking over the telephone, Mulville gives his assessment of the situation. ‘If you’d have told me six years ago, this would happen then I wouldn’t have believed you,’ he says with a sigh. The decision to pull the plug wasn’t anything to do with Linehan’s views, he insists, but due to the relationship with his former partners souring. Friedman confirmed that her company was no longer looking to produce the show, but declined to offer any comment.