It’s an unusual privilege to be able to visit the real setting of a performance before watching but with “The Pleasure Garden” it would be hard not to. Just around the corner from The “Above The Stag Theatre” you’ll find the famous “Pleasure Gardens” the musical’s title depicts. Now a fairly run of the mill park area, a notice board depicts the elaborate and extraordinary history these Gardens hold. Visiting here before the performance raised my anticipation and interest to find out the intriguing past of this historic treasure chest.
Entering “Above the Stag” gives me the familiar warm atmosphere I always experience when in the LGBTQIA+ theatre. The friendly staff provided the audience with free glossy programmes that gives information furthering the knowledge the park noticeboard had displayed. The programme tells that the history of the area goes back as early as 1600 when the space was known as The New Spring Gardens and had famous visitors including diary keeper Samuel Pepys. In the 18th century, the area reached high popularity, now called the Pleasure Gardens, with its unorthodox classless policy meaning that this really was a place where all areas of life, rich or poor, could mingle. Reading this pre-show heightened my curiosity for what was to come.
When entering the theatre, the set is surprising as it is covered in building fences and construction working signs telling you to “Wear your mask” (An all too familiar notice of 2021). Knowing the history of the Gardens this is not what I expected to see but the musical begins in the present day with two builders finding a locket from the past leading to them pondering where it had originated from. With the words of a wise homeless man (The first of many characters played by the comically versatile Steve Watts), there are clues and suggestions of the past glories of what has now become a building site. The audience is then transported back in time as the fences are removed and fairy lights illuminate to the sound of, “When the lights go on at Vauxhall” to reveal a magical set suggesting the mystique and excitement of the Pleasure Gardens.
