New book BACKSTAGE CONFIDENTIAL: SECRETS OF A STAGEHAND released
Backstage Confidential lifts the curtain on the world of show business from a viewpoint rarely seen: the wings.
What does a stagehand actually do? With warmth and wit, Eden Phillips evokes backstage work in the 1960s and ’70s: rigging sets, working up in the flys, operating revolves and tackling the countless unseen tasks that keep a show running. Along the way he encounters an array of theatrical greats, from Sir Noël Coward, Sir John Gielgud and Dame Judi Dench to directors Hal Prince and Harold Pinter. And that’s only the respectable part!
A lively, humorous and affectionate insider’s glimpse from the other side of the stage door.
Beginning his career at seventeen, Eden Phillips rose to become London’s youngest head flyman before veering into acting, writing musicals and publishing. Yet whether his book is observing life in the theatre or the wider world, he always looks on with an ironic outsider’s eye.
Eden said: “I’ve told so many name-dropping stories about my time in the theatre to so many people over so many years, that it now seems a good idea to take the advice of more than one listener, which is basically: shut up and write the damn thing down!
“What happened when Sir John Gielgud forgot his lines? Why did Harold Pinter direct the stage crew more than the actors? How do you keep Ginger Rogers literally in the spotlight? The answers are all here, with a host of name-dropping anecdotes besides.
“Part memoir, part love letter to the theatre, Backstage Confidential is a funny, nostalgic and occasionally indiscreet journey through a hidden world.”