Sandton audience shows love for Mad about the Boys

The early 20th century wasn’t the most liberal point in our civilised history as a human society, least of all for women, children and members of the LGBT community (which didn’t exist socially in those years.

Theatremaker and production director Amanda Bothma’s latest musical cabaret Mad About the Boys revisited those years, weaving an account reflecting on the lives of the entertainment pioneers, Noel Coward, Cole Porter and Ivor Novello.

The three 1920s artists led queer existences at a point in history where men had to fight for their nation when commanded and marry women. There were no two ways about it. In Mad about the Boys, Daniel Anderson (accompanied on the piano by Paul Ferreira) enacts why Noel Coward became a spy for Winston Churchill towards becoming knighted at age 70 (and his dalliance with Prince George). Furthermore, Anderson’s performance weaves through how Cole came to marry Linda Porter-Rose; and how Novello was such a bad pilot, that he got desk duty for crashing two aeroplanes during the war.

To Bothma, Novello wrote beautiful, old-fashioned, romantic pieces where you could escape to a world of magic and mystery; Cole Porter was funny with his risqué double entendres, and Coward – a clown – wrote in witty tones.

“Mad about the Boys was the first cabaret I ever wrote for Daniel – that was in 2020 – it’s about the three entertainers of the early 20th century,” said Bothma. “People always regard the 1920s as a jolly time, though I think of it as the time where people tried to escape the reality of what happened, which is why I feel they were so frivolous.”

So enamoured by Anderson and Ferreira on stage on the show’s opening night on March 14, Mad about the Boys drew a standing ovation from the large audience.

Mad about the Boys ran at Theatre on the Square from March 14 – 23.

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