Eating the Peach:
When Mozart met Mick Kelly

produced and presented by
Parrabbola

The Company

Written by Brian Abbott

Directed by Philip Parr

with

Kevin West as Michael Kelly
Jane Streeton as Nancy Storace
Jonathan Tilbrook
as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart  & Stephen Storace
and Leon Berger as almost everyone else!

click here to read biographies of the company

Epitaph by TJ Dibdin on Michael Kelly,






















Here lies (and you seldom have met with his like
For simple sincerity) good-natured Mike:
His rich native humour, his purse, heart and table,
With genuine welcome, he gave you while able:
No sycophant he, as true candour must vouch;
Though without any disinclination to Crouch
To those who were ‘pleased to be pleased,’ few could bring
More talent for rational mirth; let him sing,
Say, mimic, or blunder, he kept up the ball;
Was severe upon none, unaffected to all:
He pleased, by a manner completely his own,
The theatre, festival, cottage or throne:
Placed high on a sixpenny seat, none so low,
But cried, ‘Bravo! Mike Kelly!’ or, next would you go
To see Michael where rank with philanthropy reigned,
You’d find to invite him his King not disdained.
Though Puritan zeal Mike’s profession should curse,
Such self-esteemed betters than him may prove worse:
For tranquil, nay, cheerful, to death he resigned him,
When he left many saints and more sinners behind him.

Singer, composer, actor, impresario, traveller and romantic, Michael Kelly was a figure of historical significance both in the sense of what he himself achieved and the characters, incidents and enterprises he encountered. Born in Dublin in 1762, he made his way to Vienna via studies in Naples and Palermo to become a friend of Mozart, and his choice for the comic roles of Don Basilio and Don Curzio in the first performances of Le Nozze di Figaro . In the course of a long life (for the time ~ he died in 1826), he encountered, Haydn, Gluck, Paisiello, Salieri and many other prominent composers, and in his period as actor, singer, theatre manager and composer for the London stage he numbered Keane, Kemble, Mrs.Siddons and many of the nobility amongst his close friends, though his strongest affections seem to have been for Sheridan, whose many documented shortcomings he was able to overlook in deference to his great talent and fundamental generosity of spirit. Due to the nature of his profession he was obliged to travel extensively throughout Europe, which was a hazardous enough enterprise during a very tempestuous period of history, and he records being captured by pirates, the victim of one assassination attempt for alleged ill-judged attentions to a lady, another for defamation of what would be called today a Mafioso, and various other trials associated with the life of a travelling player, albeit a very respected one. His life history, principally gleaned from his Reminiscences, reads a bit like an opera plot itself.
Kevin West is one of this country’s leading singing actors, and has sung the roles of Don Basilio and Don Curzio over three hundred times for major opera houses in this country and abroad, and broadcast it on radio and television. Like Kelly he has enjoyed a substantial career in Italy and has had roles written for him by some of the world’s leading composers, including Jonathan Dove, Judith Weir and Stephen Oliver. In between engagements in Europe and the Far East he maintains a commitment to smaller scale performance, of which Eating the Peach is the latest manifestation.

"both Kevin West as Kelly and Jane Streeton as Nancy put in spirited performances"

"The risque scene in which Kelly hides beneath Nancy's skirts and elicits a 'passionate' singing performance from her, complete with roling eyes and double entendres, was the comic highlight of the evening."

"as a musical biography, this was an amusing characterisation."

Eating the Peach, was given a work in progress preview performance at the Georgian Theatre Royal, as part of the 2006 Swaledale Festival.

Eating the Peach is now available for touring,
All enquiries should be directed to Kevin West and Philip Parr on eatingthepeach@care4free.net

Eating the Peach includes music by Mozart, Stephen Storace, Gluck, Sarti, Paisiello, Salieri, and many more - including Kelly himself!