Allelujah! has turned out to be a much bigger proposition than I’d imagined when I’d finished writing it. I blithely included a possible choir without indicating how many singers there were or what or where they should sing. My only stipulation was that it shouldn’t include the geriatric Horst Wessel ‘I am h-a-p-p-y’. Nicholas Hytner, to whom after twenty-eight years of working together I am almost routinely indebted, saw more possibilities in the play than I had, seizing on my brief stage directions to make the choir a staple feature of the production and with dance besides. This brought in my friend and long-term collaborator George Fenton who has arranged the music and, in charge of the (to me, wonderful) dancing, Arlene Phillips. The pair of them have coaxed out of the cast music and movement of which they may have thought themselves incapable. I hope they have found the experience enjoyable; neither singer nor dancer myself, I have often envied them. We have had much help and encouragement from our medical advisor Jonathan Sheldon and also from the staff of various hospitals, particularly Leeds General Infirmary, Killingbeck Hospital in Leeds and St Mary’s, Paddington.
In his opening talk to the cast, Nicholas Hytner said, ‘We may not get it right but we will get it real.’ I’d like to thank everyone who has helped in that process.