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Backstage Confidential lifts the curtain on West End Theatre from a viewpoint rarely heard: the wings. Beginning his career at seventeen, Eden Phillips rose to become London’s youngest head flyman before veering into acting, writing and publishing — yet always remained an observer of the theatre’s hidden world. With warmth and wit, he evokes backstage work in the 1960s and ’70s: rigging sets, working 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. A lively, humorous and affectionate insider’s glimpse into a golden age of British theatre.
Backstage Confidential lifts the curtain on West End Theatre from a viewpoint rarely heard: the wings. Beginning his career at seventeen, Eden Phillips rose to become London’s youngest head flyman before veering into acting, writing and publishing — yet always remained an observer of the theatre’s hidden world. With warmth and wit, he evokes backstage work in the 1960s and ’70s: rigging sets, working 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. A lively, humorous and affectionate insider’s glimpse into a golden age of British theatre.