Rehearsals begin this week for the world premiere production of The Flea by James Fritz (Lava, Ross & Rachel, Parliament Square) at The Yard Theatre. Class, crisis, cover-ups, and the crown feature in this retelling of the Cleveland Street scandal which shook the country in 1889.
The Flea will be directed by The Yard’s Founder and Artistic Director, Jay Miller and runs from 11 October to 18 November (press night, 17 October). The cast includes Connor Finch, Scott Karim, Norah Lopez Holden, Séamus McLean Ross and Sonny Poon Tip.
Now a largely forgotten episode in London and LGBTQ+ history, the Cleveland Street scandal rocked the nation when a homosexual male brothel in Fitzrovia was discovered by police. At the time, sexual acts between men were illegal in Britain, and the brothel’s clients faced possible prosecution and certain levels of social rejection if discovered.
The government was accused of covering up aspects of the story to protect the names of aristocrats and other prominent patrons. It was rumoured that Prince Albert Victor, Queen Victoria’s grandson and second-in-line to the British throne, had visited. The police acquired testimonies that Lord Arthur Somerset, an equerry to the Prince of Wales, was a patron but both he and the brothel keeper, Charles Hammond, managed to flee abroad before a prosecution could be brought.
Although no clients were ever prosecuted, the male prostitutes, who also worked as telegraph messenger boys for the General Post Office were unable to rely on the same network of protection as their upper-class patrons. In acts that echo throughout the ages, they were tried by public opinion, humiliated in the press and given custodial sentences.
