Missing King & I song reinstated for West End to make show less 'sanitised'

Audiences for the West End’s latest lavish musical, The King and I, will take their seats with fond memories of the Hollywood film version.

Starring Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr, the 1956 film about an English governess at the court of Siam carried away five Oscars. But the new show will be a different proposition, presenting a less “sanitised” version of the story.

A song missing from the film, Western People Funny, has been reinstated, while the “fetishisation” of Asian culture has been removed. And the life of the king, played by Ken Watanabe, is less romanticised.

“Rodgers and Hammerstein were much more radical than people think,” said Sir Howard Panter, the producer behind the show which opens at the London Palladium this week.

“Bart Sher, the director, has done a great thing, which is in fact what Rodgers and Hammerstein actually wanted - it has always been played by and large as if the Asians are somehow inferior to the English people, but Bart has turned it right back so the Asian culture is plenty as sophisticated.”

The king in the West End production, first seen on Broadway, is played by the Japanese actor Ken Watanabe, with Kelli O’Hara as Anna.

Sir Howard said: “When The King and I was first produced, there were two Asian members in the entire cast. Now, every Asian part is cast with an Asian actor. So that’s one great thing. That has given it a whole physical and emotional language.

“Yul Brynner wasn’t all that Asian, as far as I’m concerned.” Brynner was Russian and has been held up in more recent years as an example of ‘yellowface’ casting.

Sir Howard added: “Quite a lot of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s early stuff was sanitised on stage and in film. Bart has gone back to a lot of the original text.

“For example, the king is fairly sexually active and shamefaced at only having 68 children. Tuptim [one the king’s concubines] is essentially there for him to have sex with. That is quite ‘out there’ in this production - not that he was being predatory, it’s just that was the culture. That was historical fact.

“What’s so interesting about it is: is being ‘western’ the measure, or isn’t it? What I hope this production does is show that these are two separate, strong cultures that share a common humanity.”

The show has its roots in the true story of Anna Leonowens, who was employed as a governess at the Siamese court in the 1860s. This latest production won four Tony Awards on Broadway.

The Rodgers and Hammerstein score includes the song, Western People Funny, which has the lines: “They feel so sentimental/About the oriental/Always try to put us inside down and upside out.”

Sher, the director, told Radio 4’s Front Row: “After it opened, that song was always cut from most productions because they were getting nervous that somehow it had either racist overtones or it complicated things.

“But when you look at the song… it’s got irony and it’s cheeky and it’s quite aggressive towards the audience, and the audience responds.”

He added: “If you watch the movie it’s basically this kind of fetishisation of the east, which I don’t think was entirely intended and I don’t find in the actual story itself. So we stripped its surfaces away and tried to get back to the core of the story.”