Soap star hits high notes as operatic legend: Glorious!

Glorious! written by Peter Quilter. Directed by Kirk Jameson. At The Belgrade Theatre from 19 – 23 May 2026.

Review by Amanda Burden

It is a truth universally acknowledged that I cannot sing. Never mind the people who say kindly “but everyone can sing!”. My caterwauling would have Gareth Malone reaching for a stiff gin with a Nurofen chaser and quietly rethinking every life choice that led him to standing in a draughty church hall coaxing middle managers through a rendition of Fix You. So I had a personal interest in Glorious!, starring former Coronation Street star Wendi Peters at the Belgrade Theatre.

For the uninitiated, Glorious! tells the story of Florence Foster Jenkins, the New York heiress whose love of opera vastly and catastrophically exceeded her ability to perform it. Jenkins was filthy rich, enthusiastic and entirely incapable of hitting the correct note even had it been gift-wrapped and sent recorded delivery by a passing tenor. Yet this did not deter her. Indeed, it appears only to have encouraged her, which frankly makes her the spiritual ancestor of every man who has ever appeared on The Apprentice describing himself as "the new brain of business”.

Victor Borge apparently coined the term “messy-soprano” for singers like her, although listening to Florence’s recordings suggests even that may be charitable. Her performances became legendary: private recitals attended by society figures suppressing hysterics behind opera glasses, culminating in the now infamous 1944 concert at Carnegie Hall when, aged 76, she delivered Mozart arias to an audience who reportedly laughed themselves sick. Imagine spending several hundred pounds on tickets to hear the Queen of the Night performed like a strangled satnav. That was the vibe. It was like a Fyre Festival for the Second World War hoi polloi.

Of course, Florence has become a folk hero over the years - the patron saint of Feel The Fear and Do It Anyway. Peter Quilter’s stage play wisely leans into both. Yes, it is very funny. But it is also unexpectedly moving - less “haha, terrible singing” and more “oh God, the unbearable human instinct to be loved and applauded despite all evidence to the contrary.”

And in the role, Peters is magnificent. She drifts through drawing rooms and concert halls dripping with diamonds, a marcel-waved Queen Mother in a filmy peignoir and high-camp angel wings, with a disdainful gurn that would put Wilfred Brambles to shame. Singing badly on purpose is notoriously difficult, like acting drunk, or pretending to enjoy experimental doom metal (I come from a family of music geeks) - but she gets every gloriously wrong note spot on.

We know Peters can actually sing, of course. I still remember her triple-threat turn on the long-lamented Stars in Their Eyes when she transformed herself into Björk with the fearless commitment of someone who fully understands that performance is about absolute conviction. Even an unscheduled tumble didn't stop her. She simply sprang to her feet and continued undeterred. Here, she bursts onto the stage in a similarly unconquerable whirl of self-belief, trimmed abundantly with feathers and sequins, charging through every solo with the confidence of Liz Truss measuring up No 10 for new curtains.

And that is what makes Peters' Florence so oddly lovable. She never plays her as a joke. Florence is flawed and vain - but also kind, generous and deeply earnest. There is something painfully recognisable about her determination to persist in the face of overwhelming evidence. Watching her belt out Mozart like a malfunctioning kettle, I was reminded of the time Pauline Quirke and Linda Robson of Birds of a Feather fame ball-gowned up and took to the stage next to Lesley Garrett to perform Rule Britannia at the Proms. This is not a fever dream. It actually happened.

The production pivots seamlessly between farce and pathos. One moment the audience is helpless with laughter as Florence massacres an operatic trill with the audio finesse of a sonic boom, the next the metaphoric curtain parts to reveal the loneliness beneath the delusion. When one furious music lover finally interrupts to tell Florence exactly how dreadful she is, Peters lets the bravado flicker just long enough to break your heart, in the style of a hapless recipient of four red buzzers on Britain's Got Talent. For a moment we see the woman whose entire identity rests on a dream nobody could take away from her. Then - fabulously - she recovers and decides the critics are clueless anyway. It took all my self-restraint not to stand and applaud.

Alongside her, Matthew James Morrison is superb as coiffed and dapper accompanist Cosmé McMoon: pianist, narrator, enabler and increasingly traumatised witness to musical crimes against humanity. His deadpan Noel Coward-esque reactions provide the perfect counter to Florence’s untrammelled enthusiasm, and his rapport with Peters gives the show a genuine sparkle and warmth.

There is also an unspoken question at the centre of the story: was Florence genuinely unaware she was terrible? Some theories suggest illness affected her hearing, while others insist she was shielded by wealth and flattery. Personally, I suspect she understood more than people think. Beneath the Donald Trump-esque bluster and steel toe-capped lacy carapace of bravado, beat the heart of a true Ethel Merman-calibre showbiz legend, who cared less about bum notes and more about entertainment. There is a defiance to her famous line - “People may say I can’t sing, but no one can say I didn’t sing” - that feels oddly modern. In an age where women were - still are - expected to fade into that background unless they can perform flawlessly, Florence hurled herself at life wearing an emperor's new suit of satin capes and singing Puccini several keys north of sanity. You have to take your hat off.

By the end of Glorious!, the audience is cheering not because Florence Foster Jenkins was a brilliant singer, but because she wasn’t - yet still dared to be terrible publicly and joyfully. Which, when you think about it, is probably more courage than most of us manage in a lifetime. It's a battle-cry for everyone who has ever been mortifyingly caught in the act of singing into a hairbrush. This is just a general comment. It does not trigger any personal disturbing memories, I assure you.

I left the theatre both entertained and inspired - although, for the peace of mind and general safety of the public, I can happily confirm I will not be pursuing my own singing career anytime soon.

For tickets: https://www.belgrade.co.uk/events/glorious