When Ron Hutchinson’s play Moonlight and Magnolias made its UK debut at the Tricycle Theatre in North London last year, it seemed it would be the perfect companion piece to go with the new musical Gone With the Wind. While Trevor Nunn’s production offered the stage version to the epic book and film, Hutchinson’s play offered the inside story about how two Jews — producer David O Selznick and writer Ben Hecht — collaborated with the WASP director Vic Fleming in a desperate bid to rewrite the dodgy script for the film.
But since then the musical has turned out to be a fist-eatingly boring turkey, surely gobbling its way to early closure, while Hutchinson’s play, Notebook learns, is making a welcome return to the Tricycle in July. The lesson of which is, if it is a companion piece to Moonlight and Magnolias you want, read the book, watch the movie, buy the T-shirt if you must (they bear the line “Frankly my dear I don’t give a damn”), but steer clear of the musical.
