TheMarketingblog

The Profumo Affair / “High jinks and low-life characters running amok at the heart of the stuffy, complacent British Establishment”

Sex, Lies, and Class Politics Set to Music

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s indignation at the scapegoating of Stephen Ward 50 years ago inspires a hit stage musical about the Profumo Affair

Strange is as apt a description of the Profumo Affair as any.

A little history: As Britain’s powerful War Secretary, responsible for the nation’s armed forces and military strategy, John “Jack” Profumo was privy to the U.K.’s nuclear secrets at the height of the Cold War.

When this “respectable” married man and pillar of the Conservative Party was found to have enjoyed a long affair with Christine Keeler, a 19-year-old nightclub showgirl he met at a party thrown by friends, all high-society hedonists, and that he may have unwittingly shared her with a Soviet spy, the British political establishment panicked.

The opposition Labour Party made hay, and alarm bells sounded at the highest levels in Washington. John “Jack” Profumoboth took a close look and apparently anxious interest in this very English scandal that combined aging Tory aristocrats and nubile young tarts, high jinks and low-life characters running amok at the heart of the stuffy, complacent British Establishment.

 

Leave a Comment