A Hymn To Him (Jeremy Irons)

Falling Upwards Pride Special

Do you have a really niche dream? One that isn’t necessarily aspirational, but would enrich your life immeasurably if it were to come true?

My niche dream is that I would love to see Jeremy Irons in a play and, at the stage door, present a copy of his 1987 recording of My Fair Lady for him to sign, just to see the look on his face.

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It’s Pride Week in London, so I wanted to pay tribute to the inadvertent King of Camp. Maybe it isn't within my right to do so, but I have decided that the queer community should forgive Jeremy Irons’s Huffington Post interview, mostly because he, and specifically the way he leans back, folds his arm and glares at the presenter as he asks, ‘Could a father not marry his son?’ is so deeply funny and high camp that it immediately disqualifies itself as a hate crime.

Besides, if he was really homophobic, how could he play Charles Ryder in Brideshead Revisited? Makes you think.

Jeremy has since apologised and recently performed in a concert version of The Lion King at the Hollywood Bowl, best known for the stage debut (and possible exit) of North West. As the voice of Scar, he sang Be Prepared - an act of incredible gall from someone who didn’t even finish the song and had to be dubbed by Jim Cummings¹.

Jeremy's 'singing' 'career' is a brief and tragic one, and yet, when I found out that he appeared as Henry Higgins in a recording of Lerner and Loewe's My Fair Lady, I thought the stars of my special interests (fictional Catholics and musical theatre) had aligned. I could not have been more wrong.