“Imagine Freddie Mercury running through a branch of Elizabeth Duke wearing a sellotape suit”

Tobacco Factory Theatres and the Wardrobe Theatre present this acclaimed comedy musical by Anglesey-born writer/composer/performer Seiriol Davies.

Henry Cyril Paget was one of the Earth’s wealthiest men, until he lost it all by being too damn fabulous. The fifth Marquis of Anglesey blew his family’s colossal fortune on diamond frocks, lilac-dyed poodles and putting on simply amazing plays to which nobody came, causing a very 19th century scandal. His fabulous flame burned brightly, briefly and transvestitely until he died at just 29, after which his outraged family destroyed every record of him ever having had existed.

Winner of The Stage Edinburgh Award, Davies’s musical is a true story of being too weird for the world but desperately not wanting it to forget you. A frothy, glossy costume drama musical about expectations, manliness, disappointment and the stories we tell to convince ourselves it’s all going well, and the moments we realise it’s not.

Here’s Davies to tell us more.

How did you first hear about this remarkable man?
I grew up on Anglesey (the flattish pretty bit in the sea you pass through on the way to Ireland) and as a boy I used to make my parents take me to visit Plas Newydd, the Paget family palace. There are statues and portraits honouring the first Marquis (a big Napoleonic War guy), the second, third, fourth… and of the fifth, our guy? A few laminated photocopies stuck above the doormat in the back porch.
But those pictures! Google Henry Cyril Paget and you’ll see: imagine Freddie Mercury running through a branch of Elizabeth Duke wearing a sellotape suit. But next to them was a paragraph saying that the family had burnt all of his possessions after his death, and carried on like he’d never existed. And that clanged my little adolescent bell of social injustice. So, because I believe in swift and decisive action, I decided to make a musical about it two decades later.

Henry Cyril Paget, Fifth Marquess of Anglesey, photographed in 1900 by John Wickens

What led Paget towards these remarkable excesses? Was it all in his own personality, or did it partly come out of the company he kept?
It’s not clear. Part of what I like about him is that he just sort of… did it. The family at the time claimed that being raised partially by French actors turned him into a ponce and a show-off, which I really adore as an origin story. Also, it’s tempting to see the influences of people like the dancer Loie Fuller, the fin-de-siecle Berlin and Dresden set and the composer/novelist/painter/aesthete Lord Berners, as well as stuff like Gilbert and Sullivan.
Check out Professor Viv Gardner’s upcoming book on Henry. She’s the world expert on him and his world. However, the thing is, we basically don’t know anything about his influences, motivations and internal voice at all, because all his diaries and letters are gone. All we have is an itinerary of these amazing things that he did, so it’s tempting to pour yourself into him and try and make sense of them. Particularly an interview he did with the Daily Mail just before he died, where he flatly denied liking wearing sparkly things and dresses and said he just liked wearing tweed. Which is just patently untrue, I mean nobody could trip and accidentally fall into that many fabulous frocks. So he’s fascinating, and because he’s such an enigma, he fascinates people… well, me at least. And he can stand for so many things.

Production images by Mihaela Bodlovic

What if anything do you think we learn from Paget’s life story?
Well, while the aim is to provide an hour and a bit of full-on entertainment (always my first responsibility with any show), it is a political show, however sparkly. Sometimes sparkle is the best way to get that shizzle across, I find. Our version of Henry’s story asks a bunch of questions, including a big one about what it means to not fit into the world; what it means to try and fit in; and what you might be sacrificing to assimilate. What does it mean to be ‘mainstream’? What the heck does it mean to ‘be yourself’? Is that something that’s inside you, or does it come from outside? The fact that Henry was born in ultimate privilege at the very heart of the Empire means that his fall from grace is writ on the biggest canvas possible. And that suited me. I’m not one for subtlety.

If Paget were alive today, where might he be found and what sort of a modern figure would he cut?
It’s really hard to imagine. The irony is that, if the indignity of having all his diaries and letters and things burnt hadn’t happened, and if we knew more or less what he was thinking when he did all this stuff, there’s every chance he might not be interesting at all. He might just be a vain rich dude who liked diamond pumps. He’d be an Instagram celebrity. Maybe. But let’s assume he was delightful. Ooh, what if he self-funded a massive completely mental movie. Like Tommy Wiseau, but with Cate Blanchett and Chris Pratt in it. He could have like a Marvel Cinematic Universe of Henry Cyril. Or he might be in Berlin making obscure electronic dance music.

The press release calls it a “fierce, hilarious, tragi-gorgeous, ripped-up new musical.” Explain ‘ripped-up’?
It’s just something I started to use to describe it when we first started making it, which I found pleasing. Matthew (who plays Mr Alexander Keith in the show, and who devised it with me from the start) and I are big fans of musicals, so we wanted this tiny show to hit all the massive beats of a full-scale musical. But it’s a very irreverent beast and I’ve got a very short attention span: “I’ve been singing in this genre for like 25 seconds! Change! Change! Change!”. It shifts this way and that and is very free and easy with the conventions that make musicals great. I think that’s what it means. That and it sounded a bit punk, and why not.

How to Win Against History is part of Tobacco Factory Theatres BEYOND and plays at the Wardrobe Theatre from Nov 2-11. For more info and to book tickets, visit thewardrobetheatre.com/livetheatre/how-to-win-against-history

Read more: Interview: War Horse performer Simon Victor