Eagle-eyed aficionados of the 1964 epic war film Zulu will recognize actor David Kernan as Private Frederick Hitch, one of the British soldiers who successfully defended Rorke’s Drift hospital and warehouse during the 19th century Anglo-Zulu war.
“How can I hit them if I can’t see them?” As Kernan climbs the ramparts, he says: Moments later, his character suffers a gunshot wound, but still manages to keep communications open with the hospital and supply ammunition to his comrades, actions for which Hitch earned the Victoria Cross.
But Kernan, who has died aged 85 after contracting Alzheimer’s disease, devoted much of his career to musical theater and gained fame as Britain’s leading interpreter of the songs of Broadway composer Stephen Sondheim.
He made his debut with Sondheim as Count Carl-Magnus Malcolm in A Little Night Music at the Adelphi Theater (1975-76). Jean Simmons was the star of the production, fresh off a US tour, playing a wandering actor who rekindles a romance with his old flame, played by Joss Ackland. The show, a romantic tale inspired by director Ingmar Bergman’s 1955 film Smiles of a Summer Night, replicated its Broadway success.
Cleo Laine and Johnny Dankworth had asked Kernan to create a revue for the Stables theater in Wavendon, Buckinghamshire, and Kernan, fascinated by Sondheim’s music and lyrics, had the idea of creating a never-before-done show from his songs. He performed live in Britain.
After consulting Sondheim, Kernan sought help from broadcaster Ned Sherrin, producer of the ’60s satirical TV series That Was the Week That Was, in which Kernan performed topical songs. They hired Millicent Martin and Julia McKenzie, who had appeared on the show, and staged The Sondheim Songbook in 1975, which included songs from shows such as West Side Story, Gypsy, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Company and more. Some are follies co-written with other composers.
The show, with the new title Side by Side by Sondheim (suggested by McKenzie), was run the following year by Cameron Mackintosh in the West End, first at the Mermaid theatre, then at Wyndham’s and then at the Garrick for 806 hours. performances continued with other artists until 1978. Kernan, Sherrin, Martin and McKenzie left the London production in 1977 to take the show to Broadway with special permission from the US actors’ union Equity. All four earned Tony Award nominations, before being replaced by others.
Clive Barnes wrote in the New York Times: “Mr. Kernan is charming and flamboyant, with a sparkling intellect, and, like his easy-going women, displays a great sense of fun and sometimes a dreamy sense of poetic passion. ”
Kernan has organized other Sondheim compilation shows, including Moving On (Bridewell theatre, 2000), and became a patron of the Stephen Sondheim Society, founded in 1993, providing valuable advice to artists in their workshops.
He was born in East Ham, London, to Lily (née Russell) and underground train driver Joseph Kernan. His father left home shortly after his birth, and from the age of four to 14 Kernan lived with his grandmother in Oxford, where he served as choirmaster at the University Church of St Mary the Virgin. “I was a pretty fat and plain kid,” she recalled, “but I had a beautiful soprano voice.”
At 15 he left Portchester school in Bournemouth, trained as a conductor and performed with the local Shakespeare Players. He then worked as a shop assistant in London and then entered repertory theater as assistant stage manager and actor at the Theater Royal in Huddersfield Theater (1957).
After its West End debut, Where’s Charley?, starring Norman Wisdom. He spent some of his earnings on singing, dancing and acting lessons in his choir at the Palace theater (1958-59).
His vocal talents were featured on television on the BBC current affairs series Tonight alongside Millicent Martin. Sherrin, one of the producers, then took the duo to That Was the Week That Was. “I think Ned wanted a mix of Oxbridge types and showbiz people, so he brought us in to lighten things up,” Kernan told Stage. “It was a weird mix, but it worked.”
He returned to musicals as the Hon Ernest Woolley in Our Man Crichton (Shaftesbury theatre, 1964-65), and in 1776 he returned to the West End to play US founding father Edward Rutledge (at the New Theatre, now Noël Coward ). , 1970). He appeared in the revue This Thing Called Love (Ambassadors theatre, 1983) and played Ken Livingstone, leader of the Greater London council, in Sherrin’s political satire The Ratepayers’ Iolanthe, to the tunes of Gilbert & Sullivan, at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. 1984.
Kernan continued to create his own revues even after the style went out of fashion. In 1986, he conceived and directed Jerome Kern Goes to Hollywood, which moved from London’s Donmar Warehouse to Broadway. In 1994 he designed Noël Coward and Cole Porter’s celebration of Christmas/Cole – Let’s Do It at the Oxford Playhouse, then at the Chichester Festival theatre. Next came Dorothy Fields Forever (2002), about the American songwriter, created with Eden Phillips and performed at Jermyn Street and the King’s Head theatres.
On television, she was one of the regular featured singers on On the Bright Side (1959-60), a satirical sketch show starring Stanley Baxter that they debuted at the Phoenix theater in 1961 as On the Brighter Side. Kernan also appeared in Upstairs. Downstairs in 1971 as an army captain who has an affair with Lady Marjorie (Rachel Gurney), and rare film roles included a bard in Up the Chastity Belt and a holidaymaker in Carry On Abroad (both 1972).
His autobiography From East Ham to Broadway was published in 2019.
Kernan is survived by her husband, Stuart Forsyth, whom she married in 2014 following a civil partnership in 2008.
• David Stanley Kernan, actor, singer, producer and director, born June 23, 1938; Died December 26, 2023