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Despite the media hullabaloo about BNP leader Nick Griffin, Bonnie Greer says he was nothing but a pub bore!

PLAYWRIGHT and critic Bonnie Greer is certainly renowned within the creative industries, having amassed a wealth of theatre experience both in the USA, where she was born, and in Britain where she’s resided since the late 1980s.

But now, the Chicago-born writer is arguably best-known – here in the UK at least – for her recent showdown with BNP leader Nick Griffin on BBC programme, Question Time. Despite being seated next to Griffin on the panel, Greer held her own and even resisted the temptation to slap the leader of the racist party!

However, her attention is now fixed on the current run of her hit production, Marilyn & Ella. Following a successful run at the Theatre Royal Stratford East last year, and a previously sold-out stint at the Edinburgh Festival in 2007, the production, which is written by Greer and directed by renowned British director and actor Colin McFarlane, is now in the last week of its limited run in the West End.

Showing at the Apollo Theatre this Sunday (November 29) – hopefully as a pre-cursor to a longer West End run in 2010 – Marilyn & Ella tells the story of the little-known friendship between Hollywood starlet Marilyn Monroe and jazz legend Ella Fitzgerald.

Greer was only too happy to tell Davina Morris about the production – and about almost coming to blows with Nick Griffin!

What made you decide to tell the story of Marilyn Monroe’s friendship with Ella Fitzgerald?

I was working on something else and I had the television on the Biography channel. There was a programme on about Marilyn Munroe. I was never a real fan of hers. I didn’t dislike her but she just wasn’t on my radar. So the TV was just on in the background and suddenly Ella Fitzgerald’s face came on. I thought to myself, ‘What’s this about?’ It was just a short part of the programme but it said that Marilyn Monroe had gone to the owner of the Mocambo – which was the biggest nightclub on the West coast – and said, ‘If you book Ella Fitzgerald for five nights, I will be here every night.’ I was thinking, ‘This is unbelievable. Why hasn’t anybody told this story?’

Why do you think nobody had told the story?

I think it’s because Marilyn was the ultimate white woman. She was blonde and weak and didn’t have a mind of her own – she was almost untouchable. So I don’t think people wanted to know that she was also interested in the Civil Rights movement and that she had this friendship with this black woman.

What do you make of modern day Britain? Are we a racially integrated society?

I think we stay apart from each other too much. It’s certainly not as bad as it is in America, but here in Britain, we don’t know one another as well as we should. I find it extraordinary that this country, which is relatively small, can contain so many different cultures. When I first came to Britain at the end of the ‘80s, I lived in Brixton. In Brixton, I found all types of different people. Yes, there were tensions and problems, but on the whole, I was amazed at the amount of different nations that met one another in Brixton. I think we still need to look outside our own comfort zones and get to know others, but that said, we’re further ahead than many people think.

You think that even after encountering Nick Griffin and hearing the values he upholds?

Well I wish he’d travel outta here and stay out, to be honest with you! But the fact that people watched that show and it got people talking is an amazing thing. That’s why I have a lot of hope for this country.

Did you really want to slap him?

I did – especially when he talked about the “non-violent” wing of the Ku Klux Klan. I remember sitting there and feeling my hand going up. I had to tell myself, ‘No, don’t hit this man otherwise it’ll be over!’

After the show, he was ridiculed for coming across like a bumbling idiot. Did you think he’d come across more intelligently than he did?

I think everybody did. That’s why so many people were scared of him being on air. But that’s what happens when you don’t give people like him airtime; people start to build up urban myths about people like him. Most of us have never been to a BNP rally so we wouldn’t know what he was really about. And with him getting all that attention [before the show], people were bound to think he was heavy. But after seeing him on air, people got to see what he was really about. I mean after the programme, I even had white kids saying to me that they were embarrassed that this was the guy was standing up for white people!

So what was he like off-air? On-air, he seemed to get on well with you!

He thought I was his friend. He gave me his card and told me we should get together! I was thinking, ‘This man is deluded.’ After about one minute into the show, I just thought, ‘This man doesn’t deserve these people’s attention.’ He’s a pub bore. He’s like the brother-in-law you don’t like who comes round for Sunday lunch and you just wanna tell him to ‘shut up!’ That’s all he was.

Marilyn & Ella is at the Apollo Theatre, London on November 29. For tickets, call 0844 412 4658 or visit www.marilynandella.com

Published: 23 November 2009
Issue: 1399

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