Backstage Confidential

Secrets of a Stagehand

Life behind the scenes in London’s West End, Backstage Confidential follows Eden Phillips from teenage stagehand to seasoned theatre insider. Featuring encounters with theatrical legends, it reveals the hidden craft, characters and chaos that power British theatre from the 1960s onwards.

Backstage Confidential lifts the curtain on West End Theatre from a viewpoint rarely heard: the wings.

Beginning his career at seventeen, Eden Phillips rose to become London’s youngest head flyman before veering into acting, writing and publishing — yet always remained an observer of the theatre’s hidden world.

With warmth and wit, he evokes backstage work in the 1960s and ’70s: rigging sets, working the flys, operating revolves and tackling the countless unseen tasks that keep a show running. Along the way he encounters an array of theatrical greats, from Sir Noël Coward, Sir John Gielgud and Dame Judi Dench to directors Hal Prince and Harold Pinter.

A lively, humorous and affectionate insider’s glimpse into a golden age of British theatre.

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