by Fans of the 1964 war film epic Zulu will remember actor David Kernan in the role of Private Frederick Hitch, one of the British soldiers who defended Rorke’s Drift hospital and depot during the Anglo-Zulu war in the 19th century.
“How can I shoot them if I can’t see them?” Kernan says as he mounts the ramps. Some time later his character suffers from a bullet, but he still manages to keep communication with the hospital open and supply ammunition to his comrades, the actions that earned Hitch the Victoria Cross.
But Kernan, who has died aged 85 after suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, devoted most of his career to musical theatre, gaining fame as Britain’s leading interpreter of the songs of Broadway composer Stephen Sondheim.
He first starred in Sondheim as Count Carl-Magnus Malcolm in A Little Night Music at the Adelphi theater (1975-76). Jean Simmons, fresh from the production’s US tour, starred as a traveling actress rekindling romance with an old flame, played by Joss Ackland. The show, a romantic tale inspired by director Ingmar Bergman’s 1955 film Smiles of a Summer Night, was a success again on Broadway.
Cleo Laine and Johnny Dankworth asked Kernan to put together a revue for their Stables theater in Wavendon, Buckinghamshire, and, with Sondheim’s music and lyrics, he intended to create a show of his songs that had never existed before. . performed live in Britain.
After consulting with Sondheim, Kernan enlisted the help of broadcaster Ned Sherrin, producer of the 60s satirical television series That Was the Week That Was, in which Kernan sang topical songs. They recruited Millicent Martin, who was also on the show, and Julia McKenzie, and in 1975 they staged The Sondheim Songbook, with numbers from shows such as West Side Story, Gypsy, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Company and Follies, some written jointly with other composers.
With a new title, Side by Side by Sondheim (suggested by McKenzie), Cameron Mackintosh produced the show in the West End the following year, at the Mermaid theatre, then at Wyndham’s, and then at the Garrick, where it ran for 806. performances, continuing with other artists until 1978. Kernan, Sherrin, Martin and McKenzie left the London production in 1977 to bring the show to Broadway, with a special concession from the US actors’ union, Equity. All four earned Tony award nominations, before once again succumbing to others.
Clive Barnes wrote in the New York Times: “Mr. Kernan is all charm and polish, with a witty wit, and, like his well-matched ladies, displays a great sense of fun, and, at times, a dreamy, poetic passion. “
Kernan 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 performers in its workshops.
He was born in East Ham, London, to Lily (née Russell) and Joseph Kernan, an underground train driver. His father walked out shortly after his birth and, from the age of four to the age of 14, Kernan lived with his grandmother in Oxford, where he was a chorister at the University Church of St Mary the Virgin. “I was a rather fat, simple child,” he said, “but I had a very nice soprano voice.”
At the age of 15, he left Portchester school, Bournemouth, trained as a chef and joined the local Shakespeare Players. He then worked as a shop assistant in London before starting work on the repertory theater as assistant stage manager and actor at the Theater Royal, Huddersfield (1957).
After his West End debut, in the chorus of Where’s Charley?, by Norman Wisdom, at the Palace theater (1958-59), he spent part of his earnings on singing, dancing and acting lessons.
His vocal talents were showcased on television with Millicent Martin in the BBC current affairs series Tonight. Sherrin, one of their producers, then brought the pair 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 the Stage. “It was an odd combination, but it worked.”
He returned with musicals such as the Honorable Ernest Woolley in Our Man Crichton (Shaftesbury theatre, 1964-65) and was back in the West End with Edward Rutledge, a father of US origin, who played in 1776 (at the New Theatre, the now Noël Coward). , 1970). He was in the revue This Thing Called Love (Ambassadors Theatre, 1983) and played the role of Ken Livingstone, head of the Greater London Council, in Sherrin’s political satire The Ratepayers’ Iolanthe, with songs by Gilbert & Sullivan, at the Queen Elizabeth Hall i. 1984.
Kernan continued to create his own revues even after the style went out of fashion. He conceived and directed Jerome Kern Goes to Hollywood in 1986, taking it from the Donmar Warehouse in London to Broadway. In 1994, he conceived a celebration of Noël Coward and Cole Porter, Noel/Cole – Let’s Do It, at the Oxford Playhouse, then the Chichester Festival theatre. Later came Dorothy Fields Forever (2002), about the American lyricist, co-created with Eden Phillips and performed at the Jermyn Street and King’s Head theatres.
On television, he was a regular lead singer in On the Bright Side (1959-60), a satirical sketch show with Stanley Baxter in which they performed as On the Brighter Side at the Phoenix Theater in 1961. Kernan also appeared in Upstairs Downstairs, as an army captain involved with Lady Marjorie (Rachel Gurney) in 1971, and his rare film roles included a troubadour in Up the Chastity Belt and a tourist 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 after a civil partnership in 2008.
• David Stanley Kernan, actor, singer, producer and director, born 23 June 1938; he died 26 December 2023
