Writer Laurence Marks tells MATT OLIVER about the inspiration and the serious issues behind his new play

In the 1960s Britain was caught in a moment of infectious optimism and cultural revolution. The country had finally emerged from the grasp of wartime austerity into a brighter and better future, heralded by the famously entrepreneurial post-war American spirit, providing perfect material for the new Marks & Gran penned musical, Save the Last Dance for Me.

“The play is set in 1963,” says Laurence Marks, one half of the pair, with Maurice Gran, that created the award-winning sitcoms The New Statesmen and Birds of a Feather. “It was a time when everything was possible and you felt your life would get moving the moment you stepped out of your door,” says the writer.

“Everyone was very much obsessed with American culture and everything – what we were listening to on the radio and watching on the television – was coming in from America. It seemed exotic and exciting and it was a fantastic time, because we’d never seen anything like it. There was this sense that everything could keep getting better.”

It is clearly a time that the writing partners are fond of, Marks having been born in 1948, and many will have heard of their other successful musical, Dreamboats and Petticoats, also set in the same period.

What sets this production apart from Dreamboats, however, is its dramatic subject matter. If the former was about teenage love, then this is about forbidden love, Save The Last Dance for me following two young sisters going on holiday on their own for the first time to the seaside.

“Like all of us would, they think it will be the most wonderful time because they’ll be free,” says Marks. “But naturally of course, things don’t go to plan and they end up waiting in the rain at a bus stop, which is when they are approached by a young American from the local US Air Force base.

“He takes them to the US social club, a little piece of America in England, and all the things they’ve seen in the movies are suddenly right in front of them.”

One of the sisters then meets a young black soldier at the base and they quickly fall for each other. “It’s really the story of the effects that a relationship between a girl from Luton and a black man from Mississippi would have in that time,” says Marks. “That was an idea that fascinated me. How would they deal with the reactions from other people or with telling the girl’s parents? The morally grey areas and reactions to the inter-racial relationship was absolutely something we wanted to explore. It’s about trying to understand that time and everything that was going on with the civil rights movement too.”

It is something that Marks could relate to: “As a child, I was one of the only people in my area who had a black friend and I was curious about what the implications might have been if I had been in a relationship with a black girl back then. There was all kinds of disapproval to face up to and I thought it would make a fascinating drama. Though, of course, along with the drama there are funny moments too.”

So is he relying heavily on nostalgia to get the punters in? “Nostalgia plays a huge part in the musical but this is a show for everyone and one that will take people’s minds off of austerity,” Marks promises.

“It’s different these days with the recession and all this gloom, it’s a sad time. Young people these days feel so fortunate if they can get a job – but it wasn’t always like that. In the ‘60s, even if you were working class, you still felt you could succeed and make something of yourself. We had this sense that this world was for us.

“So for my generation Save the Last Dance for Me takes us back to our youth – and of course there is no better time in your life than when you are growing up – while for younger generations it takes them back to this wonderful time that they haven’t experienced before. It’s about taking people out of their seats back into another decade, to a better period filled with optimism,” he muses.

“Total and utter optimism.”

Marks is no stranger to the city, having opened his previous show Von Ribbontrop’s Watch at the Oxford Playhouse in 2010. “I live relatively nearby to Oxford, in neighbouring Gloucestershire, and I’m very fond of it,” he says.

St Giles’ Cafe is one of the writer’s favourite haunts – and one he is pleased to hear has reopened when I tell him. “I love Oxford, the whole feel of the place. It feels so diverse and exciting,” he enthuses. “I love Jericho and all the little backstreets and, of course, I think the college grounds are marvellous.

“In fact, It’s such a fabulous place, when we do our next play, I hope it opens in Oxford.”

  • SEE IT Save the Last Dance for Me is at Oxford’s New Theatre in George Street from July 22- 27.
    Call 08448 713020.