In the opening scene of Neil Simon’s 1968 play and subsequent film, Plaza Suite, “Visitor from Mamaroneck” Karen Nash exclaims, “Oh my God, The Savoy has gone!” as she looks out of the window from The Plaza hotel, in New York.
When Sarah Jessica Parker (Sex and the City’s Carrie Bradshaw) delivers the line when it comes to London this month, it’ll probably get a bigger laugh than usual. That’s because the production, in which Parker stars with her real-life husband, Matthew Broderick (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off), is being staged at the Savoy Theatre – right next door to The Savoy hotel.
Simon’s three-act play is set in one hotel suite, 719, featuring three different couples on separate visits, with Parker and Broderick playing them all. The comedy is peppered with witty lines and much talk of room service.
As The Savoy happens to be the sister hotel of The Plaza – both are managed by the Fairmont hospitality group – I (“Visitor from Hong Kong”) check into a suite with my husband.
Both hotels were built around the turn of the 20th century and were the height of luxury. John Lee Beatty’s set design for Plaza Suite is reminiscent of the Edwardian-style, one-bedroom suites with separate sitting rooms at both The Plaza and The Savoy; all high ceilings, marble fireplaces, cornicing and chandeliers.
Our seventh floor suite at The Savoy has a view of the River Thames from Waterloo Bridge to Big Ben, which Claude Monet (1840-1926) captured in numerous paintings during several stays at the hotel.
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Over a century later, additions since Monet’s day include the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf, and the London Eye. As our suite – 726 – is at the end of the building, we have a bonus view of St Paul’s Cathedral from the entrance foyer.
Beatty describes the play as “a champagne experience”, and who are we to argue. There’s no need to call, like Karen, for “a cold bottle of French champagne” as there’s Laurent Perrier in a silver ice bucket waiting for us – de rigueur in The Savoy’s suites.
With a press of the “butler” button on the telephone, it would be easy to order the martinis or vodka stingers which the play’s characters variously desire. But there’s also a bar set up with pre-mixed, smartly packaged cocktails from the hotel’s American Bar. It seems fitting to try a Manhattan or Old Fashioned in tribute to the Visitor from Forest Hills’ need of a double Scotch in the play.
Karen would be pleased to see the smoked salmon sharing plate and the array of caviar on the in-room dining menu. The troubled Nashes emphatically don’t like anchovies but we do, so we order a couple of Caesar salads.
Our butler, Sebastian, sets up a white-clothed table next to the window so we dine with one of the best views in town, complete with lighted candelabra. Exquisite salads are followed by aged prime rib – which we’ve ordered in homage to Sam Nash’s craving for “medium-rare roast beef” – with truffled mash.
Our evening goes more smoothly than those of any of the couples in the play, so to finish, we order Savoy Black Forest, a contemporary take on the suitably retro dessert. I already know that for breakfast I’ll be ordering Omelette Arnold Bennett – created for one of the hotel’s famous literary guests in the 1920s.
Since opening in 1889, The Savoy has attracted writers, actors and directors. Showman Richard D’Oyly Carte founded the Savoy Theatre in 1881 and, following its success, launched the luxury hotel next door, where the theatrical crowd flocked.
Of the litany of stars mentioned by the Visitor from Hollywood in the play’s second act, many did actually stay at The Savoy, including Steve McQueen, Liza Minnelli, Groucho Marx, Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra, who even has a suite named after him.
Apparently Angelina Jolie had also recently stayed – perhaps in the Maria Callas suite, since she’s starring as the diva in the upcoming eponymous film.
In another coincidence, the Visitor from Hollywood is known as “Gootch”, because he gets “all his shoes handmade by Gucci in Rome”. As a young man, the founder of the designer fashion house, Guccio Gucci, once worked as a luggage porter at The Savoy.
If you check in before the end of January, you’ll be able to visit the pop-up Gucci boutique in the foyer and the Royal Suite will still be furnished in Gucci decor in his honour.
In Plaza Suite, the Visitor from Mamaroneck remarks of the disappearance of New York’s Hotel Savoy (which closed in the 1920s): “If it’s old and beautiful it’s not there in the morning.”
Thankfully, when it comes to The Savoy London, that’s not been the case yet.
Plaza Suite runs from January 15 to March 31 at London’s Savoy Theatre.
