Sir John, Eh?

David E. Kemp, former drama professor at Queen’s University, is the
author of The Pleasures and Treasures of the United Kingdom.

Jim Garrard, the founding artistic director of Theatre Passe Muraille,
has written extensively for film and television. Grant Heckman served as
musical director of the Kingston Summer Festival, where Sir John, Eh?
was developed over a three-year period. The play is a vibrant musical
comedy about the political and personal life of Kingston’s favorite
son and Canada’s first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald.

Once a year, on a summer night, Sir John A. Macdonald, his family, and
a close female friend have been in the habit of rising from the dead to
enjoy a reunion picnic in the Kingston cemetery where they are buried.
In the summer of 1998, a cynical young woman conjures up the family—a
task she has inherited from her recently deceased grandfather. The young
woman’s demand that Sir John apologize for his public and private
behavior leads to a comic and moving re-evaluation of Macdonald’s
life. His story is told through a number of vignettes and some memorable
and compelling songs.

Macdonald emerges as a witty, determined, and charming man, leaving us
with the thought that only in Canada could a figure of Sir John’s
stature have such a relatively low profile.