Phil Lowe RIP: Harrogate Theatre pantomime director and co-writer
PHIL Lowe, “irreplaceable” director and co-writer of Harrogate Theatre’s pantomime since 2007, has died.
The “devastated” theatre has announced: “Our friend, associate director, pantomime director and co-writer passed away unexpectedly on Wednesday, October 13.
“Phil was an integral part of what makes Harrogate Theatre special, both to work at and visit. Our pantomime has truly sparkled since he came to the helm in 2007. He is irreplaceable.”
In his memory, this winter’s production of Cinderella will go ahead, running from November 24 to January 16. “No-one wanted to bring the party back to Harrogate Theatre more than him,” the statement said.
Phil Lowe and chief executive David Bown first combined on a Harrogate Theatre pantomime in 2007, co-writing Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs, with Mr Lowe directing a cast led, as ever, by “daft lad” Tim Stedman.
In an interview ahead of the first night, Mr Lowe defined the Harrogate Theatre pantomime experience that would prevail on his watch. “The thing is that we need to cater for four-year-olds to 94-year olds, and you need to have every panto element for everyone, so you don’t alienate anyone,” he said.
Tim Stedman as Pickles and Andy Cryer as Dame Nurse Nellie in Phil Lowe’s first Harrogate Theatre pantomime as director and co-writer in 2007
“The set, the music, the costumes, the script, they have to appeal to everyone, and it just has to be magical. I just hope I bring a bit of magic to it, and not in David Blaine or Paul Daniels way.
“Harrogate’s show is a traditional panto, where it’s all about the story. Hopefully, children will say ‘it was just like the fairytale’ they read.
“So, we keep it genuine, but with corny gags and little tricks too – and if it’s not broken, don’t try to fix it. The cast need to keep it rolling, be on the same wavelength with the audience, and have an abnormal passion for panto, like me.”
Thank you, Phil Lowe, for delivering year after year on that brief, in tandem with David Bown.
Harrogate Theatre has set up a Just Giving page for donations in Mr Lowe’s memory, in aid of Harrogate District Hospital’s cardiac care unit, with a £1,000 target that has been surpassed already. To donate, go to: justgiving.com/fundraising/harrogate-theatre1.
“Our thoughts are with Phil’s wife, Caroline, their beloved boys, family and friends,” the theatre statement concluded.
Niall Ransome as Dr Watson, Jake Ferretti as Sherlock Holmes and Serena Manteghi as Henry Baskerville in The Hound Of The Baskervilles, on tour at York Theatre Royal from Tuesday
THE Hound Of The Baskervilles is at loose this Haunted Season at York Theatre Royal, returning Serena Manteghi to the city where she cut her acting teeth.
“I studied [at the University of York] and lived in York for many years and still work there often,” she says, ahead of the October 19 to 23 run. “It’s my spiritual home and I’ve been assured I can now call myself an honorary Yorkshire lass, so I’m very much looking forward to heading back there.”
Although based in London, Serena has spent plenty of time up north this summer, performing in early August in Alexander Wright and Phil Grainger’s Eurydice at Theatre At The Mill, Stillington, and later that month in the Harrogate Theatre community play Our Gate in and around the Wesley Centre, Harrogate.
Now she is part of a fast-moving cast of three in Lotte Wakeham’s production of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s most celebrated detective tale as it receives a farcical overhaul, with Serena playing only men in Steven Canny and John Nicholson’s adaptation, first staged by Peepolykus in 2007 with West End success.
The story is as familiar as ever: world-renowned detective Sherlock Holmes and his colleague Dr Watson are asked to unravel the mystery surrounding the untimely death of Sir Charles Baskerville. Amid rumours of a cursed giant hound loose on the moors, they must act fast in order to save the Baskerville family’s last remaining heir.
“Yes, they’re all male characters that I’m playing, but I’ve not really thought about their gender; you just play the character – and I have played men before,” says Serena Manteghi, as she shares a laugh with Niall Ransome. left, and Jake Ferretti
What ensues, however, is an exhilarating collision of farce, ingenious theatrical invention and comic performances to “offer a brand-new twist on the greatest detective story of all time”, in the hands of the multi role-playing Serena, Jake Ferretti’s Sherlock Holmes and Niall Ransome’s Dr Watson.
“I play a whole host of colourful characters, including Sir Charles Baskerville, Dr Mortimer, a helpful London cabbie, three ‘yokels’ (one wise, two less so) and last but not least, the romantic lead (after Dr Watson, of course) and newest Squire of Baskerville Hall, Sir Henry Baskerville,” says Serena, who heads to York after breaking in the Bolton Octagon Theatre and Original Theatre Company production on the road under tour director Tim Jackson following rehearsals in London.
“Yes, they’re all male characters that I’m playing, but I’ve not really thought about their gender; you just play the character – and I have played men before.
“There were male characters in Build A Rocket, Christopher York’s one-woman play I did for the Stephen Joseph Theatre [Scarborough], and I played Rene Magritte in Belt Up Theatre’s Lorca Is Dead [York Theatre Royal, May 2010].
“And there are female characters in this show, played by Jake Ferretti, just as they were played by men when it was created by three wonderful performers [Javier Marzan, John Nicholson and Jason Thorpe]. I predominantly play Sir Henry, in the spirit of that original production.”
Serena Manteghi as LV in The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, in 2017. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
One consequence has come from the four weeks of shows so far, demanding more than “Olympian dexterity” from Serena, Jack and Niall. “It’s been quite hard on my voice because I’m having to use a much lower register all the time, so I have to work hard on my warm-ups,” says Serena, who is no stranger to challenging her vocal cords, having played LV, with all her singing voices, in The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice at the SJT in 2017.
Likewise, The Hound Of The Baskervilles, and indeed myriad Sherlock Holmes stories have been stretched in multiple ways. “I think the books are woven so deeply and lovingly into our cultural vocabulary that, growing up in the UK, you feel the infamous Holmes and Watson are just a part of the literary furniture, as it were. Like Father Christmas,” says Serena.
“That said, I absolutely loved the recent BBC adaptations [starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman] and would tune in as soon as they were aired for fear of someone spoiling the mystery.
“I think the diverse versions work because the Holmes and Watson partnership is so iconic; the performers and the audience begin from such a familiar starting point and that means you can take them on a slightly unexpected journey.”
Holmes and Watson are embedded in our cultural psyche as much as Morecambe & Wise, suggests Serena. “They’re loved just as much, and that dynamic is beautifully honoured by Jack and Niall; that joy Holmes and Watson have in each other’s company, which is so apparent in Conan Doyle’s writing,” she says.
“It’s an utter pleasure to perform ,” says Serena Manteghi of Peepolykus duo Steven Canny and John Nicholson’s stage adaptation of The Hound Of The Baskervilles, as she teams up with Jake Ferretti and Niall Ransome
“Any literary die-hard fanatics of Conan Doyle will be pleasantly surprised by our show: it’s a comedy retelling, written by a well-established comedy partnership in Steven Canny and John Nicholson – we met John when he came to see it in Exeter – and it’s an utter pleasure to perform. You’d be very hard-pressed not to enjoy yourself watching this play.”
Ah, but is it still scary, Serena? “There are some scares, but it leans heavily on the humour, less so on scariness,” she says. “Every spooky note is buttoned with a gag, but it’s not a send-up. It never mocks the story; it’s more an affectionate take on it.
“Very often, when you have farcical versions of the classics, you have to leave behind the story, but here you do get the whole story, just laden with joy and fun.”
Look out for David Woodhead’s set and costume designs too. “They’re beautiful. That’s another reason to see the show,” says Serena. “The set is just gorgeous to behold, elevated and malleable for multiple uses, and everything we wear is beautifully made.” In other words, no tat, Sherlock!
Original Theatre Company and Octagon Theatre Bolton present The Hound Of The Baskervilles, York Theatre Royal, October 19 to 23, 7.30pm; 2pm, Thursday; 2.30pm, Saturday. Age guidance: eight upwards. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Setting the record straight: Adrian Lukis’s roguish George Wickham in Being Mr Wickham at York Theatre Royal
AUTUMN’S fruits are ripe and ready for Charles Hutchinson to pick with no worries about shortages.
Scandal of the week: Being Mr Wickham, Original Theatre Company, York Theatre Royal, tonight until Saturday, 7.30pm; 2.30pm, Saturday
ADRIAN Lukis played the vilified George Wickham in the BBC’s television adaptation of Pride And Prejudice 26 years ago this very month.
Time, he says, to set the record straight about Jane Austen’s most charmingly roguish character in his one-man play Being Mr Wickham, co-written with Catherine Curzon.
This is the chance to discover Wickham’s version of famous literary events. What really happened with Mr Darcy? What did he feel about Lizzie? What went on at Waterloo? Not to mention Byron. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Cate Hamer in rehearsal for the SJT and Live Theatre, Newcastle co-production of The Offing. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
Play of the week outside York: The Offing, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, until October 30
IN a Britain still reeling from the Second World War, Robert Appleyard sets out on an adventure at 16: to walk from his home in Durham to Scarborough, where he hopes to find work, but he never arrives there.
Instead, up the coast at Robin Hood’s Bay, a chance encounter with the bohemian, eccentric Dulcie Piper leads to a lifelong, defining friendship. She introduces him to the joys of good food and wine, art and literature; he helps her lay to rest a ghost in Janice Okoh’s adaptation of Benjamin Myers’s novel for the SJT and Live Theatre, Newcastle. Box office: 01723 370541 or at sjt.uk.com.
Simon Wright: Conducting York Guildhall Orchestra at York Barbican
Classic comeback: York Guildhall Orchestra, York Barbican, Saturday, 7.30pm
YORK Guildhall Orchestra return to the concert stage this weekend after the pandemic hiatus with a programme of operatic favourites, conducted by Simon Wright.
The York musicians will be joined by Leeds Festival Chorus and two soloists, soprano Jenny Stafford, and tenor Oliver Johnston, to perform overtures, arias and choruses by Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Rossini, Mozart, Puccini and Verdi. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk.
Adam Kay: Medic, author and comedian, on visiting hours at Grand Opera House, York, on Sunday
Medical drama of the week: Adam Kay, This Is Going To Hurt, Secret Diaries Of A Junior Doctor, Grand Opera House, Sunday, 8pm
ADAM Kay, medic turned comic, shares entries from his diaries as a junior doctor in his evening of horror stories from the NHS frontline, savvy stand-up, witty wordplay and spoof songs.
His award-winning show, This Going To Hurt, has drawn 200,000 people to sell-out tours, the Edinburgh Fringe and West End runs, and the book of the same name topped the best sellers list for more than a year and is soon to be a BBC drama. Box office: 0844 871 7615 or at atgtickets.com/york.
Boyzlife: Keith Duffy and Brian McFadden unite in Boyzone and Westlife songs at York Barbican
Irish night of the week: Boyzlife, York Barbican, Sunday, 7.30pm; doors, 6.30pm
PUT Irish boy band graduates Brian McFadden, from Westlife, and Keith Duffy, from Boyzone, together and they become Boyzlife, as heard on the July 2020 album Strings Attached, recorded with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
On tour with a full band, but not the ‘Phil’, they choose songs from a joint back catalogue of 18 number one singles and nine chart-topping albums.
So many to squeeze in…or not: No Matter What, Flying Without Wings, World Of Our Own, Queen Of My Heart, Picture Of You, Uptown Girl, You Raise Me Up, Going Gets Tough, Swear It Again, Father And Son, Love Me For A Reason and My Love. Find out on Sunday. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk
Thumper: Dublin band play Ad Nauseam and much more at Fulford Arms, York, on Tuesday
Loudest gig of the week: Thumper, Fulford Arms, York, Tuesday, 8pm
THUMPER, the cult Dublin band with two thumping drummers, are back on the road after you know what, promoting a 2021 mix of their single Ad Nauseam: a cautionary tale of repetition, vanity and becoming too close to what you know will eat you.
From the Irish city of the equally visceral Fontaines DC and The Murder Capital, Thumper have emerged with their ragged guitars and “bratty, frenetic punk rock” (Q magazine).
Now their debut album is taking shape after the band were holed up in their home studio for months on end. The Adelphi, Hull, awaits on Wednesday.
At the fourth time of planning: Mary Coughlan, Pocklington Arts Centre, Tuesday, 8pm
Mary Coughlan: Life Stories in song at Pocklington Arts Centre
GALWAY jazz and blues chanteuse Mary Coughlan had to move her Pocklington show three times in response to the stultifying pandemic.
“Ireland’s Billie Holliday” twice rearranged the gig during 2020, and did so again this year in a switch from April 23 to October 19.
At the heart of Mary’s concert, fourth time lucky, will still be Life Stories, her 15th album, released on the wonderfully named Hail Mary Records last September. Box office: 01759 301547 or at pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.
Spiers & Boden: Resurrected folk duo head to Pocklington on Wednesday
Double act of the week ahead: Spiers & Boden, Pocklington Arts Centre, Wednesday, 7.30pm
AFTER years of speculation, much-loved English folk duo Spiers & Boden are back together, releasing the album Fallow Ground and bringing a live show to Pocklington this autumn with special guests.
First forming a duo in 2001, John Spiers, now 46, and Jon Boden, 44, became leading lights in big folk band Bellowhead, resting the duo in 2014, before Bellowhead headed into the sunset in 2016. Solo endeavours ensued but now Spiers & Boden return. Box office: 01759 301547 or at pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk.
Matilda takes on Miss Trunchbull in Matilda The Musical Jr
Musical of the week: Roald Dahl’s Matilda The Musical Jr, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, October 20 to 24, 7.30pm; 2pm, 4.30pm, Saturday; 2pm, Sunday.
ONLY the last few tickets are still available for York Stage Musicals’ York premiere of the Broadway Junior version of Dennis Kelly and Tim Minchin’s stage adaptation of Roald Dahl’s story.
Matilda has astonishing wit, intelligence, imagination…and special powers! Unloved by her cruel parents, she nevertheless impresses teacher Miss Honey, but mean headmistress Miss Trunchbull hates children and just loves thinking up new punishments for those who fail to abide by her rules. Hurry, hurry to the box office: 01904 501935 or at josephrowntheatre.co.uk.
KMA Creative Collective artist Kit Monkman studies KMA’s commission for York Mediale, People We Love. Picture: Tony Bartholomew
Worth noting too:
PEOPLE We Love, the York Mediale installation, reopening at York Minster from Saturday. York Design Week, full of ideas, October 20 to 26, at yorkdesign week.com; Light Night Leeds 2021, with a Back To Nature theme for this art and lights festival tonight and tomorrow, at whatson.leeds.gov.uk; Live At Leeds gigs across 20 venues with Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes, Sports Team, The Night Café, The Big Moon, Dream Wife, Poppy Adjuda, The Orielles and Thumper, at liveatleeds.com.
York punk poet Crow Rudd: On the Say Owt bill tonight
SAY Owt, York’s rowdy but loveable spoken-word and poetry gang, are bringing Bad Betty Press up north tonight for a 7.30pm bill of open-mic spots and featured wordsmiths at the Fulford Arms.
“Bad Betty Press are an independent publisher boasting some of the finest poets in the UK, and for this show we have open-mic spaces for poets local to York and surrounding towns and villages or people who have never performed with us before,” says Say Owt artistic director Henry Raby.
The cover artwork for Crow Rudd’s debut collection
Tonight’s “super selection of super spoken worders” at the first Say Owt live event since December 2020 comprises York punk poet Crow Rudd and Bad Betty Poetry guests Kirsten Luckins and Tanatsei Gambura.
Crow Rudd (they/them) is a disabled nonbinary queer published poet and slam champion whose work focuses on mental health, grief, politics and the power of cuddles. Creator of Sad Poets Doorstep Club, founder of the UK Trans & Nonbinary Poets Network and reigning Stanza Slam champion, their debut collection ‘i am a thing of rough edges’ is out, published by Whisky & Beards.
Kirsten Luckins: Poet, performer and spoken-word theatre-maker
Kirsten Luckins, a poet, performer and spoken word theatre-maker from the north-east coast, puts the emphasis on compassion and playfulness in her multi-artform, collaborative creative practice.
She has toured two award-nominated spoken-word shows and is a director, dramaturg and creative producer. She is artistic director of the Tees Women Poets collective and co-founder of the Celebrating Change digital storytelling project, where she teaches creative memoir writing.
Tanatsei Gambura: Zimbabwean poet, intermedia artist and cultural practitioner
Zimbabwean poet, intermedia artist and cultural practitioner Tanatsei Gambura was the runner-up in the inaugural Amsterdam Open Book Prize for the manuscript Things I Have Forgotten Before, published this year by Bad Betty Press.
Drawing from personal experience, her work explores the themes of black womanhood in the context of post-colonial immigration, global geopolitics and cultural identity. She is an alumnus of the British Council residency, These Images Are Stories, and her work has been recognised by United Nations Women and the Goethe Institut.
Say Owt’s always high-energy shows are supported by funding from Arts Council England. “Tonight’s event will feature a set of banging poems, full of wit and humour to warm your soul this October. Best of all, admission is free,” says Henry, who will co-host the show at the Fulford Arms, Fulford Road, with Stu Freestone.
Say Owt co-hosts Henry Raby, left, and Stu Freestone
Adrian Lukis: Being Mr Wickham again, 30 years on from Jane Austen’s novel
ADRIAN Lukis played George Wickham in the BBC’s television adaptation of Pride And Prejudice 26 years ago this very month.
Time, he says, to set the record straight about Jane Austen’s most charmingly roguish character in his one-man play Being Mr Wickham, co-written with Catherine Curzon.
This is the chance to discover the vilified Wickham’s version of some very famous literary events. Such as? What really happened with Darcy? What did he feel about Lizzie? What went on at Waterloo? Not to mention Byron.
Directed by Guy Unsworth and designed by Libby Watson, the Original Theatre Company’s 75-minute touring production visits York Theatre Royal from Thursday (14/10/2021) to Saturday.
From the company that brought Ben Brown’s political drama A Splinter Of Ice to the Theatre Royal in July comes Being Mr Wickham, wherein Lukis’s Mr Wickham is on the eve of his 60th birthday and wants to lift the sheets on exactly what happened 30 years on from where Jane Austen left him.
“I’m thrilled to be reunited with my old friend, George Wickham,” says Lukis, who starred with Colin Firth’s headline-grabbing Mr Darcy in Andrew Davies’s adaptation of Austen’s 1813 novel.
“Having spent years defending Wickham’s dubious reputation, I look forward to finally setting the record straight, with the assistance of the immensely talented Original Theatre Company.”
Rarely off the small screen, Lukis’s TV credits take in Channel 4’s Feel Good, the 2019 mini-series A Christmas Carol, Vera, Poldark, Bulletproof, Collateral, The Crown, Red Dwarf, Grantchester, Black Mirror, Blair Toast in Toast Of London, Downton Abbey, New Tricks and Death In Paradise.
He also stars in the new Netflix series Anatomy Of A Scandal, set to be streamed this year, and has had film roles in Judy, Dolittle, City Slacker and Bertie & Dickie.
“I’ve made up stories based on the historical facts and imagined an entire life for Wickham above and beyond the book,” says Adrian Lukis
Now he is touring Being Mr Wickham after theatre parts inThe Price(Theatre Royal Bath), The Seagull (Chichester Festival Theatre/ National Theatre) and Versailles (Donmar Warehouse).
Here, Adrian Lukis gives CharlesHutchPress the inside track on Being Mr Wickham.
What inspired you to revisit the character of Mr Wickham?
“When I turned 60 a few years ago, I started to wonder what it would be like for a man such as Wickham, who has been a rake and a ne’er-do-well, surviving on his looks and his wits, to have to deal with getting older.
“I started to look at it with Catherine Curzon, who is an expert on the historical side of things, and read everything about Wickham and Pride And Prejudice I could get hold of. I found myself discovering how much I enjoyed the process of researching and writing. Once I started, it just went like a storm.”
Given that the details of Wickham’s life are sketchy in the novel, how did you fill in the blanks?
“Firstly, I looked at the way he is described. For example, Darcy says he has led a dissolute life in London, so I thought, ‘well what really happened?’. I’ve also made up stories based on the historical facts and imagined an entire life for him above and beyond the book.
“At one stage, he enters a private club and gets into a punch-up, but it’s based on a real place called Watier’s Club in St James’s [London]. I also wanted to explore things such as what he really thinks of Elizabeth Bennet; what he really thinks of Lydia. These questions were really interesting to me.”
” I was 17 I wrote my first play. At the time I thought I might be a playwright, so it’s nice I’m finally getting a chance to do it at 64,” says Adrian Lukis, actor and now writer too
Austen depicts him as such a rogue, was it therefore important to fight his corner in the play?
“Absolutely. My premise was that people don’t tend to see themselves through a bad lens, and there are always two sides to a story. I could have written him like Flashman – an out-and-out bounder who just doesn’t care – but something I took very strongly from the book was that Wickham is plausibly a nice man.
“He is always described as being charming and amiable, rather than someone who’s constantly plotting and twirling his moustache. He admits he does some bad things, but turns it on the audience and asks, ‘have you led a blameless life?’.
“Also, he makes the point that life would be very dull without any rogues. I’d much rather spend an evening with him than with Darcy!”
How would Wickham be thought of in today’s society?
“It’s an interesting question. He would probably be labelled in contemporary terminology a bit of a ‘player’, and I think we all know men like that, but you have to view him in the context of his time. In Austen’s day, men who were not the first son had to set their cap at a wealthy heiress.
“That was a social pressure that we don’t really have today, so for a man with looks and charm, like Wickham, it made sense to try his luck with women, rather than going into the clergy.
“It would certainly be different today, although I think we are living through a very moral period, much more so than when I was growing up in the 1970s. So perhaps he would still be considered a scoundrel.”
What are your memories of playing Wickham first time round? Did you have any idea that the BBC series would become such a phenomenon?
“No idea at all; I don’t think any of us did. We knew it was a big production, and I thought the script was terrific, but we had no inkling of whether it would be a success. In that sense it was just another job.
“We are living through a very moral period, much more so than when I was growing up in the 1970s,” says Adrian Lukis. “So perhaps Wickham would still be considered a scoundrel”
“I remember writing to Colin Firth shortly after it came out, when he’d gone off to do some filming in South America, and saying words to the effect of ‘you have no idea what’s going on back home, this series has gone through the roof and you’re famous’.
“That being said, a few weeks later we went for a pint together in London, and I thought we would get absolutely mobbed – Darcy and Wickham out together -but nobody recognised us!”
Were you always drawn to acting and what about writing?
“My father was in the Royal Marines and I was initially brought up in Australia, where I didn’t have much chance to try it out, but when I came to England in the 1960s and was sent to public school, suddenly theatre was available to me and it was like being struck by a thunderbolt.
“I fell in love with it. My whole life soon became about being in school productions and when I was 17 I wrote my first play. At the time I thought I might be a playwright, so it’s nice I’m finally getting a chance to do it at 64!”
While on the subject of writers, what might Jane Austen have made of your reimagining of George Wickham?
“That depends on how you view her politics. She has been called all sorts of things, from a radical feminist to a staunch Methodist, but I think it’s safer to assume she was something of a small ‘c’ conservative.
“So, she probably would have disapproved of Wickham and seen him as being a rather weak and vapid young man, but I hope if she were to see this production, she would say, ‘good for you, you haven’t consigned him to the scrapheap and have found mitigating factors for his behaviour’.
Original Theatre Company presents Being Mr Wickham, York Theatre Royal, Thursday to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Thursday’s performance will be followed by a 15 to 20-minute question-and-answer session. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk
The poster artwork for David Suchet’s Poirot And More: doing the regional rounds of “non-elitist theatres”
WHERE will David Suchet be spending Wednesday afternoon and evening?
To save you the detective work, the answer is that the beknighted British character actor, now 75, will be on stage at York Theatre Royal, discussing his 50-year career in Poirot and More, A Retrospective.
At 3pm and 8pm, he will be in conversation with Geoffrey Wansell, co-author of his book Poirot And Me, as they look back over his life and work on stage, television, film and radio.
He promises an acting masterclass too, performing extracts and revealing techniques behind his craft and characters.
To go with his dapper, discerning, dainty-stepping Belgian detective Poirot, the “and more” in Suchet’s career has taken in Shakespearean kings, Mozart’s nemesis, Salieri, neurologist Sigmund Freud and media tycoon, MP, suspected spy and fraudster Robert Maxwell.
Would many septuagenarians willingly contemplate the rigours of travelling to 24 destinations on one tour? Suchet was only too happy to do so, especially now that we are emerging from pandemic lockdown and theatres are seeking to build towards recovery.
“I wanted to bring my show to audiences around the country who haven’t had the chance to enjoy theatre for so long,” he explains. “I’ve always believed in the importance of non-elitist theatre. I don’t believe that London is the centre of the universe, as far as anything is concerned – especially the arts.
“And we actors are rogues and vagabonds. Historically we’ve always toured, going right back to the Elizabethans and before. It should be in our DNA; I think actors should put their money where their mouth is and go out and tour.”
Suchet is conscious that Covid’s shadow may lead to continuing reservations over venturing out to a live event, but he hopes his show will be a good way to ease audience anxieties. “We’re visiting a lot of theatres and regions that have meant something to me, in my career. Everything will be safe, there’s only me on the stage, with one of my very best friends,” he says.
“And I’m going to be talking about my early life; how I grew up in London; my school; my very first roles, right the way through to becoming a professional actor, then joining the Royal Shakespeare Company, getting into television and slowly moving into film.”
Among the characters he will inhabit will be Shakespeare’s Oberon, Caliban, Macbeth and Shylock, as well as the inevitable Hercule Poirot. “I’ll talk about how I developed the role of Poirot – not only textually, from the script, but how I prepared for the role, the movement, the walk I developed, and how I found his voice – which is nothing like mine!”
The global adoration of Suchet’s Poirot still staggers him. “It’s extraordinary. It’s now eight years since I stopped filming, and during Covid, my mail bag has doubled,” he says. “Because people have been locked inside, and have been downloading and buying the box sets, and watching all 73 episodes, and they write to me saying it’s got them through the pandemic.
“I had no idea, in 1987 when I started filming, that this series would have the international impact that it has. I’m genuinely humbled by the fact that people still find it so rewarding, and I’m eternally grateful, I really mean it. I never, ever anticipated it.”
On the contrary: when Suchet was first approached about the role, he had the gravest doubts about accepting, even confessing to them in an interview before the series first aired. “I said, ‘I’m frightened it may be boring’,” he admits. “I got into terrible trouble with ITV for saying that.”
Poirot had been portrayed by Peter Ustinov and Albert Finney already, and Suchet had even played Inspector Japp to Ustinov’s Hercule in Thirteen At Dinner, a 1986 TV film. Returning to Agatha Christie’s books, however, he set his little grey cells to work creating a version all his own, now regarded as definitive.
“I never set out to be better than anyone else, or even different – it just happened,” he says. “I reread the stories and engaged with a little man that I hadn’t seen before, and it was that little man that I decided to become.”
Developing the character was a complex, meticulous business. “I’ve always believed an actor’s job is one of creative servitude,” says Suchet. “In other words, I’m allowed my own voice as a creative artist, but never beyond what I believe the writer intended or hoped for his or her creation.”
For Poirot, this meant Suchet applying scrupulous attention to detail. Between takes, he refused to sit for fear of creasing his immaculate suit, choosing instead to rest by using a “leaning board” – an upright contraption pioneered in early Hollywood for actresses in tight, ornate gowns.
Then there was the distinctive facial hair. Poirot’s whiskers were never Suchet’s own; such a moustache would have made him too conspicuous in public. “I would never have been able to maintain it. Over a 13 or 14-hour shooting day, it had to be repeatedly taken off and redressed, so it had to be false.
“It did vary a little bit – I think Christie herself had about eight versions of the moustache in her books – but as near as dammit, we tried to match the one that she describes in Murder On The Orient Express.
“I had to have my dresser and my make-up artist with me constantly, and my dresser would stop a take halfway through – we all gave him permission because I was so particular – and if, say, the bow tie moved, he would come in and straighten it, and we’d have to start the scene again.”
This was not always easy for Suchet’s colleagues. “It would drive the film crew and directors crazy,” he says.
“You may do things that people won’t like, but you never fail. You never fail. So always dare,” advises David Suchet after more than 50 years on stage and screen
He has firm views on the performer-director relationship: “If a director tells me how to act, then we don’t get on,” says Suchet. “A director should point you in the right direction, not tell you how to drive the car.”
He has never been shy about insisting on the integrity of his characterisation. “There were more than one or two occasions when I had to dig my heels in, and there were many contretemps,” he admits.
“Christie never changed Hercule Poirot throughout over 70 stories. He was given small differences: he tried a wristwatch at one point, and he tried changing the width of the stripe of his trousers. But as a person, he never changed.
“You’d be amazed over the years how many directors came in and said, ‘I want to do something completely different with Poirot’. And I had to say, ‘look, I’m terribly sorry, but you can’t’. He’s got to stay the same, because of my ethos of serving my writer.
“So I became his defender in a way. I have a lot of sympathy for all the directors that worked with me, I do! But it’s not me being difficult as an actor. It’s just me protecting the character.”
Suchet’s contract for Poirot was renewed on an annual basis. Each year, he found himself once again unemployed, but those stressful periods turned out to have a glittering silver lining. “It was difficult at the time. I’m a typical Taurean, I like things in their place. Like Poirot, I like order and method, and I’m not very good at uncertainty. I had to put faith in choice and the future, already in a very insecure profession.
“But actually, what a gift! I could fill that time with my theatre work, and other film work in America, and do tours, because I wasn’t contracted. So, my theatre career grew, and thanks to Poirot I was ‘bums on seats’. People wanted to see me.”
This enabled Suchet to tackle meaty drama by Arthur Miller, Eugene O’Neill and Terence Rattigan: “not popular commercial stuff, but big, heavy character roles – major leads in the British theatre, at the same time as doing this mega TV series. Wasn’t I lucky? It couldn’t have worked out better,” he says.
Suchet is an actor with a very strong visual sense. Indeed, he is an accomplished amateur photographer, having learnt the craft from his grandfather, renowned Fleet Street snapper James Jarché.
He brings that artistic flair to vividly describing his richly varied life and career – with all its intricacy, good fortune and rewarding choices – as “a spider’s web”. “I am a spider, we all are,” he says. “We spin our life, and we can’t see what we’re spinning. We don’t know what’s going to happen to us tomorrow.
“Every spider spins a different web. It’s a miracle of nature. The spider spins from behind, and it’s only at the end of each thread that he can turn around and see how his web is forming. That’s how I’ve lived my life. I have no idea what’s happening to me, and then when I look back at my web, I can see all the different patterns. And my goodness, how magnificent my web – my life – has been.”
Among the many highlights, he has played Iago to Ben Kingsley’s Othello at the RSC; Miller’s Joe Keller in All My Sons, where Zoe Wanamaker portrayed Joe’s wife, and George in Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?, when he starred alongside Diana Rigg.
By contrast, he also cherishes Mole, in Toad Of Toad Hall, and his 2015 take on Oscar Wilde’s theatrical gorgon, Lady Bracknell, in The Importance of Being Earnest. “It was huge fun, and a huge challenge to create a real person, and not to turn her into just a pantomime dame,” Suchet recalls.
“I had to be very brave. It was demanding, every night, especially when I started getting big laughs, not to be tempted to over-elaborate, but to be disciplined and truthful.”
In 1993, he seized the opportunity to work with Harold Pinter, “one of our greatest men of the theatre, of all time”, he says. Pinter directed Suchet and Lia Williams in the Royal Court’s British premiere of Oleanna, David Mamet’s controversial play about campus gender politics.
“Working with Harold, I discovered a complete and utter soul mate,” he says. “It felt as if he knew me – the person I was, the way I worked. We became very close.”
Suchet also appeared in Pinter at the Pinter, the Jamie Lloyd Company’s 2018 retrospective season at the West End theatre now named after the playwright. “It was an enormous privilege. I dedicated my performance to Harold,” he says.
Looking back at all the characters he has embodied, he still thinks about many of them, and even misses them – Poirot above all, with the recollection of Curtain, the final, deathbed episode in 2013, still a wrench.
“It was as if I had to kill my best friend,” he says. “He wasn’t just a character to me. He gave me my career. He changed my life.”
Given the benefit of hindsight, would he have done anything differently? “I wouldn’t change a single day. My only note to myself as a young actor would be – never be scared. Don’t try to get it right all the time. Have the courage to be wrong. You may do things that people won’t like, but you never fail. You never fail. So always dare.”
David Suchet: Poirot And More, A Retrospective, at York Theatre Royal, October 13 at 3pm and 8pm. Tickets are still available for both shows on 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
John Godber as taciturn B&B owner Barney in Godber’s coastal comedy Sunny Side Up!. Picture: Martha Godber
John Godber Company in Sunny Side Up!, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, tonight, 7.30pm; Hull Truck Theatre, November 1 to 6; 7.30pm; 2pm, Wednesday and Saturday. Box office: Scarborough, 01723 370541 or at sjt.uk.com; Hull, 01482 323638 or hulltruck.co.uk
WHEN the Godber family presented last October’s premiere of Sunny Side Up! in their isolated North Sea bubble at Scarborough, the first sighting of the SJT audience in face masks prompted John Godber to say he thought he was in an operating theatre, not a theatre.
Unlike at many theatres, socially distanced seating prevails at the SJT, where wearing a mask is still the expectation, rather than the exception.
The Godbers, writer-director-actor John, wife Jane Thornton and daughter Martha Godber, remains the cast; her elder sister, Elizabeth, now studying at Hull University for a PhD in the poetry of Emily Dickinson, still finds time to be the company stage manager. Both sisters took the production pictures too.
What has changed? Sunny Side Up! is even better than it was a year ago – and longer too, with an interval inserted, more political grit, more comic interplay to go with the self-analysis and class wars, but still fast moving.
Godber has always been at his best when he is riled, questioning the status quo with Yorkshire frankness, shaking his head but finding humour as he observes British characteristics with befuddlement but a dart’s player’s accuracy, driven by a desire both for mischief making and for change.
Above all, an even stronger sense emerges of Godber commenting, not on the deathly march of Covid, nor the Government’s handling of the pandemic, but on its impact on our behaviour, our appreciation of people and nature around us, our re-evaluation of our neglected, suffering towns and forgotten, left-behind villages amid the expedient rise of the staycation.
Sunny Side Up! is billed as a “hilarious and moving account of a struggling Yorkshire coast B&B and the people who run it: down-to-earth proprietors Barney, Tina and daughter Cath and Tina as they share their stories of awkward clients, snooty relatives and eggs over easy” in Godber’s familiar conversational, pull-up-a-chair story-telling style.
Martha Godber’s affronted holiday-maker confronts John Godber’s retired academic in Sunny Side Up!. Picture: Elizabeth Godber
The focus, however, falls more on one of those “snooty relatives”, the fish-out-of-water Graham, Tina’s brother, who has taken up her invitation to bring his wife for a short break back at his roots, now that a foreign trip has been ruled out.
It is not so much that Graham was a big fish in a small pool, so much as that his academic prowess led him to other pools, culminating in his becoming a professor and university pro-vice chancellor, who wanted his own success to be a template for other working-class children to follow suit on a social-mobility conveyor belt. He has not been “back home” to this East Coast last resort for ages.
Graham (John Godber) has the big black car with tinted windows, the expensive shoes and the expensive food tastes; his wife (Thornton) has an MBE for her work in the public cause. She is invariably happy, wanting to stop for a sandwich break on a lay-by after only four miles; Graham is perennially unhappy; he would not be going at all, if it came down to choice rather than a sense of family duty.
Brexiteer Barney, who largely takes a back seat, out on errands, is no fan of Graham, while daughter Cath (Martha’s main role) has the bloody-minded, mischievous streak that Godber himself loves.
Consequently, she, more so than Tina and Barney, breaks down theatre’s fourth wall to engage directly with the audience, putting them on her side as she makes sure Graham’s visit is anything but easy over and comments on his wife always calling her “Catherine”, a name she has grown to dislike for its unnecessary floweriness.
There are echoes of September In The Rain and Happy Jack as Graham revisits his past, going fishing in one beautiful, tender scene, but there is no whiff of nostalgia here. Initially, he had laughed scornfully at the cramped, antiquated top-floor bedroom Tina had provided, but the more he sees, the more it sets off his frustration at such places being forgotten, under-funded, under-appreciated, in need of watering.
Yet he himself had left Sunny Side, forgotten it, and so Godber does not let that pathos go unchallenged, nor Graham’s despair at a pair of holidaying old miners spouting Yorkshire cliches (in a cameo by John and Jane not far removed from the old Four Yorkshiremen sketch from The At Last The 1948 Show and Monty Python).
Jane Thornton’s Tina and Martha Godber’s Cath in Sunny Side Up! Picture: Elizabeth Godber
In the defining scene, Martha Godber’s second principal character, a blunt, no-nonsense holiday-maker no longer able to afford Zante, confronts Graham as to why he did not come home to try to make a difference – to do his own version of levelling up – rather than preach from his academic high tower, out of touch and out of reach.
Godber and Graham are both over 65; both have aching knees, both are bright working-class lads with teaching in their locker; both always vote Labour; both want better for what is already there or once was there until the oxygen was switched off.
Graham has retired, Godber is anything but retired, and Sunny Side Up! is up there with his radical environmental satire Crown Prince and his post-mining drama Shafted! as the best of his 21st century writing. Godber at his most humane and touching but b****y funny too.
There is even magic realism in an encounter between Graham and his late mother (Martha again), her memory eroded by dementia, and moments of physical comedy in the Bouncers tradition as Graham, his wife and Cath climb the endless stairs without a stairwell in sight.
Four chairs and a suitcase, a miniature lighthouse, some rocks and a plastic seagull make up Graham Kirk’s set with familiar Godber economy. In that open space, with room to breathe in that sea air, the performances are terrific. Godber doing a Godber play, with innate comic timing, is always a joy; likewise, his stage partnership with wife Jane makes for a wonderfully forthright double act but one grounded in truthfulness as much as playfulness.
Martha, meanwhile, continues a run of stand-out performances this year in Godber’s Moby Dick at Stage@The Dock, Hull; as Olivia in Luke Adamson’s Twelfth Night at Selby RUFC and now her multi-roles in Sunny Side Up!, full of humour but poignant too. Never better than when the grounded Cath, unlike Graham in younger days, says she will not move on but will look to make Sunny Side a better B&B.
Godber is on such good form here, he even weaves his and Jane’s conversion to “sort-of veganism” into the play with a running in-joke where Cath offers up eggs sunny side up as the vegan breakfast option. Think about it!
Review by Charles Hutchinson
John Godber and Jane Thornton: “A wonderfully forthright double act but grounded in truthfulness as much as playfulness”. Picture: Martha Godber
York playwright Mike Kenny: Updated adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Princess And The Pea for Tutti Frutti in York Theatre Royal Studio
YORK Theatre Royal Studio will reopen this autumn after lockdown hibernation and temporary use for storage.
The capacity has been reduced from 100 to 71, a Covid-safety measure that means the theatre space will now be head-on only, with seating no longer on the sides.
First to bed into this configuration will be Leeds children’s theatre company Tutti Frutti with York playwright Mike Kenny’s adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s story The Princess And The Pea from October 21 to 26.
Imagine a place where what you see is not what it seems, with forgotten stories and forgotten things, say Tutti Frutti. Imagine princesses who don’t know they are princesses and a prince who doesn’t want to be king. Imagine a real prince, discovering a real princess, and a story that ends happily ever after.
Inside the Museum of Forgotten Things, three musical curators tell the amazing tale of the museum’s artefacts, most notably the mystery of a little green pea and how it ended up there.
Tutti Frutti promise an hour of humour, memorable songs and a romp through every type of princess you could imagine, replete with costumes to match.
“The audience will meet a demanding queen, an array of wannabe princesses and our main characters, an unknown girl, who is blown into the palace by a gust of wind, and an indecisive prince under pressure to find his real princess,” says Mike. “Will he ever find a real princess or his happy-ever-after?”
This show was first made by Tutti Frutti and York Theatre Royal in 2014 for an extensive tour and Christmas run at the Sheffield Crucible before playing to sell-out audiences in Hong Kong and Singapore in January 2015.
“In the dark between life and death, a haunted woman tells strange and terrifying tales”: Rebecca Vaughan in Female Gothic
Now it returns in a new and updated adaptation by Kenny and the inventive Tutti Frutti in a funny, original, beautiful retelling suitable for children aged three upwards and their families. Evening performances will start at 6pm, complemented by Friday shows at 10am and 1pm, Saturday, 3pm, and Tuesday, 11am and 2pm.
Dyad Productions producer Rebecca Vaughan will perform her adaptation of Female Gothic, directed by Olivier Award winner Guy Masterson on October 28 and 29 at 7.45pm.
In the dark between life and death, a haunted woman tells strange and terrifying tales; eerie stories, dusty and forgotten. Until now. “It’s the Hallowe’en season, so come along and be thrilled by three lost gothic spine-tinglers from the great Victorian female writers,” says Rebecca, who has appeared in such Dyad shows as Jane Eyre: An Autobiography, Christmas Gothic, I, Elizabeth and Austen’s Women.
Summoning the magic of the contraries, storytellers Jan Blake & TUUP will present Nightwalkers on October 30 at 7.45pm: a night of “disturbing, comedic and poignant tales of ghosts, duppies, jumbies, loogaroos, soucouyants and other supernatural beings that haunt the Caribbean and the Americas”.
Jan Blake, the queen of Afro-Caribbean storytelling, and TUUP – the acronym stands for The Unorthodox, Unprecedented Preacher – will explore the sorcery, shape-shifting and deep magic that has endured to sustain some and punish others through thunderous storytelling designed to raise the roof as well as neck hairs.
In Imagine If Theatre’s new production, My Old Man, on November 18 at 8pm, Michal Piwowarski’s whole world changes when his granddaughter Tasha finally moves out. The school dinner lady becomes his favourite person, a new neighbour moves onto the street and he has to face his biggest battle yet.
Imagine If Theatreallow people to “imagine if” within their own lives through their thought-provoking productions, creating theatre designed to be “inspiring, entertaining and unashamedly honest for intimate audiences”.
They make theatre shows based on the world around them, comprising real stories from real people, and in the case of the heartfelt and humorous My Old Man, that story revolves around the trials and tribulations of Michał, an old, blind Polish soldier.
Full details of the upcoming York Theatre Royal Studio season can be found at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Rhian Duce as Mina Harker in Imitating The Dog’s Dracula: The Untold Story. Picture: Ed Waring
REVIEW: Dracula: The Untold Story, Imitating The Dog/Leeds Playhouse, Courtyard Theatre, Leeds Playhouse, until Saturday, then touring until November 13; The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow, Tilted Wig Productions, York Theatre Royal, until Saturday, then touring into 2022. Box office: Leeds, 0113 213 7700 or at leedsplayhouse.org.uk; York, 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk
THE horror! The horror! O’ the contrasting horror of two new accounts of vintage horror stories, as re-envisioned respectively by perennially cutting-edge Leeds company Imitating The Dog and Philip Meeks, life-long fan of horror and the weird, prolific playwright and pantomime dame.
Last time out, forever in pursuit of marrying technology and theatre in inventive, ingenious harmony, Imitating The Dog set themselves the digital task of re-creating George A Romero’s cult 1968 Zombie movie Night Of The Living Dead – Remix, frame for frame, on stage and screen in synch with the original footage being shown simultaneously. Breathless, breath-taking, dead brilliant.
From one restless story of the undead to another: the Victorian gothic horror of Dracula, here presented as The Untold Story, the story as re-told from Mina Harker’s viewpoint on New Year’s Eve 1965 at a London police station, as she turns herself in, the last surviving witness of Count Dracula’s destruction 70 years earlier.
Not seen since 1901, she should be 90, but as she confesses to a murder spree over those intervening years, Riane Duce’s Mina looks young, in her 20s. No wonder, Adela Rajnović and Matt Prendergast’s midnight-shift police officers appear so sceptical, even more so when vigilante Mina reveals her supernaturally powered capacity for self-healing and clairvoyance have sustained her through terminating the likes of Mussolini and Hitler before they could wreak their havoc.
All this is delivered with both verbal and visual wit by directors Andrew Quick and Pete Brooks, the outstanding Duce and the multi-role playing Imitating The Dog veterans Rajnovic and Prendergast, with an economy of words to fit into the bubble spaces that graphic novels use.
Ah, the graphic novel: the pop-culture artform that fuels the latest hi-tech innovation of Imitating The Dog’s co-production with Leeds Playhouse. Just as Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez’s neo-noir thriller Sin City brought the graphic form to cinematic life, so Dracula: The Untold Story is now staged as a live graphic novel cum detective thriller.
Mixed-media theatre took a long time to settle, whether in the pioneering work of Imitating The Dog or York company Pilot Theatre, with words prone to playing second fiddle to the tricksy technology.
Now, however, the sight of actors working cameras on stage, or bending into unusual positions in front of blue screens to appear together, as if by magic, in the graphic novel in motion, no longer has any sense of distraction or gimmickry compromising the live performance.
This is live theatre-making gloriously embracing new possibilities in a constant flow between 2D and 3D, as the cast performs to both camera lens and audience, the visual experience further enhanced by the use of face-recognition technology for the characters being projected on screen.
Dracula: The Untold Story is thrillingly bravura, yet entirely coherent 21st century storytelling, at once pulp fiction in style yet deeply psychological too, still gothic but ultra-modern, humorous yet haunting. Sinking their ever-sharper teeth into Dracula, Imitating The Dog keep on breaking new ground.
Bill Ward and Wendi Peters in The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow
Philip Meeks’s The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow is a horror story too, but not of the kind intended. Washington Irving’s gothic story from 1820 runs to only 24 pages and should take the average reader 86 minutes to consume at 250 words per minute. Meeks’s play stretches to over two and a quarter hours, and when town teacher Ichabod Crane (Sam Jackson) mocks the legend for being boring, alas audience heads could be seen nodding in agreement.
At the interval, bewildered expressions were commonplace, as first-night attendees sought mutual guidance as to what was going on, a failing of storytelling amid Meeks’ proliferation of florid words and fanciful ideas.
Neither he nor director Jake Smith has settled on a tone or style, caught in a no man’s land between the earnest, the arch, the knowing, and the quagmire of strangely unfunny schlock-horror comedy ripped from the Hammer House playbook, with sporadic folk-dance stomping and religion-bashing to boot. Imagine a cross between Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man, topped off with a gay love story.
The acting is uneven; Wendi Peters’ Widow Mariette Papenfuss, with her gobby parrot, surpasses all around her; fellow Coronation Street big-name Bill Ward hams up Baltus Van Tassel; Jackson’s Ichabod is like a man under water forever trying to reach for the surface; Lewis Cope’s buff blacksmith Brom Van Brunt keeps removing his shirt, as if he has escaped from Heathers The Musical; Tommy Sim’aan’s Joost De Groot and Rose Quentin’s Katrina Van Tassel need better material.
Amy Watts’s set design could be a Bruegel painting but feels lifeless by comparison, while you wish for more of Filipe J Carvalho’s illusions amid the overall delusion and want of suspense.
In the desire to be magical and monstrous, spunky and spooky, everything has the feel of running around like a headless horseman, although “running” is not the right word.
“Don’t pass by. Stay Forever,” comes the never-to-be-repeated invitation to Sleepy Hollow. But what is the Legend of Sleepy Hollow? You better ask Philip, although on second thoughts…
“It is a gift of a part. An absolute dream role,” says Lizzie Wort, of playing screen icon Marilyn Monroe in Dyad Productions’ The Unremarkable Life Of Marilyn Monroe
LIZZIE Wort had written off Marilyn Monroe. “I really wasn’t very interested in her,” she says. “I had always thought she was kind of fun and frivolous.”
Then, however, writer-director Elton Townend Jones asked her to play Marilyn in The Unremarkable Death Of Marilyn Monroe.
“It is a gift of a part. An absolute dream role,” says Lizzie. So much so that Lizzie, trained ballet dancer, former comic entertainer, actor and mother, has returned to that dream role for St Albans company Dyad Productions’ latest tour, visiting Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, on Sunday night.
The date is August 5 1962, on Marilyn’s last night, at her 12305 Fifth Helena Drive home in Brentwood, Los Angeles. Marilyn as never seen before: alone in her bedroom in a dressing gown and underwear; no glitz, no glamour, no masks.
Overdosed on pills, the woman behind the icon unravels her remarkable life and travels back through the memories of her closest relationships. Repeatedly stalked by a mysterious caller, the Hollywood icon tells all – about Joe DiMaggio, Clark Gable, Arthur Miller, her mother – revealing a biting intelligence and an imperfect body, leading in real time to the moment of her death.
“Elton was very clear from the beginning that he wanted us to find a Marilyn that was recognisable as the well-loved icon, but also had a different, previously unseen side to her. This was such a gift for me in terms of finding the characterisation,” says Lizzie, who played her previously in 2015.
“To be cast as such a huge icon felt intimidating at first, and potentially limiting, but being able to dig beneath the surface opened up so many possibilities for her and my understanding of her, which was hugely rewarding and exciting.”
“Marilyn was unusual. The more I have studied her, the more clearly I see how she was essentially always able to be many things to many people,” says Lizzie Wort
Lizzie continues: “Elton has written such a tremendously well rounded, rich character, who is flawed, gets angry, is at times selfish, bitingly intelligent, wry, playful, warm and deeply soulful.
“It is a gift of a part. An absolute dream role. It also feels so relevant to women today. Marilyn was a female in a male industry in a time when women weren’t allowed a voice. And, sadly, that struggle continues. To finally give her that voice, and in doing so, give other women that chance too, was such an exciting process and journey of discovery.
“Her experiences are relevant still today and that played a large part in forming my characterisation of her.”
Why are we still fascinated by Marilyn Monroe, Lizzie? “There are two elements to this. One is the endless fascination we have with celebrity in general. This is referenced in the play and she makes the point herself that we all invest in celebrity stories. We want to revel in other people’s lives. It’s a fascination that has existed for a long time now.
“Marilyn’s death was unexpected and far too early. To have a young, vibrant life cut short so suddenly was shocking. People feel that they know a person, feel they are connected to them, are invested in them. To lose them so early always feel tragic and unfathomable.
“The controversy surrounding her death and the fascination over how she died continues to this day. She was a hugely popular star, made all the more famous by her death, so this keeps her as an interesting character.”
The fascination goes beyond conspiracy, suggests Lizzie. “Marilyn was unusual. The more I have studied her, the more clearly I see how she was essentially always able to be many things to many people,” she says.
“Marilyn was somehow approachable and relatable, while also being totally unobtainable,” says Lizzie
“She had an effortless ability to draw people in. She instinctively knew how to capture people’s interest. How to charm people. She had the perfect blend of vulnerability and unbridled joy. She was hugely likeable. And that’s not actually an easy thing to accomplish as a Hollywood star. To be likeable in the truest sense. She was somehow approachable and relatable, while also being totally unobtainable.”
Naming her favourite Marilyn film roles as The Prince And The Show Girl (1957) and The Misfits (1961), Lizzie says that what she most loved about Marilyn was her strength. “She endured so much as a child, as a young woman, from the industry, from the press, from men. She carried a huge amount of trauma within her, but still radiated warmth and joy,” she reasons.
“When someone goes through personal pain and grows up with traumatic experiences, it shapes who you are and the way you view and receive the world. It can sometimes enable a person to feel both sides of the coin.
“You can feel the pain and the torture of your experience existing deeply in your body and have a sense from childhood of the fragility of life. But, if you are lucky, that pain can also then give you an even greater appreciation of the beauty and joy of life all the more deeply. I truly think she had that appreciation.”
Lizzie’s favourite discovery about Marilyn has been to realise that her golden Hollywood smile was actually real. “Not because she was a one-dimensional blonde movie star who just smiled vacuously for the cameras. It was a smile that expressed all her pain and joy simultaneously,” she says.
“She understood life deeply. She felt it all deeply. I find that incredibly beautiful. And I think fundamentally that’s why we all love her. She radiated humanity. Heartbreak and joy in a single smile.”
Dyad Productions in The Unremarkable Death Of Marilyn Monroe, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, October 10, 7.30pm. Box office: tickets.41monkgate.co.uk
“Heartbreak and joy in a single smile”: Lizzie Wort’s essence of Marilyn Monroe
