Carrie Hope Fletcher’s Calamity Jane in Nikolai Foster’s touring production of Sammy Fain’s musical at the Grand Opera House, York
WEST End leading lady, author and vlogger Carrie Hope Fletcher returns to York from tomorrow to Saturday in the title role in Calamity Jane at the Grand Opera House – much to her mum’s delight.
Something about the gun-slingin’, tough-talkin’, hard-ridin’ frontierswoman immortalised by Doris Day in the 1953 film made her reckon it was a role that Carrie was born to play.
How could she say No when the offer came through to the 32-year-old South Harrow actress, whose credits include Éponine and Fantine in Les Misérables; Veronica Sawyer in the original West End production of Heathers: The Musical; Wednesday in The Addams Family; Beth in the arena tour of The War Of The Worlds and originating the role of Cinderella in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cinderella.
“My mum had always said I would be a good Calamity Jane, and through the entirety of my adult career she has always said she would love to see my playing the part,” says Carrie. “It’s her dream role for me. So I looked into it and listened to the songs and watched the movie starring Doris Day and fell in love with it. Doris is such an icon. Though I did have to prepare my mum not to get her hopes up as things do fall through and you never know what might happen.”
“It’s so wonderful Calamity is not just an ingenue or the soppy romantic or just a comedy character, she is all of it,” says Carrie Hope Fletcher
Mum knows best, however! Since January, Carrie has been leading North Yorkshireman Nikolai Foster’s cast in the good-hearted Western musical comedy, following the likes of Carol Burnett, Barbara Windsor, novelist Lynda La Plante, Toyah Willcox and Jodie Prenger, who played Calamity on its last Grand Opera House visit in February 2015.
Carrie loves how the fearless, feisty Calamity pushes her as a performer. “I am relatively new to the whole world of Calamity Jane, but it’s a dream role in terms of her as a character,” she says of a whip-crackin’ woman “prone to making a few blunders and mistakes”. “She is the romantic lead, gets a great love story, has an amazing female friendship with Katie Brown and gets all the cracking, belty numbers.
“She ticks all of those boxes and it’s so wonderful she’s not just an ingenue or the soppy romantic or just a comedy character, she is all of it. Parts like that are really rare and she has been great fun to get to know.”
The subject of femininity plays out in Calamity’s relationship with Wild Bill Hickok, the Howard Keel-originated role now played by Vinny Coyle. “There are conversations between her and Wild Bill where he says ‘Why can’t you be more feminine?’,” says Carrie. “She goes through a Cinderella story finding it, but ultimately ends up going back to who she is comfortable as, and being loved and accepted for it. And it’s all hidden within this funny, farcical story.”
Carrie Hope Fletcher: West End leading lady, musical theatre singer, author, vlogger and sister of McFly’s Tom Fletcher
She is not daunted by singing songs such as The Deadwood Stage (Whip-Crack-Away) and Secret Love forever associated with Doris Day. “I have a good mindset about the pressure that comes with that,” she says. “You can’t please everyone as everyone has different versions of what they want the character to be. If you tried to please people, you would come up with this warped version that isn’t anyone’s dream version.
“I feel like I have been entrusted with the role and I need to be the one to decide who this version of Calamity Jane is. And if people don’t like it, they don’t like it. But if they do, it means all the more.”
Alongside her theatre work, Carrie has published a series of books for young people and accrued more than 500,000 subscribers to her YouTube channel and hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers. She last appeared in York last October in Love Letters, her exploration in song of all forms of love, from romantic to maternal, unrequited to obsessive, at York Barbican.
As always, she found joy in singing, joy that transferred to the audience too. “That’s what people latch on to. Maybe the joy I get from it separates me from others. That’s what people connect to,” she says. “I do think that musical theatre is based in expressing emotion, and if you’re not feeling it one night, then it won’t transmit to the audience.”
The tour poster for Calamity Jane starring Carrie Hope Fletcher
Now her focus is on being on the road in Calamity Jane for the best part of a year, necessitating being away from her husband, fellow performer Joel Montague, and their daughter, Mabel, who will join her for some of the dates, however.
If juggling motherhood and appearing in a major tour were not enough, Carrie has mastered a new skill while working on Calamity Jane. Her cast cohorts are actor-musicians, and not one to be left out, she can be spotted picking up an instrument – a somewhat unusual one.
“I got the coconuts to play,” she says. “I am the horse! So while everyone else is incredibly talented with the saxophone and the trumpet and cello, I’ll be focusing on the coconuts.”
Calamity Jane, Grand Opera House, York, April 29 to May 3, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm matinees. Box office: atgtickets.com/york