Tell us how the rehearsal process is going for The Cabinet Minister?
Rather brilliantly, I think. We spent a lot of our first week working through the musical elements of Nancy Carroll’s brilliantly giddy adaptation and also chatting through the family groupings and knotty relationships in the world of the play. Week 2 has had us starting to explore the physical life of the play and begin staging our scenes within our beautiful design.
What can people expect from the show?
The unexpected! Nancy and our director Paul Foster have excavated a gem of a play from 1890 that’s not been seen in the West End since 1991 and added a sprinkle of 21st Century brilliance to let it ignite for a new audience. It’s a play about families, class expectations and secrets with a gorgeous dollop of farce, music and romance.
Tell us all about your character, Sir Colin Macphail of Ballocheevin, which is a mouthful in itself! :-)
It is a real mouthful! In the play, Sir Colin is described as ‘the proprietor of eighty thousand acres. Head of a great clan. Yet…remains a child incurably attached to his mother.’ He is quite a surprising human, so I wouldn’t want to give too much away....
Tell us about your journey into the world of performing?
I started at an amazing youth theatre, Gwent Young People’s Theatre based in Abergavenny when I was about 14. It was run by a professional theatre company (Gwent Theatre) and we were treated as members of that company. We did 2 shows a year - directed by the wonderful Stephen Badman & Gary Meredith - and I stayed with them until I left home to go to drama school having being shown a world and career that was pretty invisible to a boy growing up in the South Wales Valleys. Sadly, neither the theatre company or youth theatre are in existence anymore - both victims of the cultural vandalism of funding cuts. It feels pretty impossible to imagine making the career choice I did now that they are gone.
Have you had a favourite job to date?
I’ve been very lucky to work with a host of brilliant people during my career but the production of ‘The Fair Maid of the West’ for the RSC in Winter 2023 has to be one of the happiest and most exciting I’ve been part of. It was a new play written and directed by Isobel McArthur who was brave enough to build her play on the most inventive and generous of companies - it felt like a true collaboration between all the parts of the creative machine.
How do you feel the audiences will react to another show relating to politics?
For a play called The Cabinet Minister, politics (with a big P) plays a very small role in the plot. The politics (small p) of families and marriages; class and love are at the forefront of the action and make it a very relatable piece. Audiences worried that the play will be dry and heavy are in for a wonderful surprise. It’s definitely more Oscar Wilde than Newsnight!
You’ve performed on stage and screen, do you have a preference?
I’ve done a lot more stage than I have screen and it’s definitely where I feel most at home - I love the immediacy of an audience and the life of the company beyond the 2 hours of the performance.
This show will be playing at the Menier Chocolate Factory in London, a relatively small and intimate space. How you do feel as a performer being in such close proximity to the audience?
It can be very daunting being in such close proximity to an audience - there is literally nowhere to hide - but being so close means you can more easily feel the chemistry between the company and the house and that really allows you to find the rhythm of that particular, unique performance.
Why should people come and see the show?
The world is pretty grim for a lot of people at the moment, so a few hours when you can revel in the joy and mishaps of some loveably flawed humans will probably give our audiences a little break from some of the more worrying aspects of the current climate. The play is like a sparkling glass of champagne raising a toast to the follies of the human heart.
Interviewed by Emma Rowley
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