Oliver Thornton, one of the West End’s biggest stars, is currently playing the title role in Aladdin at the New Wimbledon Theatre alongside the likes of Jo Brand (who is making her pantomime debut), Matthew Kelly and David Bedella.
Oliver made his West End debut in Chicago at the Adelphi Theatre, understudying Mary Sunshine. He has gone on to to play many leading roles in the West End including: Enjolras in Les Miserables (Palace/Queens), Raoul in The Phantom of the Opera (Her Majesty's), Mark in Rent (Duke of York’s) and Adam/Felicia in Priscilla Queen of the Desert (Palace). He also played Caboose/Rusty/Electra in Starlight Express in Bochum, before playing Rusty in the musical’s 2006 UK Tour.
Most recently Oliver played Frank N. Furter to great acclaim in the UK Tour of The Rocky Horror Show. I recently spoke to Oliver about life in panto-land, how he dealt with going from playing Frank to Aladdin and what 2014 has in store…
How are you finding panto life so far? You must be feeling extremely Christmassy!
[laughs] When you’re doing two shows every single day Christmas seems to just pass by in a haze! We’re having a really good time and the show has been very well received. We’ve sold fantastically well which is always great because panto is the kind of show which benefits from lively audiences!
How do you survive the twelve show weeks?!
Well… we go a bit insane if I’m being honest [laughs]! It’s no fault of the show – it’s due to having no communication with the outside world. I get up in the morning, go to work, disappear into the New Wimbledon Theatre and then appear again at half past ten at night! Life just stops which is a bit crazy. The best thing is that we have an amazing company so it really isn’t too much of a hardship spending time with such great people.
Jo Brand is making her panto debut in the show – what is she like to work with?
Oh she’s fantastic! She’s such a lovely lady and she’s so funny! I always feel for her because she constantly has pressure on her shoulders to pull out a good one-liner. The truth is I think her style of comedy is just Jo Brand – that’s what she’s like in everyday life. The person you see on TV is the person you meet in real life, she’s brilliant fun and the audiences just love her! Jo has a brilliant entrance and every night the audience go crazy when she comes on.
Do you think people underestimate panto?
Yes, I think people underestimate the amount of work. I’m not completely sure, but I get the impression that once upon a time – maybe ten years ago or longer – panto was seen as something which was just a bit of fun over Christmas and that they were quite short shows, but nowadays for many theatres panto has become the production which really helps them survive the year. This brings huge pressures for a panto to be successful so the knock on effect is that they become full-on musicals! In Wimbledon we are the flagship panto for First Family Entertainment who produce us, and they have produced a full scale musical! It’s amazing – the effects, costumes, scenery and music is so amazing, it really is like going to see a West End show. It’s not an hour and a half long sing-along in the playground; twelve times a week we perform in a full-scale musical! It’s tough!
Wimbledon’s panto this year is actually very revolutionary – the casting of street dancers Flawless as the Peking Police Force is genius! What do you think makes Wimbledon’s panto stand out?
You’ve said it – in the last ten years Wimbledon has put on the UK’s number one panto! Every year they produce an even more high quality product and I think that is what makes it stand out! Wimbledon is only twenty minutes away from the West End – which is important because twenty minutes away audiences could see a West End show. It stands out for its quality.
Oliver Thornton and the cast of Aladdin
You’ve just finished touring the UK in The Rocky Horror Show starring as Frank N. Furter. It’s the craziest show – have you recovered?
[laughs] I literally went from one to the other! I finished Rocky Horror, had a week off and then went straight into panto rehearsals so I really am looking forward to a holiday at some point, although I don’t know when that will be as there are a few irons in the fire at the moment for after this. But at some point I really must have a holiday because after being on tour for a year I was absolutely on my last legs! It was an amazing, amazing job, but being on tour comes with a whole host of added pressures which can really drain you. The aspect of travelling and living out of a suitcase is very tough!
Going from Frank to Aladdin must have quite an experience – I don’t think you could find two more different characters! Was it a shock to the system going from one extreme to another?
It was! And I’m not going to lie, I struggled with Aladdin to begin with. I think one of the hardest things about coming from Frank is that, well I don’t want to say he’s the star of Rocky Horror because obviously all the characters are huge roles, but there’s so much expectation playing Frank. You come out and have this incredible costume and there’s so much hype surrounding the character and, as an actor, you really get caught up in that. Whereas playing Aladdin he is the story, he’s not the one who gets the good jokes or fun costumes, he’s the narrative and it really took me time to adjust to that - to be a lot smaller in terms of the size of performance. I needed to get my head around it because I had become used to being this showman but Aladdin is more truthful and sincere, but I’m really enjoying it now! As soon as we got to the theatre and we had the set and costumes everything changed. I felt a lot more secure.
Rocky Horror fans are hardcore! Some of them literally followed the tour around the UK, what was that like?
I have to say that they were incredibly generous. You often hear stories of how dedicated the Rocky Horror fans are, but what people don’t tell you is that they are also really, really desperate for the show to be good and for everyone in it to be good because it’s the thing they love. They’re not looking to pick holes or alienate anyone in any way, and it was a real joy to get to know everyone who followed the show.
Would you ever consider playing Frank again in the future?
[laughs] I don’t know! Maybe – I mean it’s an amazing role so of course I would be foolish to ever say no. I don’t think it gets better than playing Frank, but I’m a big believer in everything having its time and if it’s meant to be it will happen. If it doesn’t happen then I’m just really thrilled that I got to play the part once in my career because I think Frank really is one of the definitive roles for men in musical theatre.
Imagine this… you have to go to a desert island and can only take three musical theatre songs with you. Which three would you take?
Oh god! Okay! Umm! I needed more warning! I’m an avid fan of desert island discs so I’ve worked out some of my other ones but not musical theatre songs! To be honest I don’t really listen to much musical theatre outside of work, I think it’s part of doing it eight times a week – when you get home it’s quite nice to turn off. That said, there are times when only a musical theatre song will do!
So anyway, if I had to pick three… I would probably pick something I could sing-along to, so my first choice would be ‘Til I Hear You Sing’ from Love Never Dies. Apart from anything else Ramin [Karimloo] sounds amazing on it and he’s a good friend so it would be nice to hear him. I would probably pick something pretty old fashioned – maybe something from Top Hat - ‘Puttin' on the Ritz’. I had a good friend in Top Hat so went to see the show and completely fell in love with it. I thought it was so charming. Oh god – what would be my last one?! I would probably have to pick a woman belting something wouldn’t I? I'm going to pick Liz Callaway’s Meadowlark (from The Baker's Wife).
Oliver Thornton and the cast of The Rocky Horror Show
Good choices! Nice contrast!
[laughs] Well I’ve got something I can sing-along to, I’m trying to improve my tap skills so I could tap along to ‘Puttin' on the Ritz’ and then I can just have fun listening to Liz’s amazing voice so I’m taking those three!
Do you ever say “I want to play that role” or do you just wait to see what happens?
I have to say that I’m so lucky because I have genuinely managed to somehow, I’m not sure how I’ve wangled this, tick all the boxes that I had when I was at college learning all about musical theatre. I had a little checklist of shows I wanted to do and I’ve been really fortunate to have done those! The big ones that I really wanted to do were Starlight, Les Mis and Phantom. So anything now is a bonus! And I’ve even played Frank N. Furter which is probably one of the biggest roles ever written for men.
What does the new year have in store?
Moving forward I’m going to be spending some time in New York in the new year, I’ve got an agent over there and I’ve been very lucky to have been given a green card. So I am going to be spending some time in New York and there are some irons in that fire. Potentially I would love to spend my time between New York and London, and I think for every actor it’s about doing new stuff. I would love to be doing new work but for that to happen there has to be another new great writer. Although we have fantastic writers in the UK, I think we’re still struggling to find our next Andrew Lloyd Webber. I know there are some wonderful people such as Stiles and Drewe who have done some amazing work but in terms of young and undiscovered writers I think we’re still waiting for that exciting new talent to come through. But hopefully, for me, I will be able to do some new work in the future.
New writing is certainly where the excitement is.
Exactly, I think people underestimate how hard it is to write and put on a successful musical. For people like Andrew Lloyd Webber I think sometimes his talent is underestimated in that kind of “oh it’s just Andrew Lloyd Webber” way. He wrote a plethora of incredible shows which is a very, very difficult thing to do so it’s probably going to take a while until we find somebody who can rival that.
Finally, I know we mentioned Rocky Horror fans before, but you have a lot of fans who closely follow your career and will go and see you in anything! What is it like having that kind of support behind you? It must be amazing?
Yes it is amazing, it’s fantastic! It really sort of sprung up by chance really. I was also very lucky to have been in Priscilla Queen of the Desert in the West End and that show has a cult following and I was very fortunate to have lots of people supporting me during my time in that show. It is lovely because ultimately that’s why you do it! You do it because you want to go on stage and for people to have a good time and enjoy what you’re doing! Us actors are the most insecure beings on the planet so to have thousands of people tweet you and write messages such as “we came to see the show and love what you’re doing” is incredibly humbling and I genuinely feel very grateful and very fortunate to have so many people supporting me. I sort of don’t know how I managed it really [laughs]! When I think back to that guy who was at Mountview about fifteen/seventeen years ago I never imagined this would be my life and career!
Interviewed by Andrew Tomlins (Editor)
Click here for more info and tickets and click here to read West End Frame's review.
No comments:
Post a Comment