It’s a kind of magic
THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE STAR DAVID THAXTON TELLS JOHN NATHAN WHY HAVING COVID HAS GIVEN HIM FRESH INSIGHT
WHILE talking to David Thaxton ahead of his latest show – a new version of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice – it turns out that there is a silver lining to the dark cloud of the pandemic for the musical theatre star – and it emerged after he caught Covid.
‘I was the most ill I had ever been,’ he says. ‘It knocked me out for at least a month. It was awful.’
But after he recovered came what he calls ‘the enforced nothingness’ that everyone knows so well. This was a good thing, he suggests.
‘It made me realise how much pressure I put on myself day-to-day. It’s incredible the way things were taken out of my head by lockdown. I couldn’t chase a job because none of that stuff existed.’
Seeing a bright side to what David describes as ‘theatre’s darkest hour’ is not exactly common among stage performers. But then not many in the industry have taken on so many of the most demanding roles musicals have to offer. In David’s case they include ruthless Javert in Les Misérables, dastardly Pilate in Jesus Christ Superstar, obsessed
Phantom in The Phantom Of The Opera and besotted Giorgio in Sondheim’s Passion – for which David won an Oliver Award for Best Actor in a Musical.
However, the ‘nothingness’ of lockdowns gave the Welsh star a new perspective. They were spent in his home in south London’s Abbey Wood where he lives with his wife, actress Nancy Sullivan (they met while performing in Les Mis), and dog Shelby, a Hungarian vizsla. He says: ‘It made me realise that I’ve under-appreciated what I do,’ says David. ‘I’ve just taken things for granted. I’d forgotten how much I love it and how necessary it is.’
And yet despite all the pandemic has thrown up, David has twice found himself back on stage. Last Summer he was able to reprise his Pilate in Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre’s acclaimed revival of Jesus Christ Superstar. And now he is one of the title roles in a new British musical by Richard Hough and Ben Morales Frost.
‘I’m the sorcerer; the apprentice refers to my daughter,’ says David. ‘He’s a sort of disgruntled, sad magician who is still grieving for his wife who died while giving birth to their child.’
The show is the latest version of Goethe’s 18th-century poem about a sorcerer’s apprentice who attempts to make light of his chores by casting a spell on his broom to do the jobs for him. The mayhem that follows plays out to Paul Dukas’s symphony, which also served as the soundtrack for Disney’s film version of the tale Fantasia.
For David the new musical is as much about family as magic.
‘The central thing is the sorcerer’s very difficult relationship with his daughter [played by Mary Moore]. So it works on two levels. There’s sorcery and adventure, but there is also a load of stuff about human nature, family and loss.’
Charlotte Westenra’s production has been filmed on Southwark Playhouse’s stage, which would have been packed for the opening but for the pandemic. Instead David and his fellow cast members had to ‘find a way of getting down the lens to people. We had to work out a way of getting that relationship between the stage and the audience,’ he says.
For David there is an adrenaline rush that goes with being in a world premiere. ‘When you’re presenting something totally new it’s an added level of excitement,’ he says.
It is a feeling he also gets with his rock band. ‘We’re about to release our second album in March and when you make something from scratch that nobody has ever heard or seen before, it’s a uniquely thrilling experience,’ David explains.
Called Divisions, the band members have known each other since they were kids as David says he is ‘as proud about it as anything I’ve done’.
And as the road out of lockdown becomes clearer, David is hopeful that there is some sweetness and light heading our way.
‘Once things are up and running I will be approaching things with renewed vigour,’ he promises.
‘I think lots if people will.
‘It’ll be a very good time to go to a show. People are going to go nuts. It’ll be amazing.’
‘When you make something from scratch it’s a uniquely thrilling experience’
■ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is streaming from 7pm tonight at stream.theatre/home