MARTI PELLOW

THE LONG AND ROCKY ROAD FROM POP STAR TO PANTO VILLAIN

THE initial signs are that the Marti Pellow interview will be as crackly as an old record that’s lost its sleeve. Despite a relationship that goes back to the beginning of time (well, 25 years), a sinking feeling develops when we meet in a quiet corner of the SECC in Glasgow. Pantomime producer Michael Harrison of Qdos Productions is riding shotgun. “What’s up, Marti?” I ask the singer and actor. “You’re a big boy. Surely you don’t need Michael here to hold your hand?”

Pellow looks at Harrison, who looks at me with eyebrows raised and then back at the star of his latest panto, as if to say: “Can I leave you to it?”

The Wet Wet Wet frontman, however, is still unsure. It seems the pair have cut a deal to make sure he’s not left unattended. It makes me wonder why Pellow is so guarded. Have his years in the business left him suffering from Headline Fear? Come on Marti, it’s nearly 20 years since the drug revelations, the band split, the name calling. Yes, we had our differences when I wrote the band’s biography and you weren’t too chuffed about some of the content. We’ve since kissed and made up. We’re 50 million records on. And you’ve built a nice career in musical theatre, starring in everything from Evita (playing Che Guevara) to Chicago (gangland lawyer Billy Flynn). And you’ve got your own solo music career, which is going gangbusters. Love is all around, Marti. So sit down and blether, for God’s sake.

Thankfully, the theatre producer slips off to one side (artistes are often guarded when guarded) and if Pellow is simply resigned to the one on one it doesn’t show. In fact, he’s back to being upbeat, speaking animatedly and sitting on the edge of his seat.

We talk about his return to Glasgow to star in the panto Aladdin at the Clyde Auditorium. Pellow, who is 51, played the Abanazar role in Birmingham last year to great success. The Hippodrome achieved its highest ever panto sales and his critics were impressed (“Marti Pellow makes for a fantastic, boo-able pantomime villain”). Yet there was a time when only pop stars of yesteryear turned to panto, and indeed musical theatre. Pellow has used the word “credibility” like a mantra in past conversations. Did he feel this was a pointytoed slipper in the wrong direction?

“Naw,” he says, laughing. “I was doing Willy Russell’s Blood Brothers last year when Michael came to see me and asked me to do panto. I said I didn’t know if it was for me and I was hesitant but it wasn’t a snobby thing. It was about standards and I don’t want them to drop. But I know Qdos productions are pretty awesome so I said, ‘If I can get to do the music, write for the characters [come up with the songs to provide the narrative for the story] …’ And when he said yes I was in.”

Did he fear the comedy element? “No, because Abanazar is straight. It’s easy to be seduced by laughter but for me the comedy lies in me not acknowledging the comedy and moving some of the story on through song.”

Nor did he fear the acting. Pellow makes the point he has played baddies before, such as Billy Flynn and the dark Daryl van Horne in The Witches of Eastwick. “I’ve always loved panto. I’d go with the Boys Brigade every year to see Stanley Baxter or whoever at the King’s. I’m happier playing an Abanazar than an Aladdin.” DURING the success of Wet Wet Wet, who were formed in 1982 by Clydebank High School pupils Graeme Clark (bass), Tommy Cunningham (drums) and Neil Mitchell (keyboards), Pellow was offered films, major acting gigs. He always turned them down. What’s changed? “I wasn’t ready. Not because of the pop star thing, but more to do with confidence. I was being asked to come out of my comfort zone. And did I want to play in a show for six to eight months when I could appear before the same amount of people with the band in three nights, and miss out playing in Sydney or New York? No, I had to grow into the theatre thing.”

In the early 1990s Pete Townshend of the Who begged Pellow to do Tommy. “I said no but it was thanks to appearing at the Royal Albert Hall for Pete and Roger [Daltrey] at the Teenage Cancer Trust gig [in 2001] that I landed Chicago. I was singing with Ruthie Henshall and there were a couple of producers who saw me and said, ‘We want you to be Billy Flynn.’”

The fear was still in him. And the unwillingness to commit. But Pellow was won over. “I learned the challenge of theatre is to avoid it being Groundhog Day, or you can go stir crazy. I realise you get to see cities, to enjoy places you never had before.”