‘Performing is the only real qualification I have,’ – Flack swaps TV for ‘strong, naughty’ role
TV presenter Caroline Flack talks to Matthew Amer about being Crazy For You’s Naughty Baby...
Caroline Flack knows all about troubled romances after her eight-week stint presenting Love Island, the most watched and talked about show of the summer.
The source of many a heated watercooler conversation, the show is all about relationships going wrong, or right.
So it is fitting that she makes her theatrical debut playing Irene, a woman whose love life is also bumpy, in hit musical Crazy For You.
“She’s strong. She knows what she wants. But there’s a vulnerability,” Flack tells me as we chat during rehearsals. “She gets hurt the whole way through, but she’s brilliantly defiant.
“She stays strong and doesn’t give up. She’s naughty as well. There’s definitely bits of Irene that are quite like me.”
Crazy For You, which comes to the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff on Tuesday, is a joyful, romantic musical comedy packed with fantastic Gershwin songs. It’s the story of Bobby, a banker who longs to be a stage star.
When he’s forced to foreclose on a failing theatre, he falls for the owner’s daughter who would want nothing to do with him if she knew who he was. Irene is the woman he leaves behind.
“It’s feel good and fun,” says Flack. “It’s a show the whole family can enjoy, but it’s got a very cool vibe to it too. It’s one of those shows where you will have a smile on your face the whole way through. I know, because I’ve seen the rehearsals. I think audiences will be blown away by the talent of the cast.”
That cast, which includes Strictly Come Dancing winner Tom Chambers and West End star Charlotte Wakefield, are indeed supremely talented. While the ‘triple threat’ performer – singer, dancer, actor – is considered the holy grail of musical theatre, Crazy For You, stars are quadruple threats. They also play their own instruments.
“I’ve never been so in awe of a cast before,” Flack gushes.
Crazy for You is a reunion of sorts for Flack and Chambers. Both won the BBC’s flagship Saturday evening dance competition and starred together when the Strictly show’s live version toured the country.
When Flack talks about the Casualty and Holby City star, who built his stage reputation leading the casts of Top Hat and White Christmas, she does so in terms that make him feel like a big brother. He looked after her, he supported her when she was nervous. He is, in fact, the ideal person to have around as you make your professional theatre debut.
It was her time on Strictly Come Dancing in 2014, and the live tour, that reignited her ambition to perform on stage.
It was an ambition she had held since childhood. When, as a teenager, she discovered that performing could be a career, she set her heart on it and studied for three years at Bodywork Company in Cambridge.
“It’s the only real qualification I have,” she laughs.
Her ambition to perform on stage morphed into a presenting career when she started being offered jobs. From co-presenting Channel 4’s celebrity sports show The Games in 2005, she moved to Gladiators, Saturday morning kids show TMI, I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here Now! and The Xtra Factor. They’re projects she clearly loved, but that eagerness to get back to the theatre was always lurking. Quite simply, she says, “I love the stage.”
“It wasn’t just a case of wanting to be on stage, it was wanting to be on stage but doing the right thing,” she explains.
So why was this Watermill Theatre production of Crazy For You the show that brought her back to the theatre?
The answer is that playing Irene gives her the opportunity to get to grips with a character rather than worrying about leading an entire show singlehandedly.
It’s the chance to relearn her craft and refresh her memory of theatrical performance. And, in a show packed with glorious songs like I Got Rhythm and They Can’t Take That Away From Me, she has a fantastic solo number. “As soon as I heard Naughty Baby,” she enthuses, “I thought ‘Yes, this is great.’”
Choreographer Nathan M Wright has created a new routine specifically for Flack.
It’s still being finalised as we chat, so she can’t give too much away, but