COME WHAT MAY
& Juliet star Arun Blair- Mangat hits all the right notes. No holds Bard!
What’s your performance background?
I’m an actor first and foremost. Music is my second love. I fell in love with movies and music early at around the same time; musicals came to me at school when I was 14 or 15 and we did a performance of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. I’d never seen it but the head of drama told me to audition. I sang an R& B song and she said: “Great, you’re Joseph.” After that, I caught the bug but I was very academic too. I took five A Levels, then did a history degree at London School of Economics while acting. So, I didn’t go down the conventional route of going to drama school as my brother did. I learnt from job to job, but I love dancing as well — I went to the Royal Academy of Dance for a while, and would go to classes when I could fit it around my studies. I’m like a sponge, I absorb whatever I can to the best of my ability. & Juliet
How does compare with other shows you’ve appeared in?
The reason I’ve started to take my fitness a bit more seriously is because this is arguably one of the least strenuous shows I’ve done, in terms of dancing. It definitely requires physical energy to bring the right presence for May, but it’s not as taxing as Kinky Boots where I wore six- inch stilettos, or In the Heights or Hairspray, where you’re playing teenagers. But it’s correlating well with where I’m at in my life because I can’t sit doing the splits for two hours like I used to!
So, this lets you retrain more energy to use in activities outside the show?
Precisely. I go to the gym or do some sort of exercise every day because I have the energy and the desire, and I really enjoy it. Whereas when I was doing Kinky Boots, I found it quite difficult to exercise in addition to my performances.
Even so, eight performances a week must take a toll.
It does. But once you build up your stamina, you’ve kind of hit the ceiling. A lot of the dancers are teaching classes in the day, and I’m roping in a couple of people to come to Barry’s Bootcamp, to try to shock our bodies so that we don’t rest on our laurels. It also gets me warm, which in theory warms my voice.
Is Barry’s a new thing?
Yeah, I started in September. It’s good because it’s interval training and there’s a nice atmosphere. I joined in Manchester when the show opened there. It fitted in well because it was just around the corner from the stage door, so very convenient. And now in London, I get my fix and go into work full of endorphins. We don’t really discuss, as a performing community, the benefits that it has on our mental health. It allows me to exude confidence and positivity, and hopefully bring that to the company and the rest of the cast.
What was your journey to getting cast in
& Juliet?
I heard about the project from the director Luke Sheppard in 2017, who I worked with on In the Heights. He called me and a handful of actors into a room for a read- through of a confidential project. When he said that it was a musical based on Max Martin songs, I knew it was going to be awesome. Luke was designating the roles, and asked me to read May’s lines. I had no idea what the role was, but it was a proper page- turner. Then,
“I can’t sit doing the splits for two hours like I used to”
over the course of the past 12 to 18 months, we’ve been work- shopping and developing it. May has evolved as a character and it’s been exciting to have some say in that.
Has the character evolved in significant ways?
I feel May’s trajectory has been pretty consistent but, as society has evolved, it’s kind of informed the role and made us braver with it. May’s genderidentity storyline is front and centre in a way I’ve never seen in a mainstream musical before. To allow May to be May without having to stick a label on it speaks volumes to me. I spoke to a lot of my non- binary and queer friends about whether it was right to take the role, and they think it’s incredible. I feel proud to step on stage every night and share May’s journey. Hopefully, people are seeing versions of themselves within May.
Were you one of those young kids who performed for their family?
You’d have to ask my parents. Apparently, I was introverted and used to hide behind people. But I always used to sing along to Mariah Carey, Michael Jackson, Prince and Toni Braxton. My mum played amazing music and my dad also has an extensive vinyl collection. I grew up listening to Earth, Wind & Fire, soul and Motown. My mum listened to a lot of rock and I love David Bowie. He epitomises a lot of my approach, but Mariah is a really big inspiration for me because she writes as well.
How important is your rest day?
I’m one of four brothers, and one of them is very active and an actor as well, and he’s always saying:
“You need to sleep, recovery is so important.” That’s something that I’m learning is key. I’m such a night owl, that’s when I write. As long as I get six or seven hours, I’m good. But in an ideal world, it would be eight hours every night.
Is it difficult to wind down after a show?
If you’d asked me that question four years ago, I’d be like, “Yeah, oh my God…” Now, when the curtain comes down, I’m already cooling down my voice, wiping off my make- up, and
I’m zen and chilled. Then I go out and give some love and hugs at the stage door and head home to eat and sleep. I find the balance a lot easier. May’s trajectory suits that: act one is wild, but act two is a nice wind down.
In terms of your training and exercise, what do you find suits your body?
I love running. I used to hate it — even as recently as a year ago. But I found my funk running on the treadmill and wearing compression leggings. I don’t know why, but it just helps. I didn’t even realise I was good at running until recently. But I’m 6ft 2in tall and
I’ve got long legs. My family thinks it’s hilarious that I run because I am not at all that way inclined. I recently got my 5K down to below 17 minutes. I’m very proud of myself. I’m also trying to do more full- body movements, like some weighted squats and dead- lifts, just so I can shed the love handles.
Have you become more aware of the importance of nutrition too?
I love food so much. I don’t eat to live, I live to eat. That said, I am taking it much more seriously because my friend, who’s knowledgeable about nutrition, told me how what you put in makes a difference. I now bring my own food to work and I love cooking.
What is your guilty pleasure?
Chocolate! Dark chocolate is stunning and underrated. But I did 100 days without processed sugar earlier this year. When I broke it, I had dark chocolate and thought: “This is fucking great.”
Was sport something you were able to engage with growing up as a queer person?
Not really. It was difficult trying to find where I fitted in at school because I was such a social butterfly. I found drama, and that worked, but I was never sporty enough. My brother had been at the same school and was a football legend, but they put a ball in front of me and I did not know how to kick it. I was making up routines and writing stories and scripts in the corner. I was kind of good at tennis, but I saw that as a form of dance, or with basketball, I would be like, “Great, I’m like Britney in the Baby One More Time video.” But now I’m owning my physicality and my gangliness.
& Juliet’s
That ties in with theme of embracing yourself, doesn’t it?
Absolutely. Art is imitating life. This is the most that I’ve loved myself in a long time because I’m so satiated by this show. It allows me to embrace my otherness; it celebrates that.
& Juliet is at the Shaftesbury Theatre, in London. lovetheatre. com/ attitude/ feature/ theatre- events
“I found my funk running on the treadmill”