This is really outside my comfort zone
Jeffrey Davies meets Julian Clary to talk solo tours and getting back into acting with his new role in The Dresser
WEST Country audiences are in for a treat! They will be the first in the country to see a new production of Ronald Harwood’s Broadway and West End hit, The Dresser, which is opening in Bath this evening (September 9).
Featuring a 12-strong cast, the ‘riotously funny’ and ‘glorious play’ - a joint Theatre Royal Bath and Cheltenham Everyman Theatre production - stars two of this country’s great entertainers, Julian Clary and Matthew Kelly.
It is 1942 in a war-torn provincial theatre and an ageing actor-manager, known to his loyal acting company as ‘Sir’, is struggling to cling on to his sanity and complete his 227th performance of King Lear. It is down to Norman, Sir’s devoted dresser, to ensure that in spite of everything, the show goes on. For 16 years Norman has been there to fix Sir’s wig, massage his ego, remind him of his opening lines and provide the sound effects in the storm scene.
Written in 1980 by Ronald Harwood - and inspired by his memories of working as Donald Wolfit’s dresser as a young man - this evocative, affectionate and hilarious portrait of backstage life is one of the most acclaimed dramas of modern theatre.
Julian Clary plays dresser Norman, with Olivier Award winning actor Matthew Kelly playing the role of Sir.
“My character is lots of different things. He’s determined and funny and bitter and jealous. And an alcoholic. He’s very entertaining to watch. But to actually inhabit he is not such good news,” a most friendly and welcoming Julian Clary told me with a laugh.
“He’s like some of the people who work in the theatre. He’s got a past and he’s got aspirations which have been thwarted; but he absolutely loves it. He has a love-hate relationship with Sir which he guards very jealously.”
The play is set backstage in a theatre, an environment that Julian knows only too well. Does working on familiar ground make the Surbiton-born actor’s role easier to play?
“Well it is a world I’m familiar with, and I’ve worked with a lot of dressers in my time, so some of them I can draw on for my character. But it is a big role and it’s outside of my comfort zone. Normally if I’m on stage at a theatre it’s with my own show, and I’m talking about myself in front of a microphone. This one is obviously none of that. It’s not about me; it’s about the author’s vision which all of the cast are working on to bring it to life,” he said.
Does playing the role of a dresser make the 62-year old actor more sympathetic to the demands heaped upon a reallife counterpart?
“Well I’ve always thought a lot of dressers and their work. When I’m in panto I have sundry costumes, and all of my time on stage is spent with my dressers so you do get very close to them. You realise how important and helpful that relationship is to the performer and a performance. If the dresser makes you happy and comfortable then so are you. The dresser is putting them in the right frame of mind and attending to their needs off stage. Everything depends on that. I like to think I am appreciative of their work and of their contribution to a production. It is a vocation actually - I appreciate dressers all the more now,” Julian answered most thoughtfully, adding that the role is a very important and complex one in the theatre.
Has the most versatile and engaging star ever met with a real-life ‘Sir’, someone who resembles the character as portrayed so brilliantly by his co-star Matthew Kelly in this play?
“Well, usually I am on my own on the stage as I said. Sir has got a huge ego. He is loud and larger than life and is very manipulative. It’s all about him. He’s not well, he’s lost his nerve and is a man in crisis in this play. He talks about his craft and what it is to be an actor, about the sacrifices he’s made and the quality of living the moment just right. He’s an expert, but like everyone in the play he’s damaged and jealous. But funny with it. There’s a lot of wry comedy along the way. As for whether I have met real life Sirs, I have a feeling that I
have but I’d better not name and shame them!” Julian said rather diplomatically, adding that he is in ‘absolute awe’ of co-star Matthew Kelly’s stage craft as ‘Sir’ in this production.
The play is described as an ‘evocative, affectionate and hilarious portrait of life back stage’. Most people only ever get to see the glamorous side of the profession being played out on stage by the actors. So will this drama present audiences with an eye-opener as to what goes on off stage?
“I think so. I think audiences will be fascinated to see all the squabbling, all the insecurities, and all the stuff that goes on backstage in every production. It’s a very unusual play,” Julian answered, candidly.
Well known for his many successes in television, radio, film, writing and stand-up comedy, Julian has performed all over the world. His roles on stage include playing Leigh Bowery in Boy George’s Taboo in the West End and on national tour - including the Theatre Royal Bath in 2004 - the Emcee in Rufus Norris’s Olivier Award winning production of Cabaret in the West End, and Le Grand Mort at London’s Trafalgar Studios. Julian also regularly performs in pantomime and will return to the London Palladium this Christmas. His many and varied television credits include Trick or Treat, Saturday Night Live, Sticky Moments, Terry and Julian, All Rise, Strictly Come Dancing, Have I Got News For You and QI. He is also touring the UK next year with his latest one-man comedy show, Born To Mince.
A successful and versatile career, when did the young Julian realise a life in showbusiness was for him. At school maybe?
“Yes it was. I knew the stage was somewhere I wanted to be. But I didn’t know then whether I wanted to be an actor, a singer, a pop star or a comedian. It was through a process of elimination that I ended up doing what I did. Variations on a theme really.
“Acting is really outside my comfort zone as I said earlier, but it is what I started out doing at Goldsmith’s College [University of London] so it’s nice to revisit it. I think if I just stopped at doing one thing I’d probably become bored. I have to keep sort of stimulated,” he said, adding that he didn’t have a particular favourite genre to work in.
“I always enjoy what I am doing at the moment. When I’m on tour making people laugh I think this is the meaning of life. It’s very, very satisfying. But after a few months I think I wish I could be at home and not having all this attention. Then I can go and write a book and I’m locked away for a while. Then the same thing happens in reverse, and I think I must get out there and be on stage again. Fortunately I’ve arranged my life in such a way that I can keep changing it,” he explained.
And you do so most successfully, I interjected.
“Well, thank you. Of course the insecurity of having it all taken away from you never actually goes. It doesn’t matter how many decades you’ve been doing it, you still think you’ll be found out any minute and that will be the end of that. I think if you frighten yourself a bit by going in an opposite direction and doing things you don’t think you can do, it keeps your career fresh, like when I decided to write children’s books,” he said, adding immediately that he doesn’t like over-confidence in performers. “You can spot it. I’ve always found it distasteful so I make sure I never feel particularly confident in whatever I’m doing.”
Does Julian feel that he sometimes needs to convey a sense vulnerability while on stage to please his audience?
“Yes, there is something in that. I don’t analyse it. But yes I do think communicating on different levels, and to see someone vulnerable, is very engaging really. And also things like improvising and audience participation stuff. That’s a bit dangerous because you don’t know what’s going to happen; but it makes you feel very alive as well,” he answered.
Any branch of showbusiness still to conquer? Or does Julian feel he has mastered all he set out to achieve?
“Well you never feel you’ve mastered everything. I never feel that’s the top of my game. You’re constantly striving to achieve something better in all different areas of the profession. The greatest satisfaction for me at the end of an evening is sending people home happy or uplifted. I feel that is my function in life. And that’s where the job satisfaction is.”
Could Julian imagine himself doing any other job?
“Yes I can. If I hadn’t gone down the path I did I might well have done some sort of counselling, or been a probation officer or a therapist. I am very good at sorting out people’s problems,” he said.
And the future. What’s on the horizon for the easy-to-like star?
“Well I’ve got a book coming out in October. It’s called The Lick of Love, and it’s all about the dogs in my life and how they have enhanced my passage through life,” he said before adding a whole list of other professional engagements in the foreseeable future.
Julian said he was delighted to be coming back to the Theatre Royal Bath.
“It’s a beautiful theatre. I can’t wait to be back. It’s in my top three favourite theatres actually. I am glad we’re starting this play there because it’s a very intimate and comfortable theatre to perform in. You feel as though you’re in a different world when you’re there,” Julian eulogised.
Julian, whose mother and sister live in Swindon, clearly loves his work.
“Yes I do. I like to entertain and make people laugh. I’m very lucky. You get to an age when you think all of this will dry up one day but, touch wood, all is good at the moment,” he said, before letting me in on a little secret: his mother helped him learn his lines for The Dresser!
■ The Dresser is playing the Theatre Royal Bath from September 9 to 18. Tickets can be booked on 01225 448844 or online at www.theatreroyal.org.uk