SEE THE WORLD ON STAGE
Are you looking forward to playing the lead role in David Walliams’ Grandpa Great Escape Live over the festive season?
IT’S really, really exciting. I’ve now got to the age (66) where I am able to play these characters and to play Grandpa is a real joy.
I have two grown-up sons and seven step-grandchildren. David’s left us to it during rehearsals.
The characters in his books are very clear and I think it’s one of the reasons they are such a success.
They are archetypal not stereotypical and your job is to be this character. (Laughs) David’s not going to whisper in you ear ‘I think you should do this ...’ I also appeared in the TV adaptation of his book Ratburger, playing the headmaster.
The arena tour features a life-size Spitfire plane, a tank, a London landscape and a dramatic escape from the Imperial War Museum. Do things ever go wrong when appearing in such technical shows? (CHUCKLES) Every time. We’ve got a week to work on the technical side, which sounds a lot but a number of things can go wrong. A little technical hitch can sometimes take hours to fix.
I was playing Grandpa in the stage version of Charlie And The Chocolate Factory and there was an awful lot of technical magic in that – a moving bed, puppets, a flying glass lift and a few other things like trap doors. When I did Evita, there is one scene where everyone is singing at a big cinema screen shouting ‘Evita’ and the screen came down one night and knocked actor Joss Ackland down and left him unconscious.
You name it, I don’t think I’ve ever been in a production where things have not gone wrong, but I think that makes live theatre exciting an experience they can’t get in a cinema – actual living people performing in front of you.
The arena tour means you will be working over Christmas. How will you be celebrating?
A BIG gang of us usually all get together at Christmas and we can have 30 to 35 people over on Boxing Day. This year my wife will be able to join me and we will have Christmas together. (Laughs) Some people are Christmasphobes and are into New Year’s Eve instead, but I tend to stay at home then and have an early night.
A lot of youngsters will be coming to see Grandpa’s Great Escape. What is your earliest theatre memory?
I REMEMBER, of all things, being crazy about Spanish dancing and flamenco music strangely enough. My Dad took me to see Carmen the opera and he must have thought ‘Really ... we’ve got to go?’ I don’t think he was that keen on it, but I was hooked.
Did you enjoy going to the theatre growing up?
I LIVED in South London and used to go to Richmond Theatre when I was 11 and 12, on my own. I remember going to see the ‘Scottish play’ and the scene where he is invited to sit down at the table and sees Banquo, who he has just murdered.
Modern productions assume everyone knows the story and they add twists like red silk or having the character down stage the whole time, but I didn’t know the story and when this guy turned around with blood on his face I absolutely jumped out of my skin. That was the absolute clincher for me.
Do young audiences enjoy a live show?
I did the Doctor Who arena show and it was marvellous. I was the baddie, but they didn’t know I was a baddie until the end of the first half.
When I came on later they were booing and hissing and shouting at me and I just thought ‘this is working, they hate me’.
You’ve done musicals, film, television and audiobooks during your career. How did your comedy play On The Ceiling become a hit in Barcelona?
IT started in Birmingham, went to the West End and we put it on radio. People I known in Barcelona did a translation in Catalan and the production is still on there now.
It’s about two men working on the Sistine Chapel with Michelangelo. He fires them for mucking about while painting the chapel and they come back to chip off the bits they did. You played hippie Neil in The Young Ones in the 1980s. Do people still shout Neil after you? (LAUGHS) Every day. It’s incredible. The Young Ones made such an impact, but at the time it didn’t even have a million people watching. It’s become international as well in Englishspeaking countries like America, Australia... The translator I worked with in Barcelona was saying The Young Ones is really big in Barcelona, they are still airing it, and they really love it.
I was doing a TV programme there and the guy introducing it asked the audience to put up their hands if they were called Neil after the character. Neil is not a very Spanish name but 10 hands went up... and someone held up a baby. So right now in Catalonia there are people named Neil after The Young Ones.
●●David Walliams’ Grandpa’s Great Escape Live is at Resorts Arena Birmingham on December 23, 24 and 26.
SIR DAVID ATTENBOROUGH’S (above) TV series Seven Worlds, One Planet is heading for the stage. The one-off show at the O2 Arena in London will include the best footage from the wildlife programme, which has become BBC 1’s most watched factual TV show of the year. The television series took 1,500 people more than four years to make and was filmed across 41 countries.
■ Go to seven-worlds-one-planet. live.co.uk for ticket details for the arena performance on May 24.