Carrie on screaming at Halloween!
WEST END star Linzi Hateley must have felt as if she’d come full circle. Thirtythree years after being offered the title role in Carrie, the musical version of Stephen King’s tale about a teenager who unleashes terrifying telekinetic powers on her high school tormentors, she was being asked to play the poor girl’s demented mother.
Carrie opened at the Royal Shakespeare Company’s home in Stratfordupon-Avon back in 1988, with Hateley starring alongside legendary Broadway soprano Barbara Cook, who had been enticed over to play Margaret White, Carrie’s Bible-toting single mother.
I covered the whole shebang. Carrie bypassed the West End and went straight to Broadway — though by that time, Cook had walked. Betty Buckley, another showbiz legend, replaced her.
The production was butchered by the critics and closed promptly. ‘It was a traumatic experience, to be given such a wonderful opportunity aged just 17; to be in Stratford, and then on Broadway, and for it to all go so humongously wrong,’ Hateley told me.
But not all her memories of Carrie are bad. She got to work with Cook and Buckley. Plus, Cameron Mackintosh saw her perform, and later cast her as Eponine in Les Miserables. ‘And all these years later, it’s become a cult. People adore it!’
Actors still sing numbers from Carrie at auditions. One popular choice is When There’s No One; written after rehearsals had begun by the team of Michael Gore and Dean Pitchford. ‘They hadn’t got the number they needed for Barbara, and one day Michael and Dean walked in and said: “What do you think of this?”’
Hateley will perform When There’s No One for the second, Halloween-themed episode of the new Theatre Channel, which launches today. It aims to offer viewers a front-row, West End experience from the comfort of home. A £12 ticket allows you to watch each 30-minute episode as often as you like. The first one, available now, features Jenna Russell and Carrie Hope Fletcher.
The Halloween special (out on October 30) will, besides Hateley, also showcase Josh Piterman, singing Confrontation from Jekyll & Hyde; and Bradley Jaden and Sophie Isaacs, performing Life After Life from Dracula. Adam Blanshay, who produces the shows, said episodes are filmed at the Theatre Café in London’s West End. They are directed by Bill Deamer and filmed by Ben Hewis, with full production values.