Alistair Mcgowan makes big impression with classic career change
Alistair Mcgowan made a career change from comedy but he’s still performing and loving every minute of being a musician as he tells Gabrielle Fagan
Alistair Mcgowan’s famous for his brilliant impressions – remember his and Ronni Ancona’s “Posh & Becks”, in their hugely successful BBC One show Big Impression in the early-noughties?
Countless famous faces, from Boris Johnson to Gary Lineker, got the Mcgowan treatment over the years – but his recent transformation into a successful classical pianist is perhaps his most surprising and dramatic yet.
Despite his late entry into the musical world, the 54-year-old performed at The Proms in 2016, his album – Alistair Mcgowan: The Piano Album – went to No 1 in the classical charts the following year, and he’s currently touring the UK with Introductions to Classical Piano, his new show.
He hasn’t given up comedy or “the voices” entirely
(in fact, a string of “stars” still regularly “appear” throughout his musical performances), he says he’s found his “real identity” through music.
Here, Mcgowan opens up about his love of music and the joy he’s found in this new chapter, and what his wife, singer/actor Charlotte Page, makes of it all...
How did you get into music?
“I loved the piano as a child but gave it up when I was nine, because my passion for football was greater. I started playing again in my 30s but really got back into it again seriously five years ago, after a music teacher encouraged me. I’d thought I was too old to have any hope of a career in it.
“I practise for around five hours a day. It’s really satisfying hearing these pieces of music coming through me and my fingers. I find it very moving and can’t quite believe it sometimes.
“I’m realistic about where I am in the pecking order of musicians – I’m way below concert pianist level – but the great thing is, you’re always learning and improving, which is what I love about it.
“Last year, I even took my Grade Five theory exam alongside a load of ten-yearold
children – the average age you sit it – and I thought, ‘I bet I’m the only person in the room with a classical album released by Sony!’”
What does this new career mean to you?
“Everything, really, I think I’ve found my real identity through it. I’ve never been a comic/impressionist who’s shown a lot of myself. If you do impressions, you generally are hiding behind someone else, certainly on television. One of the worst heckles I experienced at a stand-up was someone shouting, ‘Tell us about you!’ I thought, ‘Err, I don’t know about me, I only exist through these other people and if I’m doing funny voices. I only make people laugh if I’m doing someone else’.
“Nowadays, without being flippant, I feel I’ve ‘come out’ as someone who likes the piano, and I only play pieces that mean a lot to me and resonate with me. Certainly doing this show, I feel the happiest I’ve ever felt both on stage and off, really. It’s nerveracking but immensely rewarding.”
Does music give you the same thrill as making people laugh?
“Hearing even just one person in the audience at the end of a piece go, ‘Ahhh’, means you’ve reached them and they’ve been moved, and that’s thrilling and fulfilling.
“It’s a different artistic experience to comedy, but as satisfying as any laugh from 3,000 people at a comedy
gig at the Hammersmith Apollo.”
What’s the show like?
“I like to feel I’m giving people something new. It’s a classical piano recital, where I play around 14 short pieces by composers from Bach to 21st century composers, and in between talk about things I’ve gleaned about composers and their work, and also do my impressions.
“There’s plenty of voices, including Roger Federer, Professor Brian Cox, Andy Murray, characters from TV’S Dad’s Army, footballer Harry Kane, while Jo Brand, David Mitchell and Frank Skinner may get in there as well.
“I’m not playing the piano for laughs. I play the music in an emotional and romantic way, and in between interject comedy.”
You and Ronni Ancona were so successful in The Big Impression – do you hanker after a repeat of that fame?
“No, I don’t actually. I’m really pleased that I had that. It’s something you always want as a performer. You want everyone to be watching what you’re doing and everyone to be liking it, and in television terms, we were doing pretty well, but the downside of that is the press intrusion and the lack of freedom. Now that’s gone away, I feel much happier.”
What does your wife, Charlotte, mean to you?
“I’ve been with Charlie for ten years now – and from the first time we met really, she was very happy for me to be ‘me’. I think that’s the key to any relationship: Will you let the person you’re with be who they are, or are you someone who wants to change them a bit or make them do things they don’t necessarily want to do? Of course, compromise is important, but she’s been a huge influence on me, very supportive, and wonderfully understanding about living with someone who plays the piano constantly. It’s noisy, repetitive, and there can be ugly noise along with the lovely noise – but she never gives me a hard time about it.
“Her favourite of my impressions is George Clarke from George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces. She’s actually fascinated with the voice and is gifted at accents. Our biggest frustration is we can’t copy each other’s accents – she’s from Stoke-ontrent and I’m from Evesham but neither of us can get the other’s local accent right!” What do you think about today’s comedy?
“I do get mystified by a lot of the new comedy now, because I was brought up with a different morality. I’ve done things where I swore a bit on stage, or talked about sex a bit, but it seems like all the barriers are down now. I watch a lot of comedy on television and I go, ‘Are you seriously allowed to say that? Are we allowed to laugh at that?’ Suddenly I’ve got too old to listen to a lot of it.
“Years ago when I was
“I feel the happiest I’ve ever felt both on stage and off”
starting out with Ronni, I once said to her mother: ‘Isn’t One Foot In The Grave the most brilliant sitcom you’ve ever seen?’ She was then in her mid-50s and said: ‘The trouble is, when you get to my age, you’ve heard all the jokes’. At the time, I thought, ‘That’s a ridiculous thing to say’, but as I approach her age, I feel I have heard all the jokes.
“Having said that, there are people I really admire. Frank Skinner’s a genius, I loved Ronnie Barker when I was young, and someone who’s one of the best comedians I’ve ever seen is Seann Walsh. He’s quality.”
How do you look after your health?
“As a teenager, I loved sport. I gave up music at nine for football, and also played squash, tennis, badminton, table tennis. You name it, I did it, but now I am paying the price a bit. I have a very bad relationship with my joints. Essentially, I have the same problem Andy Murray has with his hips (hip impingement – a problem with the ball-and-socket joint) and I really need the operation on both hips (resurfacing the hip joint) but I’m not keen to have surgery.
“So I’ve had to give up playing tennis three times a week and now swim three times a week. As a teenager, a teacher showed the class the benefits of a balanced diet and I’ve always followed that advice. Around that time, I also saw friends who’d drunk too much and I’d always think, ‘Why do you want to do that to yourself?’ Consequently I rarely drink, don’t smoke, and think you can’t go too far wrong if you eat sensibly and exercise.” How do you look after your well being?
“I’m fulfilled in so many areas these days, with my music and my home life, so I’m pretty content. I just need to stay as active as I can, walking and swimming, as I find both those relaxing.”
● Alistair Mcgowan is currently touring Introductions To Classical Piano across the UK until 14 June. For tickets and information, see alistairmcgowan.co.uk