My interview from www.stagewon.co.uk

StageWon talks to the man raising the 'baaa' in Shaun's Big Show...

Shaun’s Big Show is a force to be reckoned with. With Emmy and Bafta wins in 2010 and directed and adapted for the stage by David Wood, the national children’s dramatist, it is taking the UK by storm.
StageWon caught up with Michael John, who not only plays a sheep, but is also the dance captain for the show presented by Calibre Productions.
1. How does playing a part in Shaun’s Big Show compare to productions you have done before?
Working in Shaun’s Big Show is something completely new to me. I have never performed in a skin costume before, nor have I performed in a production aimed at the younger audience. So I guess you could say I have learnt a lot during my time being a sheep!
2. Did you watch much of the BBC show in preparation? Did you ever watch Wallace and Gromit when you were younger?
During the build up to the beginning of rehearsals the entire cast was sent DVDs of Shaun the Sheep to watch. I had seen the odd episode on TV prior to rehearsals and obviously I’d seen Shaun in Wallace and Gromit before. I have actually seen all the Wallace and Gromit movies and I was already a fan. I do remember seeing A Grand Day Out when it was first aired on TV. I think what the TV shows and movies have done is make such loveable characters which really do appeal to such a wide audience range. I’ve heard of Grannies who look forward to watching Shaun the Sheep even though it’s on CBBC!
3. You have very large costumes – is it hard to dance in them?
The costumes themselves were quite restricting in the beginning, but we have all managed to learn how to deal with them. I think the biggest challenge was learning to dance with the characters heads on. Bitzer’s head and the Pigs’ heads really don’t have much vision. I think the first day we rehearsed with the heads on we all found out just how hard this kind of performance was going to be.
4. How do you make your character your own?
It is actually quite tough making the sheep characters different to the next as there isn’t much to tell us apart. As I an the oldest member of the cast, I believe my sheep to be a little more relaxed than the others, but I also like to play him as a bit of a Granddad.
5. How do you make sure the children are always entertained?
It’s hard in the costumes to actually see much of the audience so it’s difficult to tell. The director, David Wood, however, has been making children’s productions for a really long time and he knows exactly how to keep them entertained. It was a real pleasure working with such a fantastic director with a huge history in this profession.
6. How hard is it to train for a role such as this one?
It was actually fairly tough to get our heads around performing as sheep, pigs, dogs and various farmyard animals. To be told you will spend the best part of a year playing an animal was a bit of a shock at first, but one that has been very interesting. The training itself was not much different to other productions I have performed in. Firstly learning the entire show from scratch and then perfecting the rest with costumes. The joy of theatre is how the show constantly evolves as the cast bring different elements to their characters.
7. What has been the funniest moment since being involved with the production?
Possibly when I fell over centre-stage in Plymouth! Of course I was very embarrassed and I heard the cast burst out laughing. I did see the funny side of course, because you can never take yourself too seriously. I suffered a horrible burn mark on my knee though and still have a scar. I’ve just been unlucky that nobody else has made the same mistake so my fall would be less memorable.
8. What would you say to anyone thinking of bringing their children to come and see Shaun’s Big Show?
I would say if they want to spend a few hours having a madcap time with some really loveable characters, then come and see the show. It’s something completely original and they should read our constant fantastic reviews to see why.
9. How do you wind down after a performance?
It depends how I’m feeling. I often relax with a movie or go to the cinema. Sometimes I go to the pub for a few drinks and if I’m lucky I catch some football.
10. What is always on your dressing room table?
The one thing that always comes out on my dressing room table is a photo of my girlfriend Felicity and I enjoying a holiday in Croatia.
11. What do you like to do when you are not performing?
I spend a lot of my time catching up with friends, which is actually quite hard when you spend a lot of your time traveling around. I am a big sports fan with football being a big part of my life - I love attending matches, but I’m not going to tell you which Premier League club I support! Of course, I try and spend as much time with Felicity as well, which can be quite tough as she’s currently touring in Buddy, the Buddy Holly Story.
12. What’s the best thing you have seen in the theatre recently?
I was lucky enough to see ‘Ghost’ in Manchester before it moved to London. I’m not a huge fan of films turned into musicals, but I thought this new production was really beautiful. I also recently saw ‘Lend Me A Tenor’, which I loved too. It’s such a shame it has closed as it had fantastic reviews and the audiences just loved it. I’m going to see ‘Crazy for You’ at Regents Park Open Air Theatre tomorrow, which I am really looking forward to. I saw ‘Into the Woods’ there last year and really enjoy their productions.
13. What has been the proudest moment in your entire performing career?
I have been working in this industry for eleven years now. There have been several proud moments as I have been very lucky with work. One was backing dancing for Elton John at the Royal Albert Hall. The man is a musical legend and that was one experience I will certainly never forget. I also performed in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at the London Palladium for a year, which was fantastic. Performing in such a large West End production was definitely one of the highlights of my career.
14. What advice would you give to actors thinking of joining the cast of a production aimed at children?
I would recommend it to anyone in the industry. The best part about performing in front of children is that they are the meanest critics. If you can entertain a child without them getting bored and wanting to go to the toilet, you have succeeded -it’s actually quite an achievement to be proud of.

Glasgow

Friday 1st July 2010

So yesterday I flew up to Glasgow for a six show week. The weather started off nice, which gave me that incredibly annoying feeling that I had forgotten something. You know the one I mean when your flying somewhere and getting up at 5am! Well it turns out I had, I had forgotten my sunglasses. Now my sunglasses are actually an expensive pair of Adidas Polarized sports glasses. For those of you that don't know, that basically means that are pretty shit hot at keeping your eyes nice and glare free during those sunny moments. I do love those glasses. There wasn't much I could do, being in a foreign country and all, so I decide to attack the nearest Primark (I hate to name drop). After a rummage around the almost car boot style store, I find a nice (well as nice as they can be) pair of Aviators. Also a snip at two pounds. That's two drop off/pick ups at "London" Luton airport...
I stroll outside into the Glasgow summer and the sun has remembered this is Scotland and therefore buggered off to a more tropical climate, with his hat in tow. I clearly made a completely school boy error in judgement. People of Glasgow don't ever buy sunglasses unless they are going on holiday and there's a very good reason. The sun isn't a fan of haggis. He prefers tapas and nachos to red heads. In the immortal words of Annie the orphan "The sun'll come out, tomorrow", this is has never been the case for Scotland. Despite Annie being a red head, she is certainly not from Scottish heritage. And if Annie was, the last thing she would be singing about is sun.

Off to Avenue Q at the Kings Theatre, Glasgow later. I do love that show and am very much looking forward to it. Always nice to see other things once in a while and especially an easy watching musical comedy starring puppets. Thank you very much Mr Gareth Akehurst for the tickets.

"London" Luton Airport

Thursday 30th June 06:43
 
 This morning I noticed just how ridiculous "London" Luton Airport has become. Now think back a few years to when it all seemed a lot easier. I was living in Germany and averaging around 30 flights a year, jetting back to my "fatherland" to visit family and friends and increasing my carbon footprint. This was long before "London" Luton airport introduced their new interesting drop off parking policy. Originally there used to be a large area next to the terminal building you could simply drive in, park where you like and deposit your partner, friend or colleague off to an exotic destination of their choice (or not so exotic as the case generally is when flying from Luton). Pretty much the same system as every other airport in the world. As of last year the brain boxes behind "London" Luton airport decided to charge people for this privilege. One whole English pound buys you the right to drop your friend or family member off next to the terminal building and stay parked for up to ten minutes. You may now come to the conclusion that it's not a lot of money, and i would happily nod in agreement. I actually think what they have done is a genius business model and maybe other airports should take note. Making people pay for what they need to do is somehow a new stealth tax. It's like being at a train station in London and being charged 50 pence to go to the toilet (which is another form of taxation, crap tax i like to call it). Whatever next? People charged tax on air...? "Yes from today we will ask every citizen of the United Kingdom to pay one pound every day for economical oxygen growth tax", I can already envision a certain Mr C saying.
 
Jokes aside, the main problem in this ingenious money making plan is they did not plan for the amount of congestion it would make during the flying rush hours. I am currently sat on my low cost flight to Glasgow deep in thought (on business and certainly not leisure), having been dropped a few hundred yards from the terminal building due to non moving traffic. Surely they should have thought if people are going to spend one pound, especially when we are "coming out of a recession", people will make the most of it. Therefore people are more than prepared to use nine and three quarters of their ten allocated minutes regardless of leaving hundreds of cars waiting their turn behind them. All I'm saying to "London" Luton airport is, if your going to do something so drastic please think of the consequences and act accordingly. Instead they have set up a van with signs informing the public if you do not drop your people off in the designated one pound payment drop off area, you get fined eighty pounds. What they should have done is change the road system to make it quicker and easier to drop people off, not threaten people with pay one pound or pay eighty pounds into our coffers. Have they never flown low cost early in the morning? I for one can tell you it's not pretty and the last thing you want is unneeded trouble prior to hitting the airport, because that's when it normally begins.
 

Future of theatre

Hi and welcome to my first Blogging experience. I hope it's interesting and please feel free to leave me feedback.
Having spent the last 11 years of my life working in Musical Theatre, i find myself looking back and seeing how the industry has changed. When i left college, there was a lot of relatively home grown productions on the stage. Classic's from Gershwin to Webber. As everyone is probably aware there seems to be more and more shows based on movies or featuring the music from successful pop bands. Obviously the huge worldwide success of Mamma Mia has lead to more bands/groups cashing in and trying their luck. I am by no means a fan of Mamma Mia, but it's clear Abba found a niche in the market and even managed a transfer to the silver screen, which is some feat for a theatrical production. I think Our House was my favorite of the bunch (based on the music from Madness) as it was as close to the music as the show could be, cheeky and fun. Unfortunately this clearly didn't hit a note with the punters though. We Will Rock You has now turned into a European success, despite being completely flawed as a musical. I really rate Ben Elton as a writer and have read a fair few books, but i cannot understand what possessed him when writing this musical. The story is pretty horrific and after a few months of the show coming out it was going to be pulled, had it not been for Brian May playing guitar on the roof of Buckingham Palace at the Queen's Jubilee. Sometimes you cannot buy publicity like that. Don't get me wrong Queen's music is just fantastic and WWRY is as close as people will ever come to hearing it live. Unfortunately i missed Never Forget (based on the music of Take That), but as you can see there is clearly a trend.
Then we turn to Movie's being turned into Musicals. Dirty Dancing, Shrek, Ghost, Sister Act, Tarzan, Spiderman, Adams Family, Catch Me If You Can, Legally Blonde, some proving if doesn't even have to be a good movie to be seen as a money making experiment. Where does it end? It seems theatre goers no longer crave for new and interesting works of theatre, but for a movie rehashed into a stage production (or maybe that's what producers want us to think). Where is the new Wicked? The new Rent?
I'm yet to see Lend Me A Tenor, but I take my hat off to the creative team and cast for at last providing us with something new and daring. I am a huge fan of the old school musicals, and i am really looking forward to seeing this production. The problem is, i just cannot imagine it competing with Shrek or Ghost for business. Dare i say i did see Shrek on Broadway and the saving grace was Sutton Foster, who you could put into the worst piece of theatre and come out smelling of roses. I did also see Ghost in Manchester and its actually a beautiful piece of theatre and I cannot praise it enough.
I guess regardless of the production, there are some great shows and some not so. The thing I am missing in my life is a West End or Broadway just filled with fantastic, original musicals, or have we got to the point where we have exhausted these. There has to be an extremely large number of original musicals out there just waiting to be picked up, but instead producers don't want to gamble. I can't blame them, as everyone is struggling in this economic climate. Of course theatre is a luxury that comes after food, water and electricity.  Sondheim's new production is just into previews as we speak staring Michael Jibson from Our House. I do know Sondheim is a complete legend and he does write thrilling and encapsulating theatre, but if he can do it, surely we must have some better idea's than movies on stage, featuring songs. The Book of Mormon which is currently smashing Broadway to pieces is a prime example. It took 4 years to write and now they are clearly reaping the rewards.
I just want to ask producers to please please please bring new and exciting productions back into theatres as it would put a huge smile back on my face.