INTERVIEW - Paul Boyd

Better known as a composer and writer, Paul Boyd has adapted numerous classic tales into successful musicals including Hansel & Gretel, The Elves and the Shoemaker and Red – The Red Riding Hood Musical.  He also walked away with the prestigious award for Best Musical in 2003 for Pinocchio, and was also nominated in the 'Best Production for Children and Young People' category at the 2007 TMA Theatre Awards.

So, as a veteran writer and composer it was no surprise when Boyd was asked to work on the adaption of Spike Milligan’s play Puckoon.  However, when asked to take a more central role, Boyd was less than forthcoming, as he explained to Thomas Magill when they caught up for a chat ahead of its opening night in London next month.

TM – So how would you describe Puckoon?

PB - I would definitely say it’s a play with music.  The entire show is underscored through-out, which means there’s music being played in every scene through-out the show.  Milligan didn’t like actors doing nothing, so in Puckoon, if you’re not in a scene, then you’re somewhere in the background playing some sort of an instrument.  All the actors can play something aswell.  I hope the music I wrote is as humorous as the words and the actors in this version. 

TM – What’s the play about?

PB – Well this is Spike Milligan’s first novel.  By the time he’d written this he had already been in The Goons and was well known for his plays and sketch work, but not as a novelist.  The background to the play is that Spike struggled to an Irish passport in the 1940’s, but he eventually got one – and he was very proud of it, and adamant right up until his death that he was Irish, despite never living there. 

So I think this gave him the idea for the novel which is set in the 1920’s around the time of the partition of Ireland.  It’s a comedy – obviously – about the totally incompetent Boundary Commission who made a mistake and drew the border through the middle of the little village of Puckoon, somewhere near Sligo.  And then, it’s just about the villagers living in a place where part of their village is in the North and part in the South.  It has funny sketches like when someone dies in the South, they have to get a visa to get buried, because the graveyard in now in Northern Ireland.  It causes absolute chaos.

TM – It sounds a scream, so is it a big cast?

PB – Well not a big cast but there’s a huge number of characters.  Milligan tried to bring everyone in the village into the play, so although there is only 6 actors – the play has hundreds of characters.  It’s hilarious as actors switch between characters and plots through-out.  But I play the writer, so only one character at the moment! 

TM – So you have it easy then.  How did you get the part?

PB – I was brought on board to write the music and was never meant to have any lines in the play.  Then the Director asked me did I fancy saying just one line, and in true Milligan style, this evolved into a fully fledged part.  I should learn to look at my Contract in more detail next time.  The other weird and really interesting thing about Puckoon is how the actors speak to the writer – that’s me – throughout the play.  So the characters knock down the fourth wall, and again this leads to even more hilarious chaos.

TM – This will be the first time Puckoon will be shown in England, following a hugely successful tour in Ireland.  How do you think it’ll go down in the West End?

PB – We’ll have to wait and see, but I reckon we’ve found our home at the Leicester Square Theatre, and that people will love the play.  My first thought is that in Ireland, people went to the play because they were familiar with Spike Milligan, as and Irishman.  But in England, I think he probably has a really strong fan base because of his work, as a poet, comedienne and artist.

TM – Were you familiar with his work before you became involved in Puckoon?

PB – Not overly.  Obviously I’d heard of him, and knew he was one of the grandfathers of comedy, but I wouldn’t have been able to quote him or tell you any of his work.  That’s in contrast to Monty Python, who I grew up reading.  I think loads of people are like me and don’t realise Spike Milligan was even influential in the Monty Python works – so he’s a real legend.

TM – Well good luck with everything at the Leicester Square Theatre

PB – Thank you.  It’s the perfect space right in the heart of the West End for Puckoon.  Not too big or too small with a bar right at the side of the stage for those Irishmen in England who I’m sure will want to come and see it.

Puckoon opens at the Leicester Square Theatre on the 8^th March.  For more information and to book tickets contact your concierge.

REVIEW - Clybourne Park

Relentlessly un-PC, Clybourne Park marched into the West End after its hugely successful run at the

Royal Court

last year.  Now, with an armful of awards including Best Play by the Evening Standard and Critic’s Circle, it proudly pulls no punches.  Bruce Norris’s racial drama deals with prejudice and discrimination in the 1950’s in the first half, and expose’s modern America as a Nation where little has changed since those dark and inhumane days.

No-one would expect anything other than bigoted, ill founded fear and overt discrimination in a play about a black couple, set on moving into an exclusively white part of downtown Chicago in the late 1950’s.  And that’s exactly how local busybody and all-round fuddy-duddy Karl (Stephen Campbell Moore) and his deaf and pregnant wife Betsey (Sarah Goldberg) react to the news, their neighbour’s, Bev (Sophie Thompson) and Russ (Stuart McQuarrie) have sold-up to a completely “inappropriate” pair from the wrong side of town.

McQuarrie and Thompson play a more than anxious couple, clearly in love and devoted to each other, but struggling to cope with life after their beloved son killed himself in the upstairs bedroom.  That’s why they’ve decided to move.  Thompson was sincere and heart warming as the worried wife and grieving mother, trying to hold it together amongst the absolute devastation that’s occurred - and against the pressure of living with a man who either couldn’t, or more than likely, didn’t even try to stay in control.

There are a few sub plots running through this overly complicated plot.  These are gradually cleared up twenty minutes or so into the second half, thanks to Lorna Brown, who plays the culturally sensitive black woman, who asks – what are we all doing here?  I was thinking the same thing at this point. 

In the second half, the cast play different characters fifty years on, but back in the same house.  It’s now deteriorated and fallen into a sad state - just like the community around it.  Counter discrimination and ill founded negatively towards decent, but unknown people continue in an almost identical vain to what happened fifty years earlier in the same living room.  Basically the second half of this brutally honest story descends into a catalogue of abusive racially motivated “jokes”; I wouldn’t dare print in this respectable forum.

Clybourne Park is terrifically provoking on many levels, and will undoubtedly open up the debate in your own mind about how far we’ve all come over the last fifty years.  For some the answer will be – not very far.  Despite this, the nuggets of humour interspersed through-out this gritty look at social division helps lighten, what could otherwise be described as a stressful and embarrassing social documentary.

Lesley Jordan has cuppa with Thomas and chats about his one man show

He’s probably best known this side of the Atlantic as the pint sized, acid tongued Beverley Leslie from the US sitcom Will & Grace.  With his distinctive camp walk, southern drawl and only 5ft tall, it wasn’t always easy for Lesley Jordan trying to make it in Hollywood in the eighties.  Thomas Magill met him for a coffee and a gossip ahead of his one man show at the Apollo in London. 

TM - Where did the idea for a one man show come from?

LJ – I’d written a book about my life with all my party stories, and I called it my trip down the pink carpet.  So we took the book on a tour, and rather than me just getting up and talking about the book, we made up a little show, and signed books afterwards.  The book did okay – not brilliantly - but the show was really popular.  People seems to love listening to the show and watching me tell my tales.  I then got invited to New York – they have the Harvey Milk High School there and they wanted me to do it at a benefit show.  We did the show, and it went down so well that we got serious about it, and opened in LA a while later.

TM - And what can we expect from the evening?

LJ - Basically, it’s just me, on a stage telling funny stories about my life and the celebrities I’ve bumped into – sometimes literally – and worked with.  It includes the beginning of my journey and tales about where I grew up in the deep south, and being deeply ashamed about being gay.  I talk about reaching Hollywood, learning to accept my sexuality, and then making a fortune from it.  My story is essentially about how I was able to turn everything I hated about myself into gold.

TM – So, it’s not only a cracking night out, but it has a lesson for life too presumable?

LJ – Sure honey.  Coming out is not new, and people are can get sick of yet another “coming out” story.  But, my story resonates with lots of people for different reasons.  I had a girl come up to me after one of the shows who said she was bullied because she was fat.  I have had others who’ve said they grew up poor or isolated and not feeling part of anything and my story sounded like her own.  So, it’s not something I ever get tired of doing, because I know it maybe will help some-one along the way.

TM – How do you think a British audience with take to the show?

LJ – Well we will have to see, won’t we?  One Brit who saw the show in LA came up to me afterwards and said “darling, you’re like crème brulee – they’ll eat you up in England”.

TM – You’ve got some very distinctive features – I’m thinking about your walk, and strong southern accent.  How have they helped or hindered your career?

LJ – When I first came to LA, I met this casting Director from Texas, and I was told, honey, you gotta lose the accent.  Otherwise I’ll never work in LA.  So, I gave it some thought, and then I tried, but honey it didn’t work.  But I’m not like Dolly Parton – I mean, you can understand me, and I’m now at a point where it’s just a part of me.  Maybe I have painted myself into a corner.  I mean, all I’m offered these days is very queeny roles, and I just think – there could be worse problems honey.  I’ve kept the ship afloat for over thirty years with these roles, so I’m not that bothered.  I also do a lot of cartoon voice over work and commercials.  Honey – you give me $20 and a square meal, and I’m there.  I’m above nothing!

TM – I suppose with that in mind, you’re not fussy where you work, or are you?

LJ – Actually I am.  I really prefer the stage.  But it doesn’t pay the same money as TV or the movies now-a-days.  The way I balance my work is with sitcoms, because in America they’re shot in front of a live audience.  Take Will & Grace, we had a live audience in the studio, and all four of the main characters has a strong theatre background, and I think that’s why I loved it so much – and why it worked so well.   Film is a Directors medium, television is the writers medium – but it’s the stage that is the actors medium.  

TM – It’s such a great show – did you enjoy working on it?

LJ – It was fantastic, and very hard work with Directors and writers giving us re-writes in the middle of scenes, in front of the audience.  People thought there was improvisation on the show, but the twelve writers on the show were determined not to let the actors improvise, so honey they was none.   The four main characters really bonded too.  None of them were famous before the show started, and they all grew very famous - and very rich – together, so it was lovely to see.  Before each show they would hold hands and say a little prayer together – and I wasn’t invited!  Am I bitter? No no!

TM – So now you’re in London – are you enjoying it?

LJ – Can you believe this is my first time, except for a quick trip over to do The Paul O’Grady last month.  Everything is so old, but I think it all looks lovely, but I haven’t had time to do much yet.  The only thing I really want to see is The National Portrait Gallery, so I’m going to get the show going first – then I’m going to go sightseeing alone.

TM – So what next after the show ends in London?

LJ – Well I go home to Hollywood and I have a month off.  I’m then off to entertain lesbians in Canada – please, don’t ask!  And then it’s into rehearsals for my Broadway debut honey.  My one man show ran off-Broadway, but the musical I’ll be in is called “Luck Guy” and its set in Nashville and I play Big Al alongside a six foot three drag queen, so it’s going to be a lot of fun.

TM – Well Lesley I hope you have a fantastic time in London and the show’s a smash.  When is it on until?

LJ – Thanks honey, It ends on the 19^th February and I hope you enjoy it when you come down to see it later x

For further information and to buy tickets go to http://www.mytripupthepinkcarpet.com/