Footloose and (possibly) fancy free

For this next post, we’re going back to June 2016. It was actually quite a busy month in some ways, especially compared to COVID lockdowns and what feels like years of restrictions. In June 2016, it was my brilliant best friend’s birthday, our school history trip to France and Belgium and the show this post is all about- ‘Footloose’. We went to see ‘Footloose’ at His Majesty’s Theatre in Aberdeen about a week after our Song Shop summer show, which was a ‘Songs to make you smile’, which was more of a compilation of different musical numbers with pop songs and musical hits, rather than a show with a plot or characters. We actually put on ‘Footloose’ with Song Shop in 2010 and the production we saw with our lovely friend, Phyl, in Aberdeen in 2016 was a brilliant show. It was definitely predominantly women in the audience and at times it had almost strip club and hen night vibes with the amount of screaming and excitement as on the whole people went to this show for one of a few main reasons. Some people were there to see Maureen Nolan, an actual Nolan from the Nolans, some people went to see Matthew Tomlinson of the Montrose family (see earlier post for more info on them) and many, many people went to see Gareth Gates, who was on ‘Pop Idol’ with Will Young in 2002, as the hen night style screaming was for him and the audience went wild for Gareth and as this was a matinee, it wasn’t the vibe that we’d been expecting at all. However, while everyone who appeared in the show was really great, we went to see my Mum’s old friend, Nigel Lister, who played the minister and father of Ariel, who ends up with the protagonist, Ren. We also saw Nigel in ‘The Wizard of Oz’ in the Pitlochry Christmas show in 2018 and he’s recently been in an episode of the new BBC drama ‘It’s a Sin’. I contacted him to ask him some questions about his experience of being in 'Footloose' and of performing more generally and he was kind enough to get back with some answers. Here are his responses:

How was your experience of being in 'Footloose'?  

Well it was a pretty intense year.  Weekly touring is by turns exciting and boring, wearing and exhilarating.  Performing over 250 shows in 30 different cities over 9 months can feel relentless with 8 shows every week and some places are more fun to be in then others but overall it was an amazing experience.  I visited some of the greatest cities in England, Scotland and Ireland, playing amazing theatres while hanging out with some pretty cool people; oh and I probably learnt to sing on the job too. That is, I learnt how to put over a song, to reveal your characters thoughts and emotions in a scene by singing as opposed to speaking; that was all pretty new to me.  Oh and it was great to play electric guitar every night off stage too!

What was your first experience of performing? 

Well apparently I stood on a chair at Nursery school in Middlesbrough and sang ‘Twinkle, twinkle little star’ and I remember being in the school Nativity play and some thing about Noah’s Ark at Junior school but I had piano lessons from the age of 6 and singing and tap dancing lessons when I was about 8 so I actually had quite a bit from an early age.  I used to enter singing competitions around the north east around this age and I definitely remember performing with my tap class at some thing somewhere... brown trousers and yellow roll necks are looming from my memory.  I was asked about ballet but I guess I wasn’t as brave as Billy Elliot, my brothers preferred football.

What was the first musical you appeared in?

I did quite a few plays at Stokesley school but I remember also being in a couple of musicals- Oliver! And Fiddler on the Roof.

Are there any TV series or stage shows you'd like to be in?

I can’t think of any TV shows in particular that I’d like to be in, I just like to be busy- you have to pay the rent- but it’s great when you know you’re in something good.  I’ve got a moment in It’s A Sin which is on channel 4 at the moment so that feels good.  As for theatre, I like being in new plays and Shakespeare- he really gives you a rhythm to grab hold of and great lines to speak.

How was your experience of working with a Nolan?

Maureen Nolan is a delight and very down to earth- as were her other sisters that I variously met along the way and unsurprisingly, she really knows how to put over a song.  She can carry such emotion in her singing and I often would watch her big number and try and learn.

Do you prefer doing TV or stage shows?

I prefer stage but I wouldn’t want to have to choose, I love camera stuff too but it feels like a different thing. Same, same but different...

Do you have a favourite musical and if so which one?

I tend to have preferred opera to musicals but obviously I love Singing in the Rain and my wife is a big Fred and Ginger fan.  The recent production of Fiddler at the Meniere Chocolate Factory was utterly heart breaking so I think I’m getting into musicals more these days.  Footloose gave me an appreciation of what’s involved, I hadn’t really done many at all before that, certainly not on that scale.  But West Side Story is probably my favourite.

Do you have any favourite movies?

That is an impossible question, their are far too many, I mean where would you even start? Casablanca.

Which TV series did you binge in lockdown?

Lockdown did have some great telly, thank God.  I loved, Normal People, Sex Education, Queens Gambit, Enola Holmes... I May Destroy You was particularly amazing. Oh and another shout out to It’s A Sin. Harrowing and exhilarating.

What's your favourite TV series?

Favourite TV series?  I’ll have to get back to you, as you can see I’m not very good at favourites.  Breaking Bad was good.  To be honest this week I’ve been a tiny bit obsessed with all those, young people reacting to Led Zeppelin tracks on the youtubes...

 

The cast of ‘Footloose’ was brilliant, as like with the Leeds Cinderella panto, they pretty much sang, danced and played their own instruments as well as playing sometimes multiple characters. ‘Footloose’ might be best known in terms of the 1984 musical drama film ‘Footloose’ with Kevin Bacon, but it was actually based on a true story of a real, extremely religious town in Oklahoma that banned dancing publicly for almost ninety years. Also, some TV references - for any ‘New Girl’ fans, Nick actually makes a reference to ‘the town in Footloose’ in season one when he refuses to dance with everyone and famous TV ‘cool’ Dad in the form of Phil Dunphy from ‘Modern Family’ loves ‘Footloose’ as well. ‘Footloose’ opened as a Broadway stage musical in 1998 with music by Tom Snow (and many others) and lyrics by Kenny Loggins and Dean Pitchford. There are several well-known songs in ‘Footloose’, including Bonnie Tyler’s ‘Holding out for a hero’ which appears in other films and other contexts, such as the famous cover by Jennifer Saunders in ‘Shrek 2’. Other songs, ‘Let’s hear it for the boy’, ‘Footloose’ and ‘Somebody’s eyes’, only appear in ‘Footloose’ as well the love theme ‘Almost Paradise’, though it is the stage show that is the musical whereas the film versions focus more on the dance element as it’s so key to Ren’s character and the plot. In fact, ‘Footloose’ was actually remade in 2011 with Andie MacDowell, Julianne Hough and Dennis Quaid in key roles.

As there’s the movie connection with ‘Footloose’ for this post, I’ve put together a list of some of my favourite movie musicals. Please feel free to share some of your favourites in the comments if you’d like. There’s no obligation, though.😊  

1)Hairspray (2007) 2)Dreamgirls (2006) 3)La La Land (2017) 4)Moulin Rouge (2001) 5)Enchanted (2007)

The next post’s going to be a little different, with more of a TV theme… Hope you enjoy. See you next time 😊

Breakfast at Tiffany's - Audrey, Pixie, Julie and me

 Hope everyone’s doing ok. Thanks again to everyone who humoured me by doing the quiz, I really appreciate it. Quizzes have always been one of my favourite things, which is possibly because my parents met at a pub quiz, meaning that I pretty much owe my existence to quizzes, which maybe makes them feel more important to me than they should, but anyway.

 For this next post, we’re going back five years or so to when I saw a stage production of ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’. I saw this particular production with my parents and paternal Grandma at the Grand Theatre in Leeds when visiting family a week before my sixteenth birthday in April 2016. I’d certainly never heard of a stage version of it before but was excited to see it as I had always been a fan of Audrey Hepburn and elements of the 1961 film, especially ‘Moon River’, which is so beautiful, classic and iconic (and is sung by Hepburn in the film, though other options had been explored and the song was nearly cut). I’d even dressed as Audrey’s Holly Golightly for Halloween when I was 15 (see below). Singer Pixie Lott was playing Holly in this touring production and in London (see photo on right at top of post) and she had been in Strictly Come Dancing the year before so I was quite keen to see her too.

The play was adapted by American playwright Richard Greenberg in 2013 and was advertised with Pixie Lott very much recreating the iconic Hepburn look from the movie and so I think I did expect the show to be something more like the film. Also, as Pixie is best known for being a singer, maybe we did all expect it to be more of a musical (when in fact this production was really more like a play with just  a few songs.) Judging from the feedback from some audience members during the first act and at the interval, it seems like there were others who were anticipating something quite different to the play that was offered to us that night as well. In fact, some people did leave the theatre before the second act –  there were definitely more empty seats in the row in front of us after the interval. To be honest, the show wasn’t much like the movie at all and was instead much more reminiscent of the 1958 Truman Capote novella of the same name. This meant it had an arguably less romantic ending, where Holly doesn’t end up with the male protagonist (who she often affectionately calls ‘Fred’ after her beloved brother), and instead did have the plotline about her getting pregnant from the book. In fact, while Capote’s novella does include the signature black dress from the movie, Holly is also described as having blonde hair like Pixie in the novella, which is pretty different to the image of a brunette Holly that many people have from Audrey’s portrayal. In fact, when I dressed up as Holly as a teenager, I even dyed my naturally red hair brown to look more like Audrey. Pixie gave a good performance but it was a shame that only three songs were actually used in the stage show because she has a very nice voice. For the show, the music was partly comprised of older songs to reflect the era, including the song, ‘People will say we’re in love’ from the musical, ‘Oklahoma!’, as Holly loves ‘Oklahoma!’ in the novella. Grant Olding wrote the music for the other song, ‘Hold up my dying day’. 

Pixie Lott singing 'Moon River'

When Greenberg originally adapted this play, it had its first showings in the U.S.A, which isn’t that surprising because Capote was American and it’s such a New York City story. When I saw it in Leeds in 2016, even if the show wasn’t what we expected, there was still lots that was good about it and the sets were used quite cleverly and a real cat was even used to portray Holly’s cat (who is usually known simply as ‘cat’). This choice of name (or lack of name) for the cat is part of all versions of the story and helps demonstrate that Holly doesn’t want to form close bonds or attachments as she doesn’t want anyone to feel that they belong to anyone else. In the movie, she realises that it’s ok to care about others and that there are people who genuinely care about her and like her for who she is and won’t hurt her, and we see this as she goes to get her cat back and enters into a romantic relationship. However, although the movie version of Holly appears to be mostly the same as the Holly in the novella and the play, the fact that she only gets the romantic ending in the movie leaves you feeling differently about her life depending on which version you see. This alternative ending might also change how you see the overall meaning of the story or how your impression of Holly’s initial hopes and desires has changed. The character of Holly is an interesting one as, on the one hand, she has a fiercely independent nature but is also looking to get married for financial reasons, which puts her in a rather unusual position. I’ve always been fascinated by analysing the character development, back story, depth and motivation of fictional women in films and TV. 

It's also interesting to relate this idea of the portrayal of women with the kinds of roles that Audrey Hepburn was generally cast in. For instance, the fact that ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’, which was not a particularly romantic novella, became a more traditional love story when it was adapted into the 1961 movie, echoes the way that Audrey’s signature, distinctive, almost delicate features found her being typecast in either ingenue or princess/fairy tale type stories. For instance, in the 1964 film ‘My Fair Lady’ (dir. George Cukor), based on George Bernard Shaw’s ‘Pygmalion’, Hepburn’s character, Eliza, follows a kind of Cinderella tale of getting a new wardrobe and going to the ball etc. Julie Andrews was known for playing Eliza in the stage musical but at this stage Andrews wasn’t known as a movie star (that soon changed!) so it was dainty Audrey Hepburn who was chosen to be Eliza (even though it wasn’t her voice on the songs). Andrews fans were surprised and disappointed that she wasn’t cast in the film version of ‘My Fair Lady’. Interestingly, it was Julie’s second husband, Blake Edwards, (they married in 1969) who directed Audrey in ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s. 

  In fact, Audrey even won an Oscar for her portrayal of an actual princess in the 1953 film, ‘Roman Holiday’, which could illustrate how she was typically cast in romantic, princess type tales. To an extent, there is still a kind of fascination with royalty and princesses for some people and the idea of royals being ‘just like everyone else’, with ‘The Crown’ series, many recent romantic comedies about young, always beautiful princesses and/or handsome princes of fictional countries finding love with ‘ordinary’ people and ‘The Princess Diaries’ series. At the time that ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ was released, in the early 1960s, it was also perhaps the beginning of the limiting, often sexist Marilyn-Jackie dichotomy that tried to pit blonde and brunette women against each other and perpetuated harmful stereotypes about blondes being attractive but not intelligent and brunettes being smart and serious (of course this dichotomy, like many issues in Western culture, was pretty limited and, on the whole, was just looking at two groups within one – white women). This era of the early 1960s is portrayed in an effective, interesting way in the TV series ‘Mad Men’, which began in 2007, and the brilliant 2003 battle of the sexes comedy ‘Down with love’ explores the Marilyn-Jackie dichotomy and supposed ‘rivalry’ between blondes and brunettes and stereotypes surrounding the hair colours, which is also explored in another early 2000s film, ‘Legally Blonde’ (2001). Who knew that hair colour was such a big deal? Well, maybe most redheads maybe feel this, as I've certainly had comments about it and felt like I've stood out because of my red hair.

Next time - Footloose hits Aberdeen!