Corruption, celebrity and confidence
Lloyd Evans talks to Matthew Bourne about his new ballet Dorian Gray and co-directing Oliver!
After Dorian Gray his next task is to co-direct Oliver! with Rupert Goold at the Drury Lane theatre. The role of Nancy will be played by Jodie Prenger, winner of the BBC’s I’d Do Anything. Bourne indulges in some light sarcasm about the show. ‘The way they went on about Nancy, it was as if it was Lady Macbeth. It’s just a few lines here, a few lines there, and she’s singing again.’ Was he rooting for Jodie? ‘She wasn’t my original choice but she began to win me over. The warmth was genuine, her warmth will fill that massive theatre. But to start with I wasn’t for her. At all. She was just too loud for me initially and it was, hmm, how would you work with her?’ ‘I’d better not put that in. You’re about to direct her.’ He laughs and mentions Cameron Mackintosh and Andrew Lloyd Webber. ‘They didn’t care what they said. They went for the other one, didn’t they?’
I ask if he agrees with Kevin Spacey, who complained that I’d Do Anything, and similar talent shows, upset the commercial balance of the West End. Bourne takes the opposite view but spins it positively. ‘I don’t know how serious Kevin Spacey was. It’s pretty amazing to have knowledgeable people on Saturday prime-time television giving their views about actors. It turns the whole world into casting directors. In an interesting way. Cameron and Andrew, in particular, don’t really work for the cameras. They say the same things they’d say in the rehearsal room. And the TV show gets people excited about theatre. If they have a great time at Oliver! they’re going to book for something else.’
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