Ian Talbot, director of this year's Cinderella at
the Oxford Playhouse, is plainly not the sort of man who gets
all huffy when one of his productions receives a mauling from
the critics. Renowned for the string of hit musicals he has
turned out as Artistic Director of the Open Air Theatre, Regents
Park, a Christmas or two ago he directed Peter Pan
at the Royal Festival Hall. The result, Ian tells me, was
"absolutely slammed, but it took £1.8 million at the box office.
I was not ashamed of it."
Not surprisingly, Ian Talbot stuck with Peter Pan:
"Last year I directed a production with Russ Abbott at Westcliff-on-Sea.
But Peter Pan wasn't my first introduction to Christmas
shows. I'm also an actor, and for eleven years I played Toad
in Toad of Toad Hall in London.
At which point I go green with envy, for Toad is a role I
have always dreamt of playing. "It was wonderful," Ian laughs,
"It was with Richard Goolden, who played Mole. He never knew
my name, even after eleven years. It would just be 'Toady'.
And I've actually been in Cinderella, at Hornchurch
many years ago. I played Buttons, and I was atrocious."
Well worn Cinderella may be, but the Playhouse has
commissioned a new script from Oxfordshire writer Tony Bicāt,
and new music from his brother Nick. "What attracted me to
this production," Ian Talbot tells me, "Is that it is really
a play with music. It's such a huge relief to know that the
songs further the plot - it isn't 'how can we fit in the latest
hit record from Kylie Minogue'."
"On my first day of rehearsal here in Oxford, I made a passion,
and said: 'you do know the responsibility', and at Regent's
Park I feel the same thing - a lot of people will come and
have their first theatrical experience. It is very easy at
Christmas, because you've got a captive audience. But if the
show isn't done well, it could put them off for life."
Youthful visits to the theatre obviously didn't put Ian Talbot
off. "My father was keen on variety, and a big treat was to
go and see the Crazy Gang every year at the Victoria Palace,
which I absolutely adored. The only disappointment I had there
- you wouldn't be allowed to do it now, but I remember once
that a very beautiful young woman came through a door, and
her skirt blew off. Everybody laughed. Afterwards I told a
friend about the skirt blowing off, and he said 'and then
they all laughed'. It was all part of the act, it happened
every night, they were using a wind machine. It was the first
time I'd heard of what they call 'a plotted gag'. It really
upset me, I thought I had witnessed theatrical history being
made."
As we talk, Ian is coming to the end of his first week of
rehearsals. It's always struck me how difficult it must be
to time, for instance, the throwing of insults backwards and
forwards between the Ugly Sisters when there's no audience
present to laugh, or react in any way. "It is. Someone said
this to me this morning actually. Gerard Carey and Harry Peacock,
who are playing the Ugly Sisters, have never done it before,
although I have worked separately with both of them before.
I was very, very careful to check that they would get on well
together. So I made sure that they met, and within seconds
I could see that they were going to be mates. They're the
two who go off and have a drink together at the end of rehearsal.
And because I'd worked with them before, we could use short
cuts, I didn't have to tread carefully and see how they would
rehearse." "But it's also about the script. There isn't a
great blank on the page, where it says 'Ugly Sisters do their
speciality act'. There is some audience participation built
in - it wouldn't be true to panto tradition if there wasn't
- but it's much more about keeping to the script."
With a whole legion of first nights behind him, what is Ian
Talbot going to be like when Cinderella opens? "In my particular
case, I know it's going to open on the first night, whatever.
At Regent's Park, if it rains, the show doesn't open. So that's
a luxury at the Playhouse, because you know everything is
going to be on time, and there's no element of doubt. We haven't
come to that point with Cinderella yet, but I love the period
of technical rehearsals at Regent's Park. If you start a lighting
rehearsal there at about 10 o'clock at night, you see bats
flying about - when Judi Dench directed Boys from Syracuse,
she refused to go home until dawn broke, and sent out for
pizzas. But I think with a children's show - and this sounds
as if I'm being very pious and modest - if you don't get the
reaction from the young audience, then you know you've failed."
Giles Woodforde
§ Cinderella opens at Oxford Playhouse on 2 December
and runs until 15 January.
GILES WOODFORDE for The Oxford Times.
Friday 18 November 2005
