Skip to main content

Jerry Mitchell - Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

Jerry Mitchell had never watched the film of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels when he was asked to choreograph David Yazbek and Jeffrey Lane's stage musical of the Frank Oz directed 1988 big screen vehicle for Michael Caine and Steve Martin. That was back in 2004, and by the following year the American born dancer turned director and choreographer was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Choreography on the show's original Broadway production, which ran for some 626 performances.

A decade on, and Mitchell revisited the show for a UK production which he both directed and choreographed on the West End. With the production being nominated for an Olivier Award, again for Best Choreography, Mitchell jetted in to London in April to attend the award ceremony in-between overseeing rehearsals for a touring version that arrives in Glasgow tonight prior to dates in Aberdeen and Edinburgh.

Oz's original caper movie about a couple of middle-aged con artists competing to scam wealthy women on the French Riviera may not have looked like an obvious choice for a hit musical when it first appeared, but since he saw it Mitchell has become a life-long fan.

“I laughed my ass off when I saw the movie,” he says now on a brief break during his whistle-stop London visit,. “I'd worked with Frank Oz, and the movie of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels was so funny, so I had a blast the first time I worked on it, and to go back to it and rework it for the West End and on tour like this is a joy. The West End production came about after I'd done Legally Blonde here, and I formed a company with Ambassador Theatre Group to help start and promote new musicals. Although I'd never done Dirty Rotten Scoundrels here, I loved it so much that I thought the humour would work better here than it did in America, and here we are.”

With the original London cast of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels featuring the likes of Robert Lindsay and Rufus Hound, Mitchell is full of praise for his current company. This includes former Robin of Sherwood star Michael Praed, ex member of TV reality show created pop band, Hear'Say, Noel Sullivan, and former Hollyoaks starlet Carly Stenson. Also in the cast is Waterloo Road star Mark Benton, with Gary Wilmot stepping in for the Edinburgh dates in September.

“Carly is so beautiful,” Mitchell says, “and she plays that mature cool so well. She also sings beautifully. Noel I was already a big fan of, and I'm even more so now. When Michael first came in to see me he sang Love Sneaks In, and out of all the great men who played that part, nobody delivered it better. Mark auditioned for the West End production, and I already knew him from Hairspray, so it's all worked out great.”

Mitchell may not have initially been au fait with Dirty Rotten Scoundrels a decade a go, but he had worked with the film's director before when he choreographed Oz's 1997 feature film, In and Out. Other film work includes choreographing Al Pacino in Scent of A Woman, and directing a TV movie of Legally Blonde: The Musical.

Having worked on stage versions of other hit movies including Hairspray and The Full Monty – both originally directed by Jack O'Brien, who also looked after the first production of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels - as well as directing Legally Blonde: The Musical and this current take on Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Mitchell has become something of a go-to guy for such big-scale song and dance shows. He won a Tony for Cindi Lauper and Harvey Fierstein's take on Kinky Boots, which he has also just directed in the West End.

While far from blasé about his shelf-full of awards, Mitchell is also pragmatic about how they sometimes work.
 
“This is the third or fourth time I've been nominated,” Mitchell says “and I do have one Olivier Award for my production of Legally Blonde, so I don't expect to win this time, but it's still great to be nominated, even though its kind of weird to be nominated alongside my peers for something completely different.”

Mitchell's early career saw him dance in several Broadway shows before receiving his first professional production credit in the 1990 musical of Jekyll and Hyde. He followed this with a revival of the Peanuts-based musical, You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown, before really hitting the big time with his work over the last decade that has also seen him direct and choreograph shows in Las Vegas, as well as becoming a mentor on dance-based TV reality shows.

Returning to Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Mitchell has kept the essence of the show, even as he has tweaked it slightly for a UK audience.

“There's a real immediacy to this show that I love,” he says, “and I try to put that into an audience's lap in the same way I did with Hairspray, and the same way I did with Legally Blonde and the same way I did with Kinky Boots. With this show as well, the music is so great, and the comedy works so well that it can't help but be immediate.”

Hearing him talk like this, it is clear that Mitchell's unabashed enthusiasm for both Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and his work beyond it remains undimmed.

“I do this because I love the work,” he says, “whether it's in the West End or on Broadway. I love the community it creates, and anything else is icing on the cake.”

After almost forty years in the business, he sees the value too in these times of austerity of something which, for all its glamour and glitz, is in effect a Robin Hood style story

“In today's world,” says Mitchell, “I think Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is a chance to go to the theatre to be totally entertained, and instead of everything else that's going on, we have this chance to have a wonderfully romantic evening. In that way I think musical comedy is a wonderful respite from what's going on in this world.”

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, King's Theatre, Glasgow, June 23-27; His Majesty's Theatre, Aberdeen, July 21-25; Edinburgh Playhouse, September 14-19.
www.scoundrelsontour.com

The Herald, June 23rd 2015

ends

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Ron Butlin - The Sound of My Voice

When Ron Butlin saw a man who’d just asked him the time throw himself under a train on the Paris Metro, it was a turning point in how his 1987 novel, The Sound Of My Voice, would turn out. Twenty years on, Butlin’s tale of suburban family man Morris Magellan’s existential crisis and his subsequent slide into alcoholism is regarded as a lost classic. Prime material, then, for the very intimate stage adaptation which opens in the Citizens Theatre’s tiny Stalls Studio tonight. “I had this friend in London who was an alcoholic,” Butlin recalls. “He would go off to work in the civil service in the morning looking absolutely immaculate. Then at night we’d meet, and he’s get mega-blootered, then go home and continue drinking and end up in a really bad state. I remember staying over one night, and he’d emerge from his room looking immaculate again. There was this huge contrast between what was going on outside and what was going on inside.” We’re sitting in a café on Edinburgh’s south sid

Losing Touch With My Mind - Psychedelia in Britain 1986-1990

DISC 1 1. THE STONE ROSES   -  Don’t Stop 2. SPACEMEN 3   -  Losing Touch With My Mind (Demo) 3. THE MODERN ART   -  Mind Train 4. 14 ICED BEARS   -  Mother Sleep 5. RED CHAIR FADEAWAY  -  Myra 6. BIFF BANG POW!   -  Five Minutes In The Life Of Greenwood Goulding 7. THE STAIRS  -  I Remember A Day 8. THE PRISONERS  -  In From The Cold 9. THE TELESCOPES   -  Everso 10. THE SEERS   -  Psych Out 11. MAGIC MUSHROOM BAND  -  You Can Be My L-S-D 12. THE HONEY SMUGGLERS  - Smokey Ice-Cream 13. THE MOONFLOWERS  -  We Dig Your Earth 14. THE SUGAR BATTLE   -  Colliding Minds 15. GOL GAPPAS   -  Albert Parker 16. PAUL ROLAND  -  In The Opium Den 17. THE THANES  -  Days Go Slowly By 18. THEE HYPNOTICS   -  Justice In Freedom (12" Version) 1. THE STONE ROSES    Don’t Stop ( Silvertone   ORE   1989) The trip didn’t quite start here for what sounds like Waterfall played backwards on The Stone Roses’ era-defining eponymous debut album, but it sounds

Big Gold Dreams – A Story of Scottish Independent Music 1977-1989

Disc 1 1. THE REZILLOS (My Baby Does) Good Sculptures (12/77)  2. THE EXILE Hooked On You (8/77) 3. DRIVE Jerkin’ (8/77) 4. VALVES Robot Love (9/77) 5. P.V.C. 2 Put You In The Picture (10/77) 6. JOHNNY & THE SELF ABUSERS Dead Vandals (11/77) 7. BEE BEE CEE You Gotta Know Girl (11/77) 8. SUBS Gimme Your Heart (2/78) 9. SKIDS Reasons (No Bad NB 1, 4/78) 10. FINGERPRINTZ Dancing With Myself (1/79)  11. THE ZIPS Take Me Down (4/79) 12. ANOTHER PRETTY FACE All The Boys Love Carrie (5/79)  13. VISITORS Electric Heat (5/79) 14. JOLT See Saw (6/79) 15. SIMPLE MINDS Chelsea Girl (6/79) 16. SHAKE Culture Shock (7/79) 17. HEADBOYS The Shape Of Things To Come (7/79) 18. FIRE EXIT Time Wall (8/79) 19. FREEZE Paranoia (9/79) 20. FAKES Sylvia Clarke (9/79) 21. TPI She’s Too Clever For Me (10/79) 22. FUN 4 Singing In The Showers (11/79) 23. FLOWERS Confessions (12/79) 24. TV21 Playing With Fire (4/80) 25. ALEX FERGUSSON Stay With Me Tonight (1980) 1. THE REZILL