Aberdeen Arts Centre can’t get rid of Derek Anderson. This
should become clear when the curtain goes up on his production of Stephen
Sondheim and George Furth’s musical, Company, next month. Featuring an array of
West End musical theatre veterans rarely sighted this far north, Anderson’s third
show at Aberdeen Arts Centre following productions of Cabaret and The Pillowman
marks a prodigal’s return that puts both the director and the venue itself
squarely in the spotlight.
“After doing the first two shows, what the Board at
Aberdeen Arts Centre liked about Company is that, like the others, audiences
will maybe feel challenged by the work in ways that don’t happen so much these
days. Company totally fits in with their remit in that way.”
Company first appeared on Broadway in 1970 after
Sondheim was approached by actor Anthony Perkins, who asked him to read a set
of eleven short plays by Furth. Sondheim in turn passed them on to producer
Harold Prince, who first mooted the idea of using the plays as the basis for a
musical. The result was a compendium of vignettes that focused on the life and
loves of Bobby, a swinging bachelor on the cusp of middle-age and unable to
commit to a steady relationship, but who has three girlfriends while the five
couples who are his best friends get on with their assorted marriages. The show’s
candid depiction of some of its era’s grown-up concerns broke the mould of
musical theatre, and went on to win five Tony awards.
“It’s quite fluid,” says Anderson. “It jumps around in
terms of where we are in the story, and isn’t what you’d normally get in
musical theatre. There are no happy ever afters, so it ends without any real
kind of resolution. It doesn’t hold back in challenging the audience, which
makes it quite thrilling to be working on something so open to interpretation,
but quite scary as well.”
Aged fourteen, Anderson started doing work experience
at Aberdeen Arts Centre. He later graduated to working front of house, then behind
the bar. While still only in his late teens, he was already putting on shows of
his own before moving to London to study drama at Mountview. He worked
backstage on various shows until he convinced producer David Adkin to let him
try his luck directing Sweeney Todd in what he calls “a baptism of fire.”
When those in charge of Aberdeen Arts Centre got wind
that a local boy was behind the show, their plans to develop the 350-seat venue
as a producing house seemed a perfect match.
“I thought they were joking,” says Anderson, “but I bit
their hand off. Part of their thinking behind it is the fact that Dundee,
Pitlochry and Perth all have these vibrant producing houses outside the central
belt, and wondering why Aberdeen doesn’t have that.”
This isn’t the first time such an initiative has been
attempted in the city. A decade ago, His Majesty’s Theatre, then under the
tenure of Duncan Hendry, produced a trilogy of stage adaptations of classic
Scottish novels, all directed by the late Kenny Ireland. Productions of
Alastair Cording’s version of Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s Sunset Song, and
adaptations of Neil M Gunn’s The Silver Darlings and Robin Jenkins’ The Cone
Gatherers, both adapted by Peter Arnott, followed in successive years. While
Hendry moved on to run Edinburgh’s King’s and Festival Theatres, Anderson
worked on all three Aberdeen shows.
“I got a small job working backstage,” he says, “but not
everyone’s that lucky. Growing up in Aberdeen, if you’re desperately wanting to
pursue a theatre carer like I did, there’s not enough work goes on in Aberdeen at
the moment to be able to develop or sustain any kind of career here, and it’s
frustrating that you have to move away.”
Company may go some way to change all that. Working in
tandem with Adkin once more, Anderson’s production of Company features a
roll-call of West End musical talent. This is led by Oliver Savile, who plays
Bobby. Savile’s credits include turns in Wicked, The Phantom of the Opera, Cats
and Les Miserables. Also on board is Midlothian born Ashleigh Gray, who, as
well as extensive London credits, appeared in the UK tour of Susan Boyle musical,
I Dreamed a Dream, and toured with Boyle herself in the singer’s Scottish
concert tour. The last time Gray performed in Aberdeen was when she played
Elphaba in the UK tour of Wicked.
Company’s large cast also includes Arun Blair-Mangat,
a veteran of Hairspray on tour and Kinky Boots in the West End. Blair-Mangat
has also played the male title role in a tour of Romeo and Juliet, and appeared
in Titus Andronicus at Shakespeare’s Globe. Last year he could be seen in
Marianne Elliot’s epic revival of Tony Kushner’s two-part play, Angels in
America. Completing Company’s frontline is Anita Louise Combe, who has
previously toured the UK and Europe in Cats and appeared in Chicago on the West
End.
“I’m so lucky to have a cast like this prepared to put
their faith in a couple of kids like David and me and come up to Aberdeen when
they could easily be playing much bigger venues,” Anderson says.
As for Aberdeen Arts Centre itself, “They’re very much
looking ahead. This is just the start for them. We’re rehearsing Company in
London just because everybody’s here, but eventually I think the people at the
venue would like to change that as they grow into a producing house and bring
more local people in. We had local musicians and actors in Cabaret, and there’s
a long term plan to develop talent for the city as a whole and hopefully inspire
a new generation of artists.”
By way of a start, Anderson and the Company cast will
lead a series of workshops with young people, “helping them develop their
talent. There’s a lot of us who left Aberdeen who’ve done well in, but there
are a lot more who stopped doing it and gave up, just because there was nowhere
in the city for them to go. We want to try and make sure that’s no longer the
case.”
Could Anderson, the successful London director, ever see
himself returning on a more permanent basis?
“If I could sustain enough work to live in Aberdeen,”
he says, “I would.”
In the meantime, after just one day off once Company
is up and running, Anderson jets out to Germany to begin work on his next show.
This will be a production of Robert Adkins’ Tony winning play, Hand to God,
presented by the English Theatre Frankfurt. As far as Company goes, Anderson
will be leaving it in safe hands.
“To get a cast like this alone is a real coup. If I
was still living in Aberdeen and wanting to see stuff, I’d be blown away by a
cast like this. To see them as well in such a rarely performed musical as
Company is a great opportunity for audiences. It’s the sort of work you don’t
often get in Aberdeen, especially in such an intimate house. In my opinion it’s
also one of the greatest musicals ever written.”
Company, Aberdeen Arts Centre, February 1-10.
The Herald, January 19th 2018
ends
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