It’s a busy time for the multi-talented ALEX YOUNG who follows up glowing reviews for Me and My Girl at Chichester and Follies at the National by taking a leading role in a new musical, Standing at the Sky’s Edge.
It is set in Sheffield, the songs are written by Sheffield composer Richard Hawley, and appropriately the world premiere production has opened at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield this week.
Here the 2010 Stephen Sondheim Student Performer of the Year winner tells Musical Theatre Review’s Jeremy Chapman what it’s all about…
Tell us a bit about Poppy, the character you are playing in Standing at the Sky’s Edge at the Crucible from 15 March to 6 April.
Poppy is a young woman from London, who, after a significant life event (no spoilers!) moves into one of the recently refurbished flats in the Park Hill estate in Sheffield. We meet her in 2016, and she’s kind of the face of gentrification of the area and she reluctantly knows it. She’s quite amusingly sincere and, I think, keen to honour the history of the building she is moving into. She’s a bit lost. She’s a bit lonely. But she’s determined things will get better.
The story is set in Sheffield so does this give you the chance to show off your accents and local dialect?
Ha! As the southerner of the piece I don’t have to do the Sheffield dialect, which is probably (definitely) for the best.
You have always been great at comedy which came out so well in Anything Goes, High Society and Me and My Girl – is there humour in this new musical and can you tell us about the story?
There is a lot of humour in this piece. Chris Bush has written the book, and she can’t help but be funny. She has a particularly deft touch, managing to find humour in the most mundane of things.
As much as Chris’ writing is warm and witty, it’s also beautiful, but rightly brittle and confrontational. The piece doesn’t shy away from asking difficult questions. I think it’s wonderfully complex, and grown up. And perfectly matches Richard Hawley’s style which is in turns honest, poetic, droll and dark sometimes.
The show is about the Park Hill estate in Sheffield and is set over three timelines. There’s a local woman and her steel-working husband moving into the estate in 1960 when it was first established as social housing; there’s a family of Liberian refugees moving into their flat in 1989; and then Poppy moves into one of the newly refurbished apartments in 2016 after the council famously sold the estate to commercial developers for £1!
Through those three different eras, and in the way the piece moves back and forth between them, we see the changing face of the estate, of Sheffield and, I suppose, the world.
Alex Young and Ryan Pidgen in Me and My Girl at Chichester Festival Theatre. Picture: Johan Persson
I understand there are some new songs by Richard Hawley and some classics we all know. What numbers do you sing?
Ah, my God, they are SO GOOD. I shamefully only knew a little of Richard’s work before starting this project, and I’m an embarrassing mega-fan now. I get to sing ‘Lady Solitude’ which is a brilliantly delicate, subtly painful song. The title song is stunning, as is ‘There’s a Storm a’Coming’ – they’re all brilliant.
Our musical supervisor, Tom Deering, has done some really smart arrangements. I heard Maimuna Memon (who plays Nikki) sing ‘Open Up Your Door’ in rehearsals and it absolutely knocked me sideways, and there are some voices in this company… Faith Omole is ridiculous, Fela Lufadeju, Rachael Wooding… I mean! I could go on forever.
Follies has recently re-opened at the Olivier. Has Gemma Sutton, the new Young Sally, been on the phone asking for any tips?
Pfft! I really don’t think Gemma needs any help from me! She’s a staggeringly good actress and a total class act – we met over Christmas and had a drink and a gossip. I’m sure she will have her own experience with it. The brilliant thing about Dominic [Cooke, director] is that he would have encouraged everyone to find their own relationship with the piece rather than expect a carbon copy of the first production. I can’t wait to see it.
Being in such a sumptuous production of such an iconic musical must have been a great thrill. What did you take out of it and working with such all-time greats?
I think… well, I hope it made me a better actor. It [Follies] is a very challenging piece, and a very technical one for the four young characters, especially with the way Dominic reimagined the function of the ghosts. The fact we didn’t really leave the stage meant that we got to be in the room with our older counterparts at every stage of the rehearsal period, which was such a privilege and incredibly instructive.
Adam Rhys-Charles and Alex Young in Follies at the National Theatre. Picture: Johan Persson
Seeing their process, the way they found things, their interaction with the material and each other – we basically witnessed an eight-week masterclass. It’s a bit ridiculous when I think about it. Getting to share your character with someone else was really exciting and interesting, especially when that person (Imelda Staunton) is just a bit of a legend.
The show was extraordinary, led by the most brilliant team. It’s such a rich, complex and – bloody hell – ginormous show, which the team handled expertly. It was like watching them masterfully reverse this big beautiful articulated lorry around a really tight corner. I’ll never forget it.
You have been steadily building up an enviable portfolio of work with Show Boat, Follies, High Society, Anything Goes, Carousel and Me and My Girl. What’s next after Sheffield for Alex Young and which dream part would you like to play?
I would just like to keep working, please! I’m a bad rester, so I like to work but I’m mindful of doing the right sort of thing. Standing at the Sky’s Edge is perfect as it’s quite a different sort of role for me, I’m playing my own age, in my own accent, in the modern day (there isn’t a corset in sight!) and she’s not primarily a comic role. I feel like I’m stretching my legs in a slightly different way, using different muscles and I think I’d like to do more of that.
I’d love to play Dot in Sunday (preferably opposite Rory Kinnear), but, yawn, who wouldn’t?! I have a burning desire to play Beatrice in Much Ado, and I’d love a very brave director to cast me as Sally Bowles. If I really think about it, I don’t have a dream role as such, just dream environments… venues, directors, teams or cast mates. I’d like to keep being challenged and keep getting better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hX7V15PtuNw
Your successor as Sondheim Student Performer of the Year was Taron Egerton who is now making a mint in movies. Have you an ambition to make films or do TV sitcoms where your wonderful sense of humour and funny voices would have full rein… or do you see your future firmly in musical theatre?
I would love to pull some funny faces on TV, of course. I feel like that might all happen a bit later for me though. The money would be lovely but I’m very happy cutting my teeth in theatre right now.
You have already written or co-written songs of your own and a mini-musical. Will you be branching out in that direction in 2019?
Yes, I’m currently writing a piece called ‘F**ked in Marrakech’ with my writing partner and platonic better half, Kate Marlais. We would love to get it workshopped as there’s only so much we can do in our living rooms with a piano and us acting out all the parts – but we need money to do that. New British musical theatre is in such a pickle at the moment, but if I start going on about that, I’ll literally never stop.
Finally, thank you for brightening all our lives, particularly those who have followed your progress from the beginning, and please carry on doing so.
Well you are most welcome. Thanks for your support!
- Standing at the Sky’s Edge continues at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield from until 6 April 2019.
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