After attending a matinee of The Boy Friend at the Menier Chocolate Factory, Musical Theatre Review’s Barrie Jerram chatted to the ever-busy JANIE DEE who starred as Madame Dubonnet in the superlative production [NB This interview was conducted several weeks before the coronavirus pandemic worsened].
Janie spoke at great length and bubbled over with enthusiasm about an event that she is co-producing – The London Climate Change Festival – which begins this week for the first time (23 March to 16 May 2020).
Due to the developing situation surrounding COVID-19, the festival will no longer take place as planned but the event’s important message will be shared digitally with video content.
Describing the festival, Janie said: “It is to inform, inspire and bring hope. We as individuals can make a huge difference if we have help and focus. It’s going to showcase some fascinating conversations and allow us to move forward with better knowledge. Together – we’re all responsible. Watching my son marching last year through the streets of London shouting ‘Save our Planet’ was all I needed to want to encourage this.”
The festival will be informative and inspirational, while offering both hope and guidance on how to live a life free of plastic and a massive carbon footprint. It will bring a much-needed focus on changing how we treat planet Earth.
The online talks begin with the Horizon speech as delivered by Natalie Fee. “This is a really excellent speech,” added Janie, “funny, clear, informative and inspiring from the woman who wrote ‘How to Save the World For Free’ and started the amazing ‘City to Sea’ in Bristol.”
Tuesday starts off with input from “superb scientist”, Imperial College London’s Dr Matthew Genge. “He will talk about the history of our planet and how climate change nearly happened before… About Venus losing her seas to climate change when they evaporated and about what we do now that has to change. Our hope is to keep the talks coming in line with the original schedule.”
Our conversation then reflected on 2019 and the end of a long run in the National Theatre’s highly-acclaimed production of Sondheim’s Follies in which Dee made the role of Phyllis truly her own. I asked about the proposed filming of the show and enquired if she would be reprising the role. “Nothing has been confirmed but I would not be surprised if the role went to a more bankable cinema name.”
Janie Dee as Phyllis Rogers in Follies at the National Theatre. Picture: Johan Persson
In July she took on the challenge of Fosca in another Sondheim musical, Passion, at Cantiere Internazionale d’Arte in Montepulciano, a production described by The New York Times’ Matt Wolf as “one of the highlights of European theatre”.
Later in the year she was invited by Bergen Opera to present her one-woman cabaret at the Bergen Opera House alongside her guests Cantabile.
I also asked about other plans. There was hope that the The Boy Friend might transfer to the West End and Janie was also due to play Desiree in A Little Night Music at the Buxton Opera House in July this year in a production directed by Paul Kerryson.
This schedule is now in limbo for obvious reasons and the production of Christopher Durang’s hit Off-Broadway play Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, directed by Tony Award-winning director Walter Bobbie, in which Janie was to star at the Charing Cross Theatre this month (and due to coincide with The London Climate Change Festival) will not now go ahead until November at the earliest.
Find out more information about The London Climate Change Festival from 23 March to 16 May 2020 HERE.
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