Throughout August 2022 writer and performer PAULUS is presenting his show Looking For Me Friend: The Music of Victoria Wood at the Assembly Rooms as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Audiences are invited along to celebrate Wood’s unforgettable characters, songs and sketches with this funny and touching tribute to the much-loved national treasure. Directed by Sarah-Louise Young with musical direction by Michael Roulston, Looking For Me Friend is playing in the Drawing Room at 2:30pm daily until 28 August.
Paul L. Martin (Paulus), The Cabaret Geek, is an entertainer and educator who specialises in cabaret and is best known for appearances on BBC1’s All Together Now as a talent judge. Looking For Me Friend: The Music of Victoria Wood premiered in London in 2020. Brand-new musical Building Paulus, written by Paulus with Jordan Clarke is currently in development.
For 15 years, Paulus had close ties to the cult London cabaret venue The Battersea Barge, producing many cabarets for them including the hugely successful talent contest Cheese ‘n’ Crackers, Diva Nite and their annual adult pantomimes. For ten years, Paulus ran the entertainment agency Excess All Areas (formerly Better Chemistry) and under this banner spearheaded the annual Cabaret Convention and London Cabaret Awards, which played host to cabaret performers, promoters and practitioners from across the UK and Ireland. Paulus was awarded ‘Best Producer (Cabaret)’ by Fringe Report during this time.
The artist’s expertise has also been sought to judge many talent competitions including National Burlesque Awards, Drag Idol for Royal Vauxhall Tavern, Pride’s Got Talent, Musical Comedy Awards and Burlesque Idol at The Hippodrome Casino.
Here Paulus continues Musical Theatre Review’s interview series: Five Questions With…
After such a fraught time for the arts because of Covid, what is it like to be able to bring your show Looking For Me Friend: The Music Of Victoria Wood to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe?
It is an enormous relief to finally be doing a run – I have been fortunate to do around 20 one-off performances (many delayed/cancelled/rescheduled multiple times) in-between lockdowns, but you don’t really start to know a piece until you have a run. Victoria’s work is rich and dense and, frankly, a bit of a marathon and so I’m relaxing and playing at last in a way I never quite could before.
Can you tell our readers about the history of the show, how it first came about and what the work of Victoria Wood means to you? How difficult was it to pick specific songs and sketches?
In the Edinburgh version, we share 12 of her songs – there will be 19 in the autumn tour which begins early September. My director Sarah-Louise Young has been excellent at strength-testing the reason for each song’s inclusion, based on the story we are telling – rather than their popularity or my own personal favourites. In many ways, I feel like I’ve been gearing up to this show since I was 15 and first sat on an upright piano in the village hall of my little hamlet outside Canterbury and belted out a Vic song in a basque and peach finesse lipstick. I’ve always loved her songs and relished the challenge that the linguistic acrobatics pose.
You are surrounded by a wonderful creative team including your long-time collaborator, Michael Roulston. It must be fun to have that chemistry on stage…
Michael and I share the entirely true story of forging a friendship 25 years ago based around the catchphrases of Vic – a modern polari for gay boys like us growing up in rural England during the 80s and 90s. To get paid to do silly voices and quote Vic and Julie can’t really be classed as work – it’s sticking to the script and not throwing in any more bon mots that is the hard part. Michael is also playing for Fascinating Aida at the Fringe, and I can’t believe I’m even being mentioned in sentences alongside my heroines.
You have been called the King of Cabaret, what is it about that genre that has always appealed to you?
When I was a kid there was this cartoon on telly called The Raggy Dolls, who were all rejects that got thrown in a factory bin. I often feel like cabaret is where people who have been rejected from or misunderstood by other genres seem to converge. Cabaret is the eventual clearing we come to from the forest we roamed after that rejection; a spotlight and a space that we can take and make our own. We don’t always make sense to others, we’re often rough around the edges and we’re always outspoken and proudly other. Cabaret was always my tribe. Misfits, all. Freak flag flying.
Impossible question, but can you pick out a special highlight from your career so far?
You won’t believe me if I say this here, right now, will you? It’s true, though. I have been grieving the loss of my mother, who died during lockdown – from cancer, like Vic did – as well as grieving my career and that of my industry. The government called us unviable. They told us to retrain. They told me I could not say goodbye to her. We now know they are the unviable ones and were happily partying all along. Breakdowns are often also breakthroughs, and with the help of my friends (including Michael and Sarah-Lou) and my tremendous husband – who is also an integral part of this project – and of Vic and the hours of joy she left us with, I am able to celebrate daily what I have, not just all that I have lost.
- Looking For Me Friend: The Music of Victoria Wood continues at the Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh until 28 August 2022. Tours dates follow at MAST Mayflower Studios, Southampton (9 September); Playhouse Theatre, Norwich (22 September); and Perth Theatre, Scotland (23-24 September).
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