Strictly Ballroom the Musical launch – interviews with the cast and creatives plus exclusive images…

The Strictly Ballroom The Musical cast, lead by Jonny Labey, Zizi Strallen and Will Young, will be waltzing their way to their new home at the Piccadilly Theatre as the show makes its West End debut in March.

The show is based on Baz Luhrmann’s classic film of the same name that inspired many to get their dancing shoes on, or tune in to BBC1 on Saturday nights for Strictly Come Dancing.

The cast and creative team (including director/choreographer Drew McOnie) gave a select audience an exclusive sneak preview of a couple of the show’s numbers and talked about what the show means to them at a special launch at London’s Cafe de Paris.

Tal Fox writes (and takes a few videos). Images by Musical Theatre Review’s official photographer Roy Tan.

To JONNY LABEY: How have you connected with your character, Scott Hastings?

JL: Scott is a very interesting character in terms of the setting of this whole show. Everyone loves an underdog and that is a very British attitude. Although Scott does go along with the competition and does really want to win the Pan-Pacific Grand Prix Dancing Championship and dance in that final, that’s really important to him.

He’s come from a ballroom family and they take it very, very seriously, but actually he wants to do his own thing, and what’s so lovely about working with Drew is that he really works with your strengths and helps you find the voice which also makes sense to the story.

Zizi Strallen: It’s hard for your character [Scott] because he’s the best and everyone tells Scott that he’s the best and he’s going to win. So at the start of the show he’s got this attitude that he’s the best, and then I come along and say: “Well, I think you should dance with me.” This beginner – no one.

Scott goes on a journey from being a bit of an arrogant guy to really softening and it’s a nice journey. Fran goes in the opposite direction, she’s self-conscious and then plucks up the courage to talk to the best guy in the studio to dance with her and then grows in confidence.

To ZIZI STRALLEN: You’ve got to downplay your skills at the beginning, is that easy? 

I love it! I’m really enjoying the bad dancing. I did it when I played Penny in Hairspray. I always clapped on the one and the three and I really love doing that. It’s just nice to be able to do Drew’s choreography at the end, it’s really amazing.

Ballroom couples often spend years honing their craft and getting that chemistry of working together, what has it been like for you in the rehearsal room?  

JL: When we had our first audition for the show we were put together. I don’t know if that was intentional or not, but I was so pleased to have Zizi as a partner in audition because it was just so easy to go through. We’re still very early on, there’s so many things we have to do.

ZS: [To Jonny] You were saying to me yesterday that you realise now why they struggle so much to find Scott a new partner. You can’t just say: “I’m going to stop dancing with you and I’m going to start dancing with you,” because that person feels completely different and holds your hands in a different way and is a different height. It takes time getting used to it.

JL: We had some very basic ballroom lessons because we are a musical theatre cast. Just because we’re doing Strictly Ballroom, there’s an expectation that we must be professional ballroom dancers, but we have to think about the hold and applying that and just committing it to muscle memory.

You practice it with one person and then you change to the next person and it’s completely different. It’s finding the partner and you don’t have the right partner for who everyone thinks you are.

You’re a Pan-Pacific champion and unless you have another Pan-Pacific champion, your world is going to fall apart. You can’t just settle for someone who is average and that’s where all the comedy comes from.

If you look at the ballroom world, it is like that. Imagine if your partner just walks away from you, your world just shatters as a ballroom dancer, you have to go through all of those grips and all that work you do as a partner again.

That’s why a lot of ballroom couples end up married because you spend your whole time rehearsing with that person. If you’ve got a show on, you wake up at six o’clock in the morning, do whatever you have to do, go to work and then practice in the evening and then do the competitions.

To WILL YOUNG: Your role, band leader Wally Strand, was created for this production…

WY: In the character sense, yes, but then there’s lots of other things that didn’t happen in the film. I don’t know if Wally was in the Australian production.

There’s such a history for this show, way before me coming in, and when I met with Drew and Carmen [Pavlovic, producer] we just had a chat about what the possibilities were and what could be done, and I was just very excited about collaborating musically.

I don’t think I could sit there, as much as I wanted to, and say that the part was created for me. There are so many things that have changed. What pulls me into any job is: am I excited by it? Does it scare me? And who else is in it?

I’m like a clapped out Beetle, these guys are like Ferraris, and it honestly is such a pleasure watching them, because I couldn’t do what they do. You’re as good as the company you keep and the company I’m keeping at the moment is extremely high level.

I’ve worked with Marius de Vries and he has just won a Grammy, I know Baz Luhrmann and Catherine [Martin, Strictly Ballroom’s designer and Academy Award winner!], I know Drew’s work, I loved Carmen when I met her. These guys, [to ZS] I saw you at the National, [to JL] I know your work, I’ve seen you, and that’s what’s exciting.

JL: Also the ensemble cast are the best.

ZS: They’ve got some incredible characters. They play all the really strict ballroom dancers and it is their whole world and that’s where the comedy comes in. It’s so funny because they’re going for it so much with every single ounce of their bodies and it comes out in these crazy faces. I think the audiences are going to absolutely love it. I’ve been laughing so much. It’s so good.

WY: They’re such good actors and the script is so good. I chuckle every day because the writing is so good and that translates to the audience. The story is so important, it’s about individual freedom and the show is grounded in that. That is one of the messages for me and I really believe in that.

ZS: All the others have these big garish characters and then there’s this really real love story in the middle of it all. They fall for each through dancing together, they’re friends and dance partners for ages until they suddenly realise that they’re falling in love. That’s what makes it so real and sweet, whereas everyone else is so over the top and on the surface.

Interview with producer CARMEN PAVLOVIC and director/choreographer DREW MCONIE

How are you feeling about bringing Strictly Ballroom to the West End?

CP: Australia has this close bond with the UK for a number of reasons: politics, culture, Neighbours, of course. I think that there’s a shared humour and a great love of ballroom dance in both countries and the film had a real cut-through here.

I remember travelling in London when the film came out in the 90s and people were so fond of it and saw this side to Australia that they immediately became affectionate toward so I always felt that this was a fantastic venue for the show.

The West End feels like a pretty natural home for Strictly Ballroom, especially given the kind of culture of Strictly Come Dancing here. I’m sure you appreciate the film kicked off that whole trend.

You’ve got Drew McOnie, an incredible but young and upcoming director, what made you choose Drew for this production?

CP: I am really committed to the new generation of theatre-makers, I find it really thrilling to work with someone who is willing to take risks because it’s the way our company aspires to work.

I initially approached Drew to be the choreographer for the show, I rang him and asked him if he would come to Australia, and he said he could only come if he arrived the next day. This was at about 11pm at night so I rang him back and said: “Could you get up at 5 o’clock tomorrow morning and get on a plane?” So Drew very bravely watched the film all the way there and I met him in Melbourne where he saw the show twice.

I thought it was all very good that he was young and upcoming, but I wondered if he actually had any ideas, because we wanted to take a new approach to the work. But I was pinned to the wall as he threw all these ideas at me and his great vision for the piece.

He insisted that this was his story as a child, he wanted to dance his own steps, and it was a film he identified with growing up. It had been some sort of a salvation to him. He said: “You have to let me do my story,” and I was so moved by his passion.

I’d watched his work and thought he had a quirkiness and a language which was right for the show. I loved that personal resonance, so we moved on pretty quickly and forged a really lovely creative collaboration together. It has really been a pleasure.

To Drew: You talked about your history with the show but could you elaborate on what it means to you to be part of the show and bring it to London?

DM: Whether you’re a dancer or not, in whatever capacity you see yourself, I think what the film did so brilliantly was it recognised the little freak in you, like you’re a kooky, little, weird kid and it celebrated that.

I think that’s what the resonance of the story has for anybody who wants to have a voice, anyone who wants to be able to stand up, anyone who wants to be David to that Goliath. It says: “go on, have a go, do it.”

I think that having that experience of that film from a very young age really did launch me into this mantra that you can do it. And it led me to standing here today and launching this West End production of Strictly Ballroom. 

It’s just this odd, bonkers thing that happened, but it feels like without having seen the film when I was a really young kid, I wouldn’t have got this, because I would have always been questioning whether my voice was a good enough one.

Today, in a time where there’s a lot of questions about speaking up and speaking out and speaking against things you don’t agree with, I think that it’s become more relevant than it ever has – it’s such a universal story.

I think that when I got that call from Carmen, I acted all nonchalant like I had no interest on working on it, when actually I had been stalking the entire production. So when I got the phone call, I was all like: “Oh, that story,” trying to act all coy, and then I got on the plane with just a few hours notice.

Being a long haul flight to Australia, Strictly Ballroom was playing on the inflight entertainment, as if I hadn’t watched it the last weekend anyway. I thought I’d just pop it on and then I just sobbed. I watched it, ‘Love is in the Air…’,  and then pressed play to start the movie over.

It’s a very important story to me, but not just because I was a kid who fell in love with it, it’s because the message that I learnt from the movie had such a positive impact on me and my life, that led me to where I am now.

It’s really important to me and I feel that pressure now on my shoulders that there is a whole new generation of viewers at any age right now who need to hear the message of the show. If there’s just one small kid that can come out of the show and say: “One day I’m going to do something to make the world listen to my voice,” then we’ve won. So I feel like people are expecting the humour and the glamour and the sequins, but what they’re not expecting is the potential inspirational part that could be the message that needs to be heard now and can go on to change them.

You touched on some of the relevant political references in the story, could you tell us a bit more…

CP: We were chatting with Baz [Luhrmann] the other night after we had done the script work and I know that something that he feels particularly strong about is the political metaphors that he wanted to be part of this production. As it’s so key to the piece but also because of the times today.

Baz tells the story of when he went to went to Bratislava – from the creative team’s point of view they were just taking their little show to Bratislava, but at the end the clapping started and then the stomping started and then he very quickly realised that to these young people watching it, it was about a revolution and that really had a big impact on him.

Baz was an acting student and they’d been asked to devise a student piece for their assessment about political oppression. Baz reflected on his childhood because his mum taught ballroom dancing and he was really struck by the whole dance industry, so I like that about the piece and how it links into political oppression and that’s what makes it more than just a dance show.

How have Australian audiences responded to the show compared to British audiences? 

CP: The film is absolutely iconic in Australia and I describe it as, ‘the little film that could’.  It had no budget, it came out of a 20-minute student piece. The first critic that saw it in Australia said that the actress playing Shirley had made such a bad decision that it would end her career.

Baz was trying to tell this very cute story while he had no money and was hitchhiking and staying in caravans. Then he asked someone if they would be prepared to let the film come to Cannes and suddenly it exploded. I think it just took people by surprise.

They’re all characters we can relate to and it’s a ruthless portrayal of small town Australia, the suburbs. One of the moments I love is when Scott and Fran are dancing with a Hills Hoist in the background because it’s such an iconic image to us. Also the immigrant thing in Australia was just so important culturally at the time and I think it just captures a moment we can all relate to. So there’s a huge fondness for the film in Australia and a huge fondness for Baz Luhrmann.

To Drew: How easy is it to capture the spirit of the film on stage?

DM: It’s interesting because it’s about the subversive anarchy and standing up against rules and regulations. It’s very easy to come into a West End musical and say: “Oh, this is how you make a musical, what you do is put the protagonist song here and you introduce that character there.” This is the formula of how to make a musical and then actually in doing that you’re delivering a pretty standard concept.

What we have wanted to do is completely subvert the expectations of the audience. The story of the film is still the bloodline of the show, but it’s not a scene-by-scene of the film onstage. What we have tried to do is deliver a beautiful, anarchic theatrical musical that is as surprising as the film.

I think it is about trying to capture the playfulness, humour and heart of the film, but not necessarily conform to what we now know to be the musical theatre rules in a sense. We’re exploring that through the way the story is told, letting the story be told in some ways completely through dance and other times completely through music, with a live band onstage.

There’s a visual story happening at the same time as a play and it all comes together as this really rich, textured musical – but not in the way that you might expect it to.

What elements can you bring to the stage show that you wouldn’t be able to do on screen?

DM: No amount of Netflix series or films will ever be able to compete with theatre because of the sheer energy that comes out of being in this physical space. Forever more humans will want to come to a space of worship or a space like a theatre where they will want to hear stories told by other human beings, and I think it’s particularly with dance and with music that there is an energy that ricochets through you.

So you’re talking about an event where people will come and be millimetres away from the glitz, the glamour, the energy, the sweat, the heat, the passion, the pulsing hearts that go through it, and the way we’re staging our show means no one’s safe. They’re very much involved and close to the action and having that interaction with people will never be replicated by any screen.

CP: That energy leaves people dancing out of the theatre, it’s so sweet. In Australia people literally danced down the street and that was our measure of success.

How do you go about casting a show like this? 

DM: It has long been my belief that musical theatre is the art of collaboration. With a musical, it’s not just that you need someone who can dance and act and sing, but you need to find people who are able to deliver truth in those three areas in such a degree that you don’t notice when they slip from one genre to another.

So what we’re exploring with Strictly Ballroom, and we have this incredible principal company and ensemble company who are able to do this exquisitely, is let the story be taken over by different areas while still being able to blend them together to create this really natural storytelling to such a high level.

For Fran to not be a good dancer, she actually has to be an excellent dancer to be able to have that transformation. So what we have is just the most incredible company of top-notch all-round performers. Every single person in our show was, is or wants to be a top level dancer. The energy is a screwball comedy meets a Fred and Ginger classic.

Tickets for Strictly Ballroom The Musical are available HERE.