Former CFT boss Jonathan Church brings 42nd Street to Southampton

SussexWorld

13 years ago Jonathan Church brought 42nd Street to Chichester Festival Theatre during his time as artistic director there.

Transcript

00:00 Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers.

00:06 A very, very familiar face in front of me, Jonathan Church, for 10 years, Festival Theatre,

00:11 just Festival Theatre Artistic Director. Now Jonathan, with this time you're on the road

00:16 with a production of 42nd Street, which is a musical, which is very, very dear to you, isn't it?

00:21 And it's coming to the Mayflower in Southampton. What makes it a special show for you, 42nd Street?

00:27 Partly it's history. We did a production in Chichester, which led me to want to make

00:33 a big touring production that the rest of England and the UK could celebrate.

00:40 And it's just one of those musicals that has everything I like in musicals,

00:46 you know, great songs, great book, but most importantly, the most extraordinary dance sequences.

00:53 You know, you sort of feel when people have seen the show, they literally want to dance off

00:59 down the street, having seen the show.

01:02 Yeah, and you say that, and I think that's probably what I remember most from, was it 10, 11 years ago?

01:07 Scary, a long time ago in Chichester, but it was just so beautiful to look at,

01:10 just enjoying those patterns on the stage. And that you can do on, are there bigger theatres you're going to?

01:16 Certainly bigger in terms of capacity.

01:19 Well, the Mayflower is definitely bigger. It's one of my favourite theatres.

01:24 Is it right? What makes it so?

01:26 I've spent, you'd laugh, so many of the big shows I've seen over the years,

01:31 I've seen at the Mayflower. From my early pantomime going days, when I was running Salisbury,

01:37 I used to go down to the Mayflower and see, you know, those kind of legends of pantomime down there.

01:44 I remember Brian Condley, Danny LaRue, John Inman even down there.

01:52 So it was, you know, it was always the place you went for a big event.

01:56 And a lot of those big touring musicals, that was because I was in Salisbury.

02:01 I went, you know, I went to see them, gosh, 25, 30 years ago.

02:05 So it became the home of event theatre for me.

02:10 And, but yeah, we're doing a whole range of theatres. I think the Mayflower is one of the biggest,

02:16 but we, you know, we squeeze into some more kind of conventional prosceniums as well.

02:24 But we've got a set that's very clever that will expand, contract.

02:27 And we also, you know, we started at Sadler's Wells, which is, you can't get much bigger than that.

02:33 And we go abroad to Toronto for Christmas.

02:36 Oh, wow. And you'll be going across there?

02:39 Yeah, looking forward to Toronto in the snow.

02:42 Oh, fantastic. Brilliant. That sounds lovely.

02:45 And it's at the Mayflower in October, isn't it? The start of October.

02:50 And you and I chatted a lot during the pandemic about ways theatre might change,

02:54 what the pandemic would do to the theatre and just in what ways the theatre would survive.

02:59 Are we in a pretty good place with the theatre now nationally, do you think?

03:02 I think we are in a good place. I think, you know, we talked about this.

03:06 One of the things, and I hope 42nd Street falls smack bang into this.

03:11 One of the things we felt is people wanted a good time coming out of the pandemic.

03:16 You know, some of the tougher titles and the harder, you know,

03:22 I think will always be valuable and always be necessary in the repertoire.

03:25 But post that period of lockdown and tough times for everybody,

03:31 that celebration was one of the things people really wanted from the theatre.

03:35 And so, you know, singing in the rain last year, 42nd Street this year,

03:39 feels like we've hit the sweet spot in terms of what audiences want.

03:44 Fantastic. Well, as always, really lovely to speak to you.

03:48 Good luck with everything and let's catch up on the next show. Thank you.

03:51 Thanks, Phil.

03:52 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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