Following her acclaimed performance in Calamity Jane, Jodie Prenger now steps into Andrew Lloyd Webber and Don Black’s classic musical, Tell Me On A Sunday, which will play at the Assembly Hall Theatre, for one night only, on Friday 15th April.
Tell Me On A Sunday charts the romantic misadventures of a young English girl, Emma, in New York. Brimming with optimism, she seeks success and love. But, as she weaves her way through the maze of the city and her own anxieties, frustrations and heartaches, she begins to wonder whether she’s been looking for love in all the wrong places. This iconic musical, with a wonderful original score, features the chart-topping Take That Look Off Your Face and title track Tell Me on A Sunday.
Jodie Prenger shot to musical theatre fame after being crowned the winner of TV’s I’d Do Anything, winning the role of Nancy in Oliver! and, after enjoying success in a long list of box office and critical hits, she now takes Tell Me On A Sunday on a 54-venue UK tour.
Despite such a hectic schedule, Jodie still found time to answer some questions about love, life, and the pressures of a one-woman show…
How has your experience of the show been so far?
This has been by far the most daunting thing I’ve ever done. We had just started rehearsals when I got a really bad cold and sounded like Barry White, but Andrew Lloyd Webber and Don Black have been really involved throughout, writing and re-writing and adapting to really make the piece work again.
What can audiences expect this time?
We thought about doing it as Song and Dance again but the world wasn’t ready for me in head to toe Lycra (laughs). What we do this time is the one-act show, and then have a second act which is me singing at the piano, and then we have a question and answer session. It’s been fantastic, the audiences get really engaged with it.
What attracted you to the show?
The songs are beautiful, little gems. Years and years ago I had a “best of the musicals” double cassette and it had Take That Look Off Your Face and Tell Me On A Sunday on it. I loved it and played it over and over. But all the songs together create a journey that every woman has gone through at some point in her life. Tell Me On A Sunday is a song that really affects people – I can hear them sniffing!
So you can empathise with Emma then?
Absolutely. We’ve all gone through what she goes through, bought the t-shirt, got the scars. And I really understand her. It’s so brilliantly written and we’ve gone through the lyrics with a fine toothcomb. They aren’t just lyrics, it’s a script set to music. She’s got the guy who cheats on her, then the man whose pink mansion should have told her something, then the younger man (who I call Brad) that she pins her hopes on but it crumbles, and then the married man (who I call George).
It’s all familiar stuff. I’ve been cheated on, lied to, I’ve had horrible things said to me but I think women have a certain strength, a fight in them which makes them get up again and carry on despite the knockbacks. We’re survivors, we’ve all been in relationships that we keep trying to make work even though we know it’s not quite right, and the wonderful thing about Emma is that when she reaches the point where she wants to run back to the safety of her Mum, she finds a new strength. And it’s lovely that it isn’t a happily ever after ending where she runs off into the sunset with a man.
This is a one-woman show, how much pressure does that add?
There’s no-one else, no-one to fill in if you forget a line, of course that’s daunting. There was one song during rehearsals for Tell Me On A Sunday where I just couldn’t get the lyrics right, although fortunately I’ve not got it wrong on stage yet. It is a huge amount of pressure when it’s just you though, you’re incredibly exposed, and it’s physically and emotionally draining. You have to go through those emotions for real, so you draw on what you’ve been through yourself. Emma’s experiences chip away at her but she is strong and wants to do some good with her life. I find myself willing her on. She deserves a port and some cheese by the end of it!
The show was written in the late 1970s. Would Emma’s story still be true now, with social media and e-mail?
There was a production with Denise Van Outen which included speed dating and tried to bring it up to date in that way, but I think there’s a certain old fashioned romantic element to the way Emma sits down and writes to her Mum and waits for her response. If she was emailing or chatting on Skype it wouldn’t have the same effect. Communication is so instant nowadays, but it was so different for Emma to be out in New York, without a mobile phone, not able to call her Mum for advice as soon as she has a problem. That element of being out there and having to fend for herself really adds a heightened sense of emotion to the piece.
Tell Me On A Sunday appears at the Assembly Hall Theatre, Tunbridge Wells on Friday 15th April at 7.30pm. Tickets, priced at £27.00, plus a £1.75 per ticket booking fee (£1.50 online), are available through the box office 01892 430613 and online at www.assemblyhalltheatre.co.uk