Helen Dallimore
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Age: 34
Currently: Playing Glinda, the “good” witch in the West End premiere of Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holtzman’s Wicked. “I love Glinda’s journey,” says Dallimore. “I love her character arc. She’s so flawed and shallow, but she comes to an awareness of what is good inside of her. She’s only been manufacturing goodness until the point when she realises the true meaning of the word, and that it comes through love and friendship.”
Hometown: “I was born in Melbourne, Australia and grew up in Sydney and Oxford, England,” says Dallimore. “I’m half English. My parents are academics, so I came back and forth a lot growing up. I was at primary school in Oxford, then did most of my secondary and tertiary education in Sydney, before coming back to do my O Levels in Oxford. Then I went back to Sydney to train at NIDA (the National Institute of Dramatic Art), from which I graduated in 1995.” So does she regard herself as Australian or British? “I call myself Australian, although my brother calls himself British,” she says. “He lives in Oxford now and has lived in the U.K. longer than he did in Australia, so our family is split down the middle.” Dallimore came back to the U.K. two years ago and has just moved to a new flat, overlooking Islington Green (near Angel).
Dolls and Witches: In her native Australia, Dallimore did mainly straight acting roles. “I’d not done a lot of musical theatre before Wicked,” she admits. “You tend to slip into a particular medium and that’s where you stay, so film and TV was something I tended to do more there. Wicked is a bit of a departure for me, but I was classically trained as a soprano when I was younger.” Does she have any musical theatre experience? “My graduating show from NIDA was playing Miss Adelaide in Guys and Dolls,” she says. “I thought I’d go straight into musicals, but it didn’t work out that way.”
Helen Dallimore in Wicked
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Who’s That Girl: Dallimore starred in the premiere of David Williamson’s Up for Grabs in 2001 in Australia; a role subsequently taken in the West End by Madonna. “I just couldn’t understand why they would cast her as me. It was a very surreal moment when someone told me she had the role. What has she got that I haven’t?” she jokes, and then adds in a more serious tone, “I wondered what this incredibly Australian social satire was doing in London and being played by Madonna. I couldn’t think of anyone further from the character that I had played. When I spoke to Gale Edwards, who had directed the Australian production, she told me she hadn’t been asked to direct it, either , so we were both a bit miffed.” Despite the snub, Dallimore says she loved that play, which enjoyed a hugely successful production in Australia.
Looking for a Break: After the success of Up for Grabs, the actress returned to England and found herself back on the bottom of the career ladder. “It’s been a hard slog actually—coming from a place where I did work regularly and people knew who I was—to being in a situation where I was starting from scratch again,” she recalls. “It was humbling—that’s probably not a strong enough word.” What did she do while she was waiting for a break? “I ended up having to do jobs I hadn’t done since before I had started trained 13 years ago. It was very difficult. I gave myself time limits and then kept stretching them. I just had this nagging feeling that I needed to wait a bit longer, and it was not the right time to go back. Whatever it is that keeps us going made me believe that there was something around the corner for me, and it happened to be true.”
Not in Kansas Anymore: The big break would finally come with Wicked, but it wasn’t without a lot of nerve-wracking effort. “I had eight auditions, all in”, she says. “It was a long process of several months, and for most of it I thought I was being considered for the alternate and not the role. I’m a newcomer to the West End, and I didn’t think anyone expected I could just jump straight into it. Then I had this surprise phone call one day, and here I am.” That call came on a day when she was on her way to class: “I was teaching acting, which fed me creatively, at the London School of Dramatic Art, and my class was the first people I told after I got the call from my agent. I was running late, and when I arrived, they all looked at me expectantly: ‘Did you get it?’”
Wicked witches
Idina Menzel & Helen Dallimore
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For Good: “The show is a beautiful documentation of what true friendship is about,” Dallimore says of Wicked. “That’s not hugely studied in musicals; they’re usually about love relationships, but this is a study of female friendship. It’s hugely appealing to audiences.” What of her own friends? “My best girlfriend is in Sydney, and I miss her enormously. She’s about to do We Will Rock You in Japan, so she’ll come here on her way back.” And she’s developed a close relationship with co-star Idina Menzel, who created the role of Elphaba on Broadway and is reprising that Tony-winning performance here. Was it daunting appearing with her? “It could have been, if not for the fact that she is so incredibly generous and grounded, and there’s not a trace of the diva in her at all. It’s been an absolute joy getting to know her, and we’ve become very good friends. She makes me feel like we’re equals, even though we’re clearly not. I don’t have a Tony!” she laughs. “Sharing a stage with her is a privilege. We bring out a lot in each other, which has been the loveliest part of it all.”
Couldn’t Be Happier: What’s her favourite song in the show? “The opening of Act Two, when I sing ‘Thank Goodness,’” she says. “It’s quite a sad song really about how lonely it is to be at the top, and the kind of fallacy that success will bring happiness.” But even if it doesn’t necessarily do so for Glinda, has success in Wicked brought happiness for Dallimore? “I’m ecstatic to be doing this and to be having this incredible experience,” she answers. “I couldn’t be happier in terms of those things. But there are people I miss in my life, so there are sacrifices that I’ve made at the altar of ambition that I may have regretted, but then that’s the curse of ambition.”