Marin Mazzie and Hannah Waddingham
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One recent weekday lunchtime at the West End's Palace Theatre, home to the ongoing U.K. premiere of
Monty Python's Spamalot, one couldn't move for Ladies of the Lake. There, having just met for the first time, were Hannah Waddingham and Marin Mazzie—the London and Broadway occupants of the role, respectively—as glimpsed on the eve, more or less, that the two women would swap over cities. By now, Waddingham has begun her Broadway debut in the New York production of the Tony Award-winning musical, in which the London native will remain, she said, for just under six months. Mazzie, meanwhile, is doing the role for a month in London, a capital in which she last appeared in the Michael Blakemore production of
Kiss Me, Kate, garnering an Olivier Award nomination in the process.
But though the two seasoned pros in fact look like sisters—and, for what it's worth, both look as if they could be Swedish—the Palace that particular day was alive to the buzz of five actual Swedes who had flown to London to meet the press. (Given the start of Spamalot, would they not be more appropriately cast from Finland?) These ladies, ranging in age from 27 to 35, were the five finalists in a Swedish reality TV program that will see one of them emerge as London's next Lady of the Lake, who is due to start a 12-week run at the Palace on 11 February. Co-star Peter Davison remains in place as the West End production's third King Arthur, following on from Tim Curry and Simon Russell Beale.
Hannah Waddingham as the Lady of the Lake
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Not more reality TV, you might ask—as, indeed, did the actual actresses who have been inhabiting Sara Ramirez's Tony-winning part of late. "They won't mind me saying this," says Waddingham, who, standing 5'11", must be the tallest Lady of the Lake to date, "but when [the producers] said they were going to do this, I was a bit like, ‘Che?’ And they said, ‘Hannah, do you want to make your face any more obvious?', and I was like, ‘Really, why are you doing that?'" On the other hand, Waddingham has been in the business long enough to understand the financial imperatives, particularly at a time when London is positively saturated with musicals. "People say, `What do you think?', and if I'm honest, I would rather that one of my fantastic girlfriends—another leading lady in the West End—could get it, but as long as the girl they choose is to a similar outstanding standard to the rest of the company, because this is an extraordinary company, I just want them to step up the mark with all my friends here. I understand totally why [the producers] are doing it from a business point of view. And thankfully, they've got girls who can sing."
When it comes to producers' motives, who better to sound out than Spamalot producer Bill Haber, in London for the event, who spoke candidly of the exigencies these days of sustaining a West End show. "I think the West End is a challenge," says Haber, speaking over the background strains of the five Swedes obligingly singing "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" for one or another camera crew. "I don't see it as economically viable; it doesn't make sense: there's just not enough people and too much product. It's going to shake out any minute; it can't continue like this." Haber, like many a colleague, is well aware that the
The 10 contestants
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London shows sporting reality TV performers in starring roles—namely,
Grease,
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and (for a while longer, anyway)
The Sound of Music—are the ones that appear to be doing the best. "It's the shows that have people in them from talent searches on TV, which is really kind of a sad commentary if that's what it is that makes a show work, you know." Not so sad, however, as to keep Haber from considering perhaps going the same casting route for the Lady of the Lake in his Australian company of
Spamalot. Audiences, he reasons, like beautiful women, "so we may do the same process in Australia with Australian beautiful women."
The fact is, the Scandinavian market represents big business on the West End, as evidenced by the discernible uptick when Swedish performers Peter Joback or Petra Nielsen have gone into
Miss Saigon or
Chicago, respectively, in London. (Joback was also in the London premiere of
The Witches of Eastwick.) Even
Which Witch?—a now-legendary West End flop—did its best and brightest business at weekends, fed by the Norwegian tourist market for what, after all, was a Norwegian show. At the same time, we all know about the phenomenon that
Mamma Mia! long ago became, though not everyone may remember that the original West End Sophie, Lisa Stokke, is herself Norwegian, which clearly didn't hurt the show's inbuilt Scandinavian appeal. As much as 30% of the 1300-seat theater at weekends could be taken up by visiting Scandinavians as a result of casting a Swedish Lady of the Lake, according to the marketing team, the hope being that increased visibility for the musical at the financially all-important end of the week would pump up the remaining performances, as well.
Marin Mazzie as the Lady of the Lake
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Mazzie, battling jet lag but gamely doing the interview rounds, wonders aloud whether unseasoned performers, whatever their nationality, can do full justice to the role of a diva writ large: "I mean, ‘The Diva's Lament’ is one of the songs—you have to be really up there to sell it, so I don't know. We'll see." But Anna Brakenhielm owns the production company, Silverback, that is making the program and thinks the part—and the Swedish talent pool—are a good match. "I think it's so nice that you're looking for this show for someone who is a bit more mature, older, and she can be quite big, you know," says Brakenhielm, adding that
Spamalot "is special because Monty Python is special in Sweden; when it comes to humor, they're number one."
All that remains now is to discover whether the chosen Lady will be Linda Holmgren, a 24-year-old cruise ship entertainer; Viktoria Krantz, a 31-year-old show jumper, Divina Sarkany, a 34-year-old actor; or Nina Soderquist, a 35-year-old singing waitress. One person it won't be, alas, is 35-year-old Sandra Camenisch, a Swedish singer and mother of three—her youngest, 12-week-old baby boy, Lucas, was making himself heard throughout the press call—who, within days of our meeting in London, was voted off the program back in her native Stockholm. "The West End is huge, so this competition, of course is huge," Camenisch told me: "Huge for us, huge for the audiences." Just as huge, one assumes, was her disappointment at being the first to go, though at the time, she spoke of "not knowing how I feel because right now, you can't say, `yay' or `dammit.'" Only time will tell who emerges victorious in a process that, presumably, will give four also-ran divas their own, very real reason to lament.