Dean Chisnall
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Age: 25, which means that Chisnall was 10 or so when the Take That boy band began really making it big. “I loved their music back then,” he says. “But I was obviously at school and just about to start high school, and it wasn’t cool to admit it.”
Hometown: Newburgh in Lancashire in the north of England, about a 20-minute drive from Liverpool, where his father is head teacher in a school for special needs. His mother is a property consultant. His regional accent is mild, admits Chisnall, who moved south in 2002 to study at Arts Educational in Chiswick, west London, before appearing in the West End ensembles of The Woman in White and Evita. “My brother and all my family have got much broader accents.” What has been their take on his chosen career? “Nobody up there tends to do things like this, so it’s quite a different path to take for someone from that background, but they love what I do.”
Currently: Chisnall plays singer-songwriter Ash Sherwood—or is the character simply Gary Barlow by another name?—in the new London musical Never Forget, based on the songs of the U.K. pop phenomenon Take That, now playing at the Savoy Theatre after a year on the road. For those who may not be card-carrying Take Thatters, Barlow was the group’s songwriter and driving force. So who does Chisnall think he’s actually playing eight times a week? “This is completely fictional, really, though people do come along and wonder which one of the group we’re going to play. But this is an entirely separate story with a new script by the guy who wrote the [TV series] Shameless: it’s just a comedy and great fun.” Has he made no concessions, then, to looking like Barlow? “I’ve dyed my hair blonde, if that counts.”
The Never Forget cast
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Could It Be Magic: Well, it could be, to co-opt the Take That song title, but the show is also mighty hard work. Says Chisnall: “Ash is a huge role, and I hardly ever leave the stage; there are so many songs to sing. The majority of the numbers fall to me—or certainly the most iconic Take That songs—numbers like “Pray,” “Back For Good,” “Babe,” and, inevitably, the title number, “Never Forget.” “It is a huge demand on the body, and the acting side is both mentally and physically draining.” One assumes, then, that he is, as the British say, match fit? “I love my job. I will be here as long as my body and throat allow me to.” Even if, he notes with a chuckle, “I have two covers who are frantically reading through the script at the moment.”
Words, Words Words: What about the show’s script? Is there an actual part to play? “There
is a real part to play; the script is one thing that I think people will be surprised about with this show,” he notes. “It’s got so much heart and so much passion. If you took the songs of Take That out, you’d still have something worth playing, which is quite rare from my experience of this genre.” Even rarer, no doubt for safety reasons, is the much vaunted wall of fire to accompany Take That’s iconic “Relight My Fire” moment. “The fire really does go 10 feet in the air and 28 feet wide,” Chisnall explains. “The even bigger special effect that is just amazing is this huge rain curtain that had never been used in the British theater until we got hold of it. It does things like spell words in the rain and is very cleverly done, so that I have to time my walking and my singing to the exact raindrops.” (Fear not: his microphone pack is encased in plastic for this number.) Don’t he and his castmates ever have their safety doubts? “There’s a safety gap of about a meter-and-a-half: that’s how far we can be away. It’s so hot that I’m surprised I’ve still got hairs on the back of my legs.”