Roger Allam in La Cage aux Folles
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Luckily for London theatergoers, Roger Allam is rarely long absent from the London stage, the only question being just where the versatile performer will turn up next. He was Mark Rylance's original co-star in the long-running West End revival of Boeing-Boeing and Jodhi May's adversary in the London premiere of Blackbird. Allam of late appeared as Leonardo da Vinci in Antony Sher's Hampstead Theatre entry, The Giant, and on the National's Lyttelton stage during the summer of 2008 as Max Reinhardt in the Michael Frayn play, Afterlife. The original Javert in Les Miserables, Allam has teamed up with another onetime Javert, three-time Olivier Award inner Philip Quast, to play the latest Albin/Zaza and Georges, respectively, in Terry Johnson's London revival of La Cage Aux Folles. Broadway.com spoke to Allam the afternoon after the press had been in to check out the latest cast changes in a production that met with five stars that very day from the Evening Standard's new theater critic, Henry Hitchings. Not that Allam, himself a two-time Olivier Award-winner for the plays Money and Privates o Parade, reads the reviews.
So, last night was press night. How did you feel it went?
It's unavoidable especially with a comedy that having you lot in and also anxious producers and friends has an effect on the performance; it makes us nervous. Having said that, it went well. We had you by the end.
It must be interesting, in a sense, to hit the ground running with a show that has already been through two casts already—in the case of some roles, three.
That's often the case when you do something like this. In fact, I was working right up to rehearsals so I hadn't had a lot of time to think about it. I had a couple of makeup and wig sessions with Richard Mawbey and looked through various incarnations of what Zaza might be and the role sort of revealed itself....