BWW INTERVIEWS: Micky Dolenz, London's New Wilbur In HAIRSPRAY

Hello, Micky, thanks so much for meeting me, and welcome back to London!

Thank you!

And to the West End.

Yeah. It's been a while. I don't know if the Mermaid Theatre [where he starred in The Point] is considered West End, but I also directed Bugsy Malone at Her Majesty's. That was pretty exciting there.

But of course you've been on Broadway since then.

Yeah!

You did Aida, didn't you?

Yes!

Why did that never come over here? 

You know, I don't know. I've never been able to get a straight answer. I don't know. I've heard all kinds of different stories. It was a wonderful show. Very dramatic. I played the villain, I played the bad guy! It was great, very flattering, because on a number of occasions I'd go out the stage door after the show and people would say, "I didn't know you were in the show! I heard the voice and recognised it, looked in the programme and it was you!" It was very flattering.

But now you're playing a nice guy.

Great character, Wilbur, I'm having a lot of fun doing it.

The relationship between Wilbur and Tracy is so sweet.

I have four daughters so I think that helps.

And you know Chloe [Chloe Hart, who plays Tracy] well now?

Yes. Not long left in rehearsals now, so I know everybody now.

How are rehearsals going?

Great. The first week is intense and scary, it always is, no matter how much you prepare, you never know how you're going to possibly get ready.

Of course you're a newbie to the cast, while pretty much everybody else has done it before.

Yes, Brian [Brian Conley] has done it before, and everybody else is staying on. Apart from Siobhan McCarthy, who's playing Velma. Siobhan had it real tough, she was doing another show in Leicester until this week. She was rehearsing in the days then shooting off to Leicester every night. It was intense.

Have you seen the show with the current cast?

Oh, yeah, plenty of times.

What's your favourite part of the show?

It's a good question. It's a pretty solid show. I like the big dance numbers, and the comedy. And Timeless To Me is always a great showstopper - it's funny, it always is just a big number. I've seen it plenty of times, though - in fact, I saw the original cast in the States, on Broadway.

Are you in until the end of the run?

Yes.

That must be tough, coming in and then the news breaking that the show is closing.

I was only ever going to be in for a short run anyway, so it's just going to be a little shorter. I have to go back to the States to go on the road for my concert tour. I guess after this many years in the business, that's showbiz. It's had a heck of a run. It's been years!

Did you know that the Shaftesbury has had a bad track record with musicals before?

Really? Well, this must have broken the curse! Three years. That's a good run.

So you're back on the road when you get back. How long's your tour for?

The first one is two months.

And you've been recording a new CD, of Carole King songs?

Yes, it's all done. I think they might bring it out this spring. It's called King For A Day, and it's a tribute album to Carole King, because she wrote some of the original Monkee hits.

My mum was excited when I told her I would be meeting you, because she was a big Monkees fan, but I loved Metal Mickey [the TV programme about a robot that ran in the UK from 1980 to 1983]!

Oh yeah! I directed and produced it. I was Michael Dolenz then. That was a big show. It ran for three seasons - a long time for the television. The guy who created the robot, a few years ago, he got in touch with me and said he wanted to bring it back. I don't know if anything ever happened. LWT would hold the rights to the old show, I guess.

You were over here for quite a long time in the Eighties, weren't you?

Yes. Twelve years. I came over to do that play at the Mermaid. And I got lucky. I'd directed on the Monkee Show. I'd done some stuff in the States. I came here to do that play and brought my reel with me. I took it to an agent and she sent it over to the Beeb, and I got my first directing thing over here, Premiere, which was a half-hour slot for dramas specifically designed to premiere new directors. So they saw my reel and gave me one of the half-hours. That's still one of the nicest things I've done; they were very generous with their time. I was supposed to go back to the States after my run at the Mermaid, but nothing was desperately bringing me back. I'd just married my second wife, who's English, so I could live here and work here. So we thought, OK, we'll see what happens. I'd literally come for three months, and stayed for twelve years.

So were your daughters born and brought up here?

Yes, three of them from that marriage. They were born in the hospital in Hammersmith. One of them still lives here, Georgia, she's done a degree in theatre, and now she's going to be an actress.

I take it she'll see you a lot during your run.

Yes, I've seen her almost every day at the moment. It's been great! It's one of the major plusses!

Do you still direct?

I haven't done much recently. The thing is that I'm always going on the road, which is a lot of fun and very lucrative. And the thing about theatre is that you've got to be around all the time, developing contracts, script meetings, and so on. The last thing I did was a couple of years ago, a film in the States, and a couple of episodes for TV series. Then I've started doing musical theatre, and again, you can't just disappear for a year on tour. You can't keep the relationships, everybody's changing all the time, and this is what I want to do at the moment, more than anything - musical theatre.

How did that shift to musical theatre come?

That's a good question. The first thing I did was right after the Monkees, Tom Sawyer; they just thought, let's get Micky the Monkee. The next thing was The Point here. Harry Nilsson just asked - I had never auditioned for musical theatre, just for film and TV. After that, I didn't do anything for a number of years until the early Nineties and I got offered Grease in the US, a couple of weeks on Broadway and the national tour, playing Vince Fontaine the disc jockey. Then I was offered A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum in Canada for six months. I didn't have to audition. It's flattering to be offered stuff, but it's a very specific audition process for musical theatre than it is for a TV show or film.

So then an agent in LA saw me do a show, and she said do you want to audition for some musical theatre, there's this thing called Aida - this was in the mid-Nineties - and they said I'd have to audition because it's the bad guy, and they wouldn't immediately associate me with that. And I'd never auditioned before. I'd seen it on TV, and in A Chorus Line, and it's quite daunting. She set me up with a singing coach who specialised in Broadway stuff, and set me up with an audition for Mamma Mia!, even though I wasn't right and we knew it, but she knew the casting director. She said, "Just have him in to get a sense of what it's like." It was terrifying.

Really?

Oh yeah! It's in the middle of the day. No lights, no make-up, it's you and a piano and ten people sitting behind tables. It's scary. And I got it. I nailed it. Since then I've auditioned for dozens of things. Funnily enough, now I look back, the Monkee auditions were like musical theatre. It wasn't a bunch of guys behind a desk, but we had to sing, move, improvise, scene-work, play - I played guitar at the time - and if you look at the old shows it was kind of like a musical - comedy, acting, singing and dancing.

It's funny, with the popularity of something like Glee now, when the Monkees were doing something similar 40 years ago.

The Marx brothers were doing it 40 years before the Monkees! People forget that! Their movies were musicals, and they did film versions of their stage shows. The Monkees were like a little slice of musical theatre in a half-hour.

Has there ever been a plan for a Monkees jukebox musical?

People have talked about that for years. I've always said, "Make me an offer." I've seen so many jukebox musicals, and so few have actually worked. It's the exception when one does. There are so many who've tried it, and very few have worked.

What's on your wishlist of roles in musical theatre?

I'm too old for most of the parts I'd like to play! No, I know I am. And I'm not necessarily the right type either. But that doesn't matter, because a wishlist is a wishlist. I'd have loved to have done The Music Man. I'd love to have done Billy Flynn in Chicago. I'd love to do Thenardier in Les Mis! I did a revival of Pippin after Aida, and it was re-envisioned, and Stephen Schwartz came out and worked with us, and I played King Charlemagne. And of course you'll think, "Micky Dolenz? King Charlemagne?" with a beard and an English accent, which I could do from my years here. So one of my favourite parts I'd like to do is King Arthur in Spamalot. I'd LOVE to audition for that.

It's one of my favourites! You never know.

Ah, not here, there are too many English actors here, but maybe in the States.

It was in Vegas for a while, wasn't it?

Yeah, those Vegas shows - I looked into a couple of them, they're really short. They do abridged versions, and I don't think anything's really done well there that's been brought in from Broadway. I mean, what do you take out of Hairspray? What do you take out of Spamalot? You just get a Reader's Digest version. To take a show, they have an arc to them, the show is a whole thing, that's what the show is.

Are you going to see any other shows while you're here?

Georgia and I went to press night of Enron, and we also saw Waiting For Godot. Dame Judi Dench was there - my daughter was beside herself! I'd love to see Legally Blonde; and I've seen Jersey Boys but I'd like to see this production too.

Micky Dolenz stars as Wilbur Turnblad in Hairspray from Tuesday February 2nd.