By George he’s got it

LIKE most people of his generation, Alistair McGowan explains, he was more au fait with My Fair Lady than George Bernard Shaw’s drama Pygmalion on which the musical is based. Now he knows the play very well because he’s starring as professor of phonetics Henry Higgins in a touring production of Shaw’s work, having played the role for three weeks in London’s West End three years ago.

Then he took over from Rupert Everett. “He had a film to go off and do, but did me a huge favour because it gave me a chance to taste this part,” says McGowan, best known as a TV impressionist, but whose acting CV is coming along nicely.

“It was nerve-wracking because everyone else had been doing the play for five months and to come in is daunting because Higgins steers the play really. It’s been very nice coming back to it with a bit more relaxation.”

He’s unaware of the reasons behind casting him, but says, “It’s always been a happy part for me because it seems a good fit because of my interest in language. The minutiae of language is what excites Higgins and also excites me,” he says.

Higgins bets a friend that he can transform the manners and speech of cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle and pass her off as a lady in society.

Newcomer Rachel Barry plays Eliza with Jamie Foreman, who played Derek Branning in EastEnders, as Alfred Doolittle and Rula Lenska as Mrs Higgins in the 16-week touring production.

McGowan can’t be specific about how he created his Higgins but talks of the influences on his performance. “Like most things I do, when I act it’s an amalgam of bits of me and, in this case, bits of my father who was very interested in language and very professorial. He was a teacher and had a very unknowingly patronising way with people at time, and Higgins has that. My father didn’t suffer fools gladly, and neither does Higgins.

“But I haven’t really based him on anybody.

Also, I always think when it’s a well-written character in a well-written play most of the clues are there for you.

“The voice has been interesting because he speaks about wanting everyone to speak properly so I was very aware that he should speak properly. We all had accents tuition from a very good acting accent expert. She’s got us saying all sorts of sounds that I didn’t really know were typical of the time.”

Making a living out of impersonating people is a help finding the sound of Higgins, although it never crosses his mind to do a character voice like he does an impression. “The acting side of my character, person, whoever I am, and the impressions side are very different,” he says.

“It’s a very different approach, a different headspace. Even doing interviews whether it’s newspaper or television, I find it quite difficult talking about one and the other because it’s like I’m a different person when I’m doing impersonations and doing this.”

Some people think it’s easy putting on a funny voice, he continues. But there’s a difference between doing a funny voice, which he thinks you can get away with in something like pantomime, and doing something that is characterful, truthful and consistently based in reality.

Acting came before impressions, but he acknowledges the two are related. “In so far as they’re both performance skills and, when I’m doing my stand-up live with impressions, I use all sorts of acting techniques whether it’s vocal or in terms of pacing. Or in a play with comic moments, you use your sense of timing and are aware of what the joke is that the author has written very quickly. “The two are related, but it’s a different headspace really so, I’m not tempted to go on and do Higgins as Gary Lineker or Nigel Slater.”

McGowan on stage with, from left, Rula Lenska, Jane Lambert and Anna O’Grady

The things language say about people and which are explored in Pygmalion – matters that fascinated Shaw – are as relevant today as 100 years ago when the play was written, McGowan feels. What we say says so much about us. It can be misinterpreted or put us into certain pockets of society.

“You might not be able to get a certain job if you end every sentence of your interview with ‘innit’. There was also an article about up-speak saying that doesn’t impress employers because it makes people sound as if they don’t know what they’re talking about. They want people who sound confident and don’t do that rising inflection at the end of sentences.

“The fascinating thing about the play is once you have given someone those skills, you’ve given them access to that society – but will society let them in? People know that deep down they’re not the real thing.”

McGowan has never been one for plans. He used to work with Steve Coogan on Spitting Image and that performer “was a great one for plans and ferociously meticulous about what he wants to do by what date”. McGowan’s not like that, having no idea what’s going to happen once the tour ends.

He has things at the back of his mind and did a stand-up comedy tour last year, which he loved, and has helped a friend starting out on the comedy circuit. “He had his own material and I started telling him how to put it across. I realised about 20 things that he wasn’t doing and I became better at it by analysing and teaching it. I was better than I’ve ever been.

“So I’d like to do a stand-up tour again at some point, but that takes total focus and total dedication.

I’ve got material I can drop in, but nothing on the scale of the two-hour show I was doing last year. I’ve brought my little notebook with me. I take it everywhere, in case I think of a joke. Actually, it’s full of Scrabble scores because I’ve been playing endless games of Scrabble, but not a comedy thought has crossed my mind for the past eight or ten weeks of doing Pygmalion. There’s just no space in your head.”

Equally, he has no ambitions beyond “to do more interesting work”, and no list of role he yearns to play. “I never know which way the door is going to go. The point has gone now where I got offered things because I was wellknown on television. Now it’s getting on to people who think I can do the job well. So, in that case different doors may open.”

• Pygmalion: Newcastle Theatre Royal, April 22-26. Box Office 08448-112121 and theatreroyal.co.uk