Rescuing Mrs J (From The Northern Echo)

Rescuing Mrs J

3:11pm Friday 26th September 2008

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)

Marti Webb tells Viv Hardwick that she took on the central role of Mrs Johnstone in Blood Brothers after a 24-hour decision and is loving every minute.

SO what’s it like being the rescuer of a musical, I ask Marti Webb who agreed to play the role of Mrs Johnstone in highly popular musical Blood Brothers with just a few days’ notice after Linda Nolan’s departure through illness.

“I don’t think this one needs rescuing,” laughs the 63-year-old West End actress and singer, who brings Willy Russell’s award-winning production to Darlington Civic Theatre next week, Monday to Saturday.

Webb says: “Mrs Johnstone is an important role and I’m having a ball of a time and the cast have been wonderful because they all know the words and have to put up with me paraphrasing all the time at present.

“It’s been very fast, needless to say, like a rollercoaster, to get into it.”

She says that when Linda Nolan was taken ill, producer Bill Kenwright again turned to her after spending 20 years trying to persuade her to take the role of downtrodden Liverpool mum who suffers a terrible price for giving one of her twin sons away at birth.

“It was literally decided in one day. I saw the director Bob Thomson and the next day they said ‘you’ve got it, can you start tomorrow?’ and I’m saying ‘I’m sorry!’. That was a couple of weeks ago at Rhyl and I worked through the week and they put me on stage on the Saturday and I started here (in Bradford) on Monday.

“It was like a rabbit in the headlights a bit because I had to learn the songs and the script in 24 hours. But it’s fabulous.”

Webb admits that at night she was falling asleep with the script still in her hand. “I was worried if I could stay awake for that first Saturday night show,” she jokes and admits she knew very little about Blood Brothers, apart from seeing her friend Barbara Dickson (the original Mrs Johnstone) open in the role in 1983.

Webb watched a matinee performance with the current cast and is full of admiration for the many parts each performs.

She feels that the seamless nature of songs and dialogue are part of the powerful appeal of Blood Brothers, which is set in the mean streets of Liverpool just before urban redevelopment.

“When you’re on there, doing it, you just seem to slot in there somehow because everyone else is operating at pace… but I’m an emotional wreck at the end, I have to say. I’m crying so much that it’s difficult to sing. It’s such a powerful story involving these boys and you can’t believe what’s happened, it’s terrible really. These are circumstances that are almost beyond her control because if she’d been a brighter person, a more astute person and managed to have money, she’d never have done it.

She knows that this (what happens to the twins) is the result of something she’s done and it’s a terrible load,” says Webb.

“Poor woman, there’s no going back and it’s the old example of ‘could I? Would I?’. This is a show which is more like real life than fantasy land. I think that’s why people love it and keep coming back to see the show.”

The only song she knew at all from Blood Brothers is the fateful opening-closing, heartrending Tell Me It’s Not True which she sang in a Magic Of The Musicals show tour.

“Otherwise it’s all been a learning curve for me,” Webb explains.

So does it mean she has a job for life,” I ask, knowing that Blood Brothers tours constantly and the West End version, at the Phoenix Theatre, Charing Cross Road, has become one of London’s longest-running musicals.

“So I hear, but I’m very new at this,” Webb replies with a laugh.

Her mentor was Anthony Newley after being cast in the West End show, Stop The World, I Want To Get Off, having played Ann in Half-a-Sixpence on stage but had her singing voice dubbed over Julia Foster in the film.

She was Nancy in the first UK tour of Oliver! with the assistant stage manager (ASM) one Cameron Mackintosh. Back in the West End, Phil Collins was cast as her Artful Dodger.

Webb’s breakthrough came in 1979 with Evita, hit album Tell Me On A Sunday – which became an Andrew Lloyd Webber-inspired one woman show and hit single Take That Look Off Your Face.

“The lovely thing is that we are all still mates. When David (Essex) got on as a result of Godspell we were all so excited,”

she says.

Shows, tours and TV appearances have kept her in the limelight, although her oddest choice has to be Hot Flush, last year, a musical about the menopause, alongside Sheila Ferguson and Rula Lenska.

Webb compares the response of audiences to Blood Brothers today to her 70s appearances in Godspell with Essex, Julie Covington and Jeremy Irons.

“It’s just a standing ovation, it’s incredible. I’ve had this with other shows, but the only time I’ve known people stand every night is with Godspell. It’s the same sort of uplifting musical.

For a British audience to rise is something, unlike America where they clap scenery, let’s face it,” she jokes.

■ Blood Brothers, Darlington, Civic Theatre, Monday- Saturday.

Box Office: 01325-486-555

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)