Prize Bottom

THE theatrical cliche 'have you seen my Bottom?' has Henry Waddington roaring with laughter "well 'I had a large hand on my opening' was one of the comments as was 'an impressive Bottom' and one of the paper's described me as 'a sonorous Bottomf'," comes the response.

He's actually enjoying a twin challenge in Opera North's latest ambitious touring project, which brings three musical versions of Shakespeare to Newcastle's Theatre Royal next week, with the best-known role in A Midsummer Night's Dream running alongside that of Frere Laurent in French-sung Romeo et Juliette.

Waddington admits that such was the potential of playing Bottom that he nearly pushed his other singing role to one side. "It's probably the most famous role in Shakespeare as far as comedy is concerned. It's the Frankie Howerd of the past," he jokes. "It is a fantastic piece of work and I've done the opera about six times, having always done Quince and I did Bottom while at college about 20 years ago. But this is my first professional Bottom." He recalls that the first night theatre audience seemed very reserved and didn't quite know how to deal with Martin Duncan's version of Benjamin Britten's 1960 work but word of mouth and critical success 'allowed audiences to relax and think eitfs okay to have a good time seeing an opera and we can have a laugh because it's not Macbeth or Romeo and Juliet".

"Funnily enough, Benjamin Britten and jolly do go together, it's not really what you'd think would be his ideal piece but he's done a fantastic job in cutting the play down to a performing level for opera and it's very clean and neatly done. And you see the scenes you need to see to understand the story and then you have this fantastic play within a play at the end which, hopefully, brings the house down." Recent versions of the Dream have caused a stir at Newcastle's Theatre Royal by spicing up the love scene between Bottom and the bewitched Tytania (Jeni Bern in this case). "The understudies were having their runthrough the other morning and I was watching the scene with Bottom and Tytania, which I'd never seen because I was in it. I was sitting next to Jeni and we kept looking at each other to say eoh my word, that's actually quite rude".

"I WAS thinking 'my kids are coming to see this,' but it's very sexy with Jeni playing the role like some kind of 1930s Hollywood vamp and I'm just a man with a donkey's head. We do get down and dirty but it's all done in very good taste and all part of the fun." Martin Duncan (the director) was anxious about the scene because of its length and the fact that the company didn't feel it was that exciting apart from Bern's aria.

"When we got into rehearsal and started bandying around ideas we ended up with this bizarre scene where all the colours go purple and gold and it's like living in a lava lamp. It's bizarre and we do a lot of rolling around on silver cushions and stuff with these fairies standing behind us watching. If we hadn't have gone that far it would have been just a long boring scene," Waddington says. The setting of this work is somewhere between Star Trek and the Sixties summer of love. "We havenft gone all hippy but I would say that it's closest to the Sixties," explains the singer whose role of the priest in Charles Gounodfs 1867 version of Romeo et Juliette is a contrast. He admits: "When I was learning them both I thought I knew what I was doing and started looking at Bottom again and thought it was going to take a lot of work. I must admit that Frere Laurent went on the backburner and I felt it would be quite easy. A big mistake because he has a big, big sing in big bel canto music with a vast orchestra.

There's a massive wall of sound coming out of the pit that you've got to sing over. Doing four shows a week is quite a challenge at the moment. Romeo et Juliette was the last to starting rehearsal and I started singing it in and I knew I had to do some more work. We're calling the tour two for the price of one because the company have got luxury casting in the smaller roles.

Peter Wedd, for example, is in all three (playing Lysander, Tybalt and Malcolm) so hefs in six shows a week." Waddington first got into singing thanks to playing the Police Sergeant in Pirates of Penzance at the age of 12 but 'never ever intended to be a singer' but did think about acting. "Thank God I fell into opera," he says. "On tour, you get up in the morning and just check which opera you're doing.

We're performing Romeo and Juliet in French and that's 'oh my God, another spoke in the wheel'. I have the worst short term memory yet somehow I go on stage and out come reams and reams of French, so long may it last." His biggest problem has been booking accommodation in Newcastle. Having found central hotels 'ridiculously expensive' he and a group of other singers are renting caravans at Whitley Bay Caravan and Holiday Park. "The only other time I've heard of people doing that before is when I stayed in a tent in Truro with English Touring Opera. That was in my younger days when I thought I could do anything. We're going to have a good week in Newcastle and wefll be going in on the Metro every day." The Opera North tour to Newcastle Theatre Royal is: Macbeth, Weds & Sat evening, Romeo et Juliette, Tues and Friday; A Midsummer Nightfs Dream, Thurs & Sat matinee. Box Office: 08448-112121