As he prepares for another date of his concert tour, Lee takes some time out from his hectic schedule to talk to me about his work on stage as a singer, in front of the TV cameras as Nurse Ben “Lofty” Chiltern in BBC TV’s Casualty and about his life since his break up with Denise Van Outen.
As the set list for the remaining eight dates of his tour contains just about everything from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to Coldplay, I start by asking Lee…
Is this a concert full of your favourite songs?
I think they are, well, they are songs that I’ve wanted to sing live for a long time but also, if I’m being truly honest, it’s also me testing out a couple of numbers which I hope to put on the fourth album, which is out in the spring.
That album, and the tour that I’ll do next year, will feature songs from the MGM film era because I’ve been asked for five or six years now why, as a leading man in the West End and after winning the Joseph show, I haven’t released a musical theatre album and the honest answer is that Michael Ball, Michael Crawford and John Barrowman, all these leading men, have released albums like that time and time again.
I just thought that, even though I would put my own take on the songs, I just didn’t feel like making that kind of album and then, one day I was having coffee with a friend, and it just hit me that it would just be amazing to make an album with songs from all the musical films that I watched as a kid growing up, the films that gave me my passion for musical theatre.
A lot of those films feature some of the best songs ever written.
Yes, it was a wonderful era especially in the late 40’s and early 50’s with the likes of South Pacific and Anything Goes and, although I can’t afford to tour with a full orchestra, which I would love to do, the plan is to add a string section to my four or five piece band, to have a couple of dancers and to go out there in my “Tux” and sing those songs.
It will take a few months to put that show together so I’m starting to prepare now and, in this tour, I’ll be doing three or four songs that I want to include next year to try out with the audience to see if they like them and, touch wood, the response so far has been really great.
I do Some Enchanted Evening from South Pacific and Luck Be a Lady from Guys and Dolls and we do Singin in the Rain as well, and it’s gone down really well. I start the show with where I am at with my life and career, and I open the show with those songs and talk about the tour next year and the album and then I do a few songs that I’ve wanted to sing for a long time.
The song Fix You by Coldplay, which I think is a beautiful number, I’ve wanted to sing for a long time features in the show and I do Here Comes the Sun and Hallelujah as well and it’s very much stripped back and acoustic based performance, in smaller venues, and it’s very much more about the vocals than about the production.
How do you fit this in with your TV commitments for Casualty?
It’s quite tricky and it leaves me with very limited time but it’s very nice to be busy especially in this business. There will always be time to “rest” but, for now, I am in Cardiff from Monday to Friday filming, as I’m contracted to be there and, although the days vary, we pretty much film from 7am until 7pm – so I have long days there, and then I fit the tour in at weekends.
I’m limiting myself to just one or two concerts a month with this tour because, although I thought that I could go out and do 20 or 30 dates, I wanted to have a life too and, as I see my daughter, Betsy, at weekends I wanted to make sure that I kept my time available for her.
Is recording for TV as boring as they say it is?
It can be, yes. It usually involves very long days with lots of waiting around. It’s very different from theatre in that you read a full episode, to familiarise yourself with the story, but you may start filming with scene 58, which may be towards the end of the episode, first and then you may not film the first scenes until the end of the shoot and, because each episode takes about 3 weeks to film, the story ends up completely out of context so you have to be right on top of the script.
You need to know exactly where you are, and what you’re filming, and you find yourself constantly checking back to see what happened just before the scene you’re doing whereas, as you know, with theatre the curtain goes up at 7.30pm and you’re in character from the very start and you follow that characters journey from start to finish but, with TV and film, there’s a 20 minute turn round for cameras so each scene takes about 4 hours to shoot.
How much of your script do you actually understand?
Luckily, for my character Lofty, pretty much all of it but if I was playing one of the doctors I would be really struggling. I think the extent of my medical knowledge takes me about as far as tachycardia and pulse 98 over 36 but, with the doctors in the show, it’s just crazy – they have to use words that I’ve never even heard!
Another thing that has happened, since the last time that we spoke, is your split from Denise. How are things for you now?
Without going into it too much, because obviously it’s very personal, I think it’s the same for anyone who goes through a break-up, it’s really hard but life has to go on and it does go on for us. Our main priority, of course, is our daughter and trying to be a great mummy and daddy to her, and we are doing our very best to do that, and I guess the rest you just deal with in your own time but yes, it is very sad – but things like this, sadly, happen every day.
I guess it’s even more difficult when you have the press hounding you as well.
Well yes, especially when you don’t court it because I’ve always said this, the only press that I do is to do with my work so yes, I’m in the public eye, but that’s through the work I do and that’s the way I always want it to be. So it’s a shame, sometimes, when you are pictured, or stuff is written, when you haven’t courted the press.
I do believe that if you are the kind of person who chooses to give big interviews about your personal life, or go on Big Brother or something like that, then it’s fair game but, when I’m talking to you like I am now, about my work, or I’m on Radio 2 singing a song or on a chat show talking about my work then yes, I’m in the public eye, but I don’t believe that that makes you fair game for stuff to be written about your personal life. But, to be honest, I tend not to read stuff like that because, quite often, it’s not true anyway.
Lee’s tour has dates from Newtown and Aberystwyth in Wales, right over to Clacton on Sea and Southend in the East and comes to our area with dates in Horsham, at the Capitol Theatre on Sunday August 10th and at G-Live in Guildford on Wednesday August 13th. Tickets are already selling fast, but they can still be booked from the venues directly with more details available on Lee’s website – http://www.leemead.co.uk/live
