Lee Mead, who has spent the last six months as the recipient of rave reviews for his portrayal of Caractacus Potts in the critically acclaimed West Yorkshire Playhouse national tour of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, returns to the stage this autumn with his solo tour, Some Enchanted Evening.
The show, which features music from Lee’s most recent Top Twenty bestselling studio album of the same name, sees the multi-talented performer fulfil a personal ambition and perform a show of classic songs from the Hollywood musicals.
Lee performs a wide range of show tunes and among his musical choices are Some Enchanted Evening from South Pacific, Singin’ In The Rain, from the 1952 musical comedy and Luck Be A Lady from Guys n Dolls.
Ever since Lee won the coveted role of Joseph in the TV series Any Dream Will Do, he hasn’t looked back and he starred in hit West End musicals Joseph, Wicked and Legally Blonde before scoring a coveted role in the long running BBC1 drama Casualty, playing the character of Lofty.
Lee took some time out from his hectic schedule to talk to me and I started by asking him about his very busy year…
“It’s been an amazing year really”, Lee says, “The album came out in February and it went top 20 which I am so proud of because the first two albums I released were produced by Universal but these last two I produced myself and, when you produce an album, or a tour, yourself, it means so much more to you. There is more risk involved, because it’s all on your back, but four albums in and to have it in the top 20 was a huge personal achievement for me and I am so excited about touring it.
I’m doing about three concerts a week, including my date at the Assembly Hall Theatre in Tunbridge Wells on October 27th, finishing off in Southend, my home town, and it’s really great to get to sing the songs from the album as they are all songs that I have wanted to record, and that the fans have asked me to do, for a while. Although it may sound bizarre to some people, I have never done a musical theatre album before. I’ve been in lots of musicals, but it didn’t feel like the right time to make this album, until this year.
It must be so great to sing songs that, as they are your choice, mean something special to you.
100% yes, and that’s really important to me. Because I really care about what I do, to make the album and do the tour, I really have to connect with the songs. Every song that I sing has a very personal connection for me on some level. I believe that is how you give more to your audience. It’s not just the case that the singer sings the song. That would not be interesting to me and, if people are paying to see me live, I want them to feel moved and to connect with the songs in their own way and that is the joy of performing live. That’s when it’s magic.
Is it that magic that gives you such a loyal fanbase?
I think it is. I am very lucky. I don’t know how many of them there are, because they have been following me for over 10 years now since Joseph. I’ve just finished touring Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and there were so many of them that came to see the show again and again, sometimes as much as three or four times in a week! I have no idea how they do it and I know that, on the tour, they will all be there again and it is so wonderful to have that amazing level of support. I feel very blessed.
And those loyal fans get to see you on TV every week as well.
Yes. It’s taken a few years to get to this level. It took me five years before I got the part of Lofty in Casualty and I don’t think that was down to any lack of ability, because I got down to the last two for Robin Hood on BBC1 and I got close to doing Waterloo Road. I think, because I was publicly known as “the guy from musicals”, the TV world didn’t want to take a chance with me but there’s a man called Oliver Kent, who is the Executive Producer on Casualty, and it is to him that I will always be grateful for giving me the chance to play Lofty in, what still is, one of the biggest shows on TV.
Over two years I got shortlisted for the National Television Awards, which I was very proud of, and the feedback about me playing the role has been really great. I have learned so much from that show about being on camera and how to deliver some really important storylines. I think that, with experience, you can really improve. There is only so much reading or training that you can do. It’s doing the job first hand that helps you to grow and, having appeared in that show, it’s really improved me as an actor. Certainly in the world of TV acting, as it’s a very different world to theatre acting.
You film the TV scenes out of order don’t you?
Oh yes. Often you will read the episode, most episodes are about 100 pages, and you see how much your character is featured. Then you have to learn your scenes before you go on to the set. You get the episode about a month in advance, but you usually shoot two or three episodes at a time so there is a lot of work to do. Then we shoot out of sequence so you might start the day with a really emotional scene from the end of the episode and then do the beginning scenes last.
So, in your head, you have to have that “arc of emotion” so that you know exactly where that character is going in that episode and you have to make sure that you don’t peak too soon. If it’s quite an emotional scene you have to make sure that the continuity is there in the delivery and the performance. It usually takes about two weeks to film one episode so there might be a scene that lasts just 30 seconds on screen but, in reality, it takes about nine or ten hours to film. It takes a huge amount of energy and focus to get it right, it certainly takes a lot more energy than jumping around the stage for two and half hours and driving that flying car.
You know, I would so love to fly in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
It was wonderful. I was living a dream. I’m not exagerating when I say that eight or nine times a week it was just me living my childhood dream. I think I first saw the film when I was about six, the same age as my daughter Betsy is now, and I fell in love with it. I think it celebrates it’s 50th anniversary in 2018 so, hopefully, they might bring it back into London then.
It’s such a wonderful story, there’s a real truth to it and a big heart. It’s full of wonderful songs too and superb characters like Grandpa Potts and Truly Scrumptious but, ultimately, it’s about family and this man who isn’t looking for love again, after being widdowed, but, over time, he discovers that he has feelings for Truly despite their initial meeting being quite frosty. It’s such a cleverly written show and Ian Fleming and Roald Dahl certainly knew what they were doing when they created it.
I see that, after your tour, you are also appearing in another show in Cardiff and at the London Palladium.
Oh yes, they were last minute bookings and I just couldn’t say no. It’s a Broadway revue type show called Broadway in Concert. We are just doing two nights, November 16th and 17th at the Millennium Centre in Cardiff, where I was for three weeks with Chitty, and then the London Palladium, yes. It’s a great line up including Matt Cardle, Kerry Ellis, Ben Forster, myself, Sophie Evans and The Novello Orchestra.
That will keep me busy for some of November but I wanted to take a bit of a break too because, as we said earlier, it’s been a very busy year and I still have the pantomime at the London Palladium to do over Christmas. The tour dates are mostly Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays so that I can spend the weekends with Betsy.
Being on tour with Chitty for several months this year I wanted to be home for a few weekends so that I can see her. That’s the most important thing really. That balance is hard isn’t it, for me, for yourself and for a lot of parents. You have to go and work to pay the rent or mortgage or all the other bills, but it’s also keeping the balance and making sure that you can see your children as much as possible but, sometimes, there just aren’t enough hours in the day.
Lee Mead brings his Some Enchanted Evening tour to the Assembly Hall Theatre, Tunbridge Wells on Thursday 27th October at 7.30pm. To book tickets, priced at £22.00, call the Box Office on 01892 530613 or go online at www.assemblyhalltheatre.co.uk
