INTERVIEW: Joseph star Lee Mead speaks about swapping Webber for Wilde (From News Shopper)

INTERVIEW: Joseph star Lee Mead speaks about swapping Webber for Wilde

1:05pm Thursday 14th January 2010

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After hanging up his many coloured coat in Andrew Lloyd Webber's West End revival of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Lee Mead was spoilt for choice for what to do next. The people's Joseph tells MATTHEW JENKIN why he chose Oscar Wilde over a song and dance.

WINNING the coveted role of Joseph in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s jaunty musical was a dream come true for baby-faced Lee Mead.

Plucked from obscurity after competing in the hit TV talent contest Any Dream Will Do, the Essex boy and son of a cabbie helped the Adelphi Theatre’s revival of the camp classic sell out for a year and half.

But after 600 shows, Lee finally hung up his amazing technicolor dreamcoat last year and decided not any dream will do afterall.

His latest role as the murderous anti-hero in Oscar Wilde’s Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime at The Churchill theatre, Bromley, is his straight acting debut.

However, Lee insists the decision to swap Webber for Wilde wasn’t a deliberate attempt to distance himself from musical theatre.

He said: “I was offered a couple of musicals in the West End after Joseph but it was straight away and it didn’t feel like it was the right next step for me.

“For a few years I have always wanted to go to New York and train as an actor and I thought, why not go now?

“I applied for a course at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute, I got in and I was there for about three months. Having done the course I thought it would be really nice to do a play or some TV acting roles.

“I had a few castings and auditions, Lord Savile came up and I thought this is perfect.”

Despite taking a break from the usual physical pressures of musical theatre - singing and dancing for eight shows a week - Lee says playing the lead in the quick-witted drama was no less gruelling.

“I’m on stage for the whole two hours and it was a real challenge, stretching me as both an actor and as a person,” Lee explains.

“With Joseph it was more physically tiring. I’d come off the stage every night and be exhausted.

“With this, of course, it’s very different because there’s no music but you have to really focussed and switched on. If you miss one word or one cue you could ruin the whole play.

“I had 75 pages of text to learn, which is hard enough with a contemporary play, but with Oscar Wilde you need to understand what you’re reading and the lines you are delivering.”

Having worked for six or seven years prior to his big break as a member of the ensemble in various musicals, including a touring production of Joseph, Lee says it was quite a shock to be pushed into the limelight so quickly.

But it was celebrity judge on the talent contest and musical star Denise Van Outen who was to really get Lee’s pulse racing.

Although it wasn’t until after the show had finished that the couple started dating.

Lee said: “It wasn’t love at first sight at all. Each week I was focussing on the next show which was going out to millions of people so the last thing on my mind was dating.

“It is very strange how things worked out but it’s wonderful and the best thing that could have happened to me.

“I won an amazing role and found my future wife as well. Our first baby is due in May which is very exciting and I feel very blessed.”

Any Dream Will Do followed on from the success of the BBC’s How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? which launched a hugely successful revival of The Sound of Music at the London Palladium, starring Connie Fisher.

Despite box office tills ringing, purists criticised the talent show as an inappropriate way of choosing performers.

Lee is adamant the show hasn’t failed yet in choosing the right artist to fit the role.

He said: “If anything, what it has done is bring a whole new audience into theatre and I believe theatre shouldn’t be an elite art form.

“My father’s friends, for example, have never been to the theatre or see a show. Then having seen the TV programme he came along to see Joseph and brought his family and friends and the word spreads.

“The show was sold out for a year and a half, which is great for the producers, but if those people come back and see more shows then that’s only a good thing for theatre as a whole.”

Lord Arthur Savile's Crime. The Churchill, High Street, Bromley. February 1 to February 6. 0844 8717620.

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