Having taken the West End and Broadway by storm the award winning musical Rent is coming to Wimbledon Theatre.

It is a celebration of life as told through the eyes of Mark, a struggling young film director. The show is a story of love, ambition, fidelity and struggle for survival in today's unpredictable world.

Inspired by Puccini's La Boheme, this joyous and turbulent musical explores the life of a group of young New Yorkers as they struggle with the soaring hopes and tough realities of their dreams.

Following its off-Broadway opening in New York in 1996 and subsequent Broadway transfer, Rent swept the board at the Tony Awards, being presented with an four top trophies, including Best Musical, Best Score and Best Book.

This was in addition to 15 other awards, including the rare achievement of a musical winning the Pulitzer Prize for drama.

This time around Mark is being played by Adam Rickitt, known to millions of Coronation Street fans as Gail Tilsey's tearaway son, Nick. Yet he very nearly did not take the role.

"I am not a big fan of musicals," says Adam, who scored a No. 5 pop hit with I Breathe Again mid-1999.

"I know they look very nice from an entertainment point of view, but I wondered how challenged I would be as an actor.

"So when the producers approached me, I said, Thanks, but no thanks'."

It was some transatlantic arm twisting which convinced Adam to change his mind.

"After I initially said no to the part, the producers offered to send me to Broadway to see the show. To be honest I thought it would make a nice weekend away, but the show just blew me away."

Adam took the part, and since then, the British tour of Rent has been going down a storm, breaking box office records wherever it goes.

"Nobody was sure if putting a show like this on the road would work, because it had never been done before," he says. "Normally touring shows are the ones which are nice and safe like Joseph and Jesus Christ Superstar.

"But it's worked really well taking a show like this to the audiences rather than have them coming to London."

Adam is really enjoying getting under the skin of Mark.

"He is a real geek who has retreated into his own world. Mark has been really badly hurt by the woman he thought he was going to spend the rest of his life with. He thought he had the perfect romance until his girlfriend told him she was a lesbian.

"And so he's retreated into his own little world of being a movie director, using the camera as a barrier between himself and the outside world.

"But what makes him really interesting is because he realises although he cannot be hurt in his own little world he cannot be hurt either."

This is the sort of thing Adam himself went through when he first hit the big time in Coronation Street.

"I was due to go to Oxbridge to study law, but I knew deep down I wanted to be an actor so I signed up with Nigel Martin Smith, who was managing Take That at the time.

"He was going to send me to drama school but the day before I was due to go, he got me an audition for Coronation Street, saying it would good experience for when I had done the course."

Of course Adam got the part and the rest is history.

"The fame did freak me out and I didn't handle it very well at all. Like Mark, I sort of retreated in to my own world.

But there's no point in moaning about it.

"These days TV stars are big celebrities it goes with the territory. You know the pitfalls and if you succumb, you really only have yourself to blame.

"You can either become a real media whore or just get on with the job of being an actor."

In between the Street and Rent, Adam had a brief spell as a pop star.

"That was more of a marketing move than anything else. Having been on the Street, I knew people would identify me as Nick Tilsley rather than Adam. The music business allowed me to be marketed as Adam and helped me get away from my soap persona."

Adam will be getting even further away from his soap persona when Rent opens at Wimbledon Theatre next week. Tel: 020 8540 0362.

October 23, 2001 17:00