RADIO TWO INTERVIEW WITH MICHAEL PARKINSON
Sunday, 7th October 2001

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Michael Parkinson:  Michael Ball, good morning to you ... are you feeling any better ?

Michael:  Well I got a cup of tea inside me so it's going well.  It was a big day ... it wasn't just the football ... it was a load of friends of mine, we were at drama school together, we were celebrating someone moving into their new house, a 40th birthday, and we'd all known each other longer than we hadn't known each other ... and we could qualify for the World Cup so it just turned ugly (Laughing)

Michael Parkinson:  It got silly did it ?


Michael:  You know how these things go ... we're all approaching 40 and we're thinking yeah we're still 20!!

Michael Parkinson:  You don't think it's going to end do you when you reach 40?

Michael:  I really hope not ... as it's getting nearer and nearer ... I never anticipated getting to 40.

Michael Parkinson:  You don't do you ... you don't think that far ahead.  You'll find though that the best is yet to come.

Michael:  You think?

Michael Parkinson:  Well I think so ... in terms of your voice, your voice gets better doesn't it?

Michael:  Yes I think that's developed, it's got a richer sound to it ... I think also, the way I sing, the more experience you have, the older you get, the more mature you get - you understand the lyrics and what you are singing about.

Michael Parkinson:  Exactly, and that was true of Sinatra and all the great singers and our great favourite, because I know you share my view of her, Barbara Cook, we went to see her and what is she, 72 or 73 ...

Michael:  She must be

Michael Parkinson:  She stands on stage and you think ... your first impression about her well you're brave ... but then she creates the illusion

Michael:  It's very clever

Michael Parkinson:  And of course in terms of your maturing ... I mean you're maturing as an artist because you went to the Donmar recently, the Donmar Warehouse, a small space and you brought on this new show which was a cabaret ... tell us why you did that.

Michael:  They have a season there called Divas At The Donmar, with Barbara Cook we have talked about, Patti Lapone has done it and a lot of good friends of mine and I got a phone call from Sam Mendes asking me if I'd like to do a two week spot there and he said that it would be an opportunity for me to do something different, to not just do a scaled down version of what I do at the bigger venues, at the Royal Albert Hall and so on ... so I took that one stage further and with the help of a brilliant new director, Jonathon Butterill, we devised this piece of theatre really with Jason Carr who was the pianist.  My pre-requisites were that I wouldn't sing any song that I had ever sung before or recorded, I wouldn't talk to the audience ... normally I talk quite fluenty to the audience inbetween songs and so on ... I wouldn't do that ... this would be the story of a performer told entirely through new material and we'd only have a piano so everything was stripped bare.

Michael Parkinson:  And the risk ...

Michael:  Yeah

Michael Parkinson:  I mean the audience who you call your faithful audience would not be expecting that would they?

Michael:  I tried to tell people, I figured that because it was the Donmar which has the reputation of being experimental that people would approach this knowing it was going to be something different - and I knew that people would either love it or hate it and the response was fantastic.

Michael Parkinson:  The critics loved it.

Michael:  Yes.  I was very proud of it.  The hardest thing I've ever done.

Michael Parkinson:  And I suppose one of the hardest things ... I mean you're a very easy communicator on stage, you like relating to the audience and you find it easy to do and quite a few artists can't do that, so it must have been tempting at times if it wasn't working at the Donmar to actually say well let's go back to where I was ... let's bring them in ... let's involve them.

Michael:  The way I sort of figured that out was that I wasn't being me ... I was playing a part ... if I say when I was in Phantom or Aspects if it wasn't going well I couldn't go "Now Ladies and Gentlemen, sorry about this but the Phantom is stuck down the lair and here is one of my favourite tunes (Laughing) tempting though it sometimes is ... so I just had to sort of stay in character a bit.

Michael Parkinson:  So where is this taking you then Michael this season at the Donmar ... in the future how will it ....

Michael:  Well what it sort of did is, it reawoke my love for musical theatre, I've just recorded a new album of songs from the theatre ... but it's been a long time since I've been back there ... Passion which was a Stephen Sondheim show was the last thing I did in 1996, before then it was Aspects on Broadway - so I've always been associated with Musical Theatre but I've not been back in a company and on a stage ...

Michael Parkinson:  Why's that been?

Michael:  Career prospects have been better elsewhere I think ... because I started doing that and I didn't want to ... it's that old thing of not wanting to be typecast isn't it and not wanting people to perceive you to do other things, and everyone was saying when I came back from New York, I was offered other musicals and things that weren't quite as good as I had done before ... and I wanted the opportunity to make a name for myself.

Michael Parkinson:  Well that's interesting isn't it because you can be a very big star in an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical and then after that's gone you are no longer a star are you ... there are quite a few people like that aren't there?

Michael:  From kinda my generation there are very few star vehicles that came along, the shows were the stars ... the big musicals like Les Mis, Phantom because Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman were in it ... they were established stars anyway, but the shows were the stars, Miss Saigon and so on, so to actually emerge as a star is quite hard, so the only way really of doing that is breaking away from it.

Michael Parkinson:  Well we are going to feature a song from your new album called Centre Stage and this is a song from Les Mis but it's not a song you sang in Les Mis, your song in fact ... there is quite an interesting story about the song you were to sing in Les Mis isn't there?

Michael:  The Empty Chairs At Empty Tables?

Michael Parkinson:  Exactly.

Michael:  Well when we were first rehearsing the show and putting it in preview at the Barbican with the RSC it ran I think for four and a half hours, the first Wednesday matinee we did ... we finished the show and they were calling the half hour for the evening show ... it was the longest show in history so they kept cutting it down ... there were some amazing things taken out of it that only we know about that were part of the original thing but it was coming down to the nail and we were moving from the Barbican into the Palace Theatre and Cameron Mackintosh was worried, he said it's still too long and it's not going to be a commercial success if it's too long so they were thinking what can they cut out and he said well we could take out Empty Chairs At Empty Tables and Marius would just go from being down the sewer to getting married and would just have a hobble round the stage so we would know he's not been well ... this is my first job you know, I'm as green as they come, I'm there with Trevor Nunn and Cameron Mackintosh and I'm going well I'm sorry you can't do that because I won't do it, it's just wrong, negating the character, negating the part, I mean it's a fantastic song ... I was begging them and they said well alright, we'll keep it in in preview and thank God they kept it, otherwise I would have been gutted, absolutely gutted, can you imagine, your big moment and they're going sorry you can't sing it.

Michael Parkinson:  But you're singing Bring Him Home, that is a great song ...

Michael:  That didn't arrive in the show ... when we were rehearsing it they were still writing it ... so we are doing trust games with the RSC being cartoon characters because they didn't have the show finished, they are saying we are bonding here ... but can we just have the script so we can learn it and they kept saying we need this eleventh hour number for the character Val Jean, Colm Wilkinson was playing the part, and he came along, Claude Michele Schonberg, who wrote it, and played this song, there was just myself and Francis and Colm in rehearsals when they came and played it and Colm sang it and I have never heard anything like it and when it was first sung to the rest of the company, we were all sat around, Colm got up and sang this song and it was just deathly quiet afterwards and a guy in the ensemble at the back said to Trevor Nunn, Trevor I know you said this show was about God, I didn't know he would be singing in the eleventh hour number though ... and then every night after that it was sung by Colm to me lying at his feet so I thought one day I will record that.

Michael Parkinson:  Let's listen to it shall we?

They play Michael singing Bring Him Home

Michael Parkinson:  That is a lovely song, there's an example isn't it, that you don't just sing a song like that you have to feel a song.

Michael:  Absolutely, those are the songs that I love, the ones that have character, that are full of emotion, full of light and shade and humanity.

Michael Parkinson:  I mean can you be taught to feel a song like that or is it something you ...

Michael:  I don't think you can be taught ... you can be taught to sing I think ... you can be taught to hold notes and produce a sound, I haven't but that can be done ... but I don't think you can be taught how to put across a song.  You can be guided ... I did a Masterclass at the Donmar Warehouse which was fascinating ... the first time I've done anything like that ... where there were about 190 students in the audience and I got five students to come up on stage and basically I was trying to help them to sell a song if you were in an audition situation or whatever.  And these got up and delivered two songs and we would talk about what the characters were trying to say and try and find different ways of approaching ... it was really interesting to watch them sing their song, talk to them, hear their ideas that you put into their head and watch their eyes ... because that is what's interesting about musical performance not just the sound that comes out, it's people's eyes and faces and watching the character, watch though the process ... fascinating to do that ... but you can't ... I think you have to have an inate sense of drama and a sense of understanding.

Michael Parkinson:  But you have never had a singing lesson in your life?

Michael:  No.

Michael Parkinson:  You never felt the need for one either?

Michael:  No not really, I sort of ... I don't really know why, it sort of became a thing for me, I remember at Drama School hearing people who had what I thought were really quite nice acceptable voices and who I thought were quite able to put across a song because they had an acting ability, lose that individuality by being trained so much that all spontaneity disappeared from the performance. I think if you could have both, if you don't lose your sense of identity and performance and then have that technical fall back in case ....

Michael Parkinson:  Of course but when you went to Drama School you actually studied Drama didn't you?

Michael:  Yes, I didn't bother with singing at all.

Michael Parkinson:  So there's a story I read, and is it true that it was in Godspell that you suddenly realised the power of song.  What was the moment?

Michael:  I was playing John The Baptist and Judas and the show opens with all the other characters in front of the gates in the Junk Yard if you know how Godspell is performed ... and they are singing all these weird dissident strange phrases about man's lack of focus and so on ... and at the given moment a horn would blast out and the gates would open and accapella I would start singing Prepare Ye The Way of the Lord, and there was something about the whole experience, the gates opening, the lights hitting me and that simple phrase (singing) Prepare Ye The Way of the Lord ... with drama and just that going out and you could see people sit forward and go wow and I thought it's so much more powerful a way to communicate, not great words but simple, but you say just as much, if not more with chords of music and I realised that this is the lead in my life of communication with music.

Michael Parkinson:  You didn't have an easy progress did you to start with in the sense that there weren't people who actually, or crucial people I should say, were very cynical of your ambition if you like in that you were told that you wouldn't work until you were 40.

Michael:  (laughing) Yeah, next year I'll start working.

Michael Parkinson:  That's a thought ... any minute now ... yes I'd like to buy shares in you actually.  That was because you had a weight problem ...

Michael:  Yes I think we all still do ... I was sort of the fat lazy boy and that I think derived from the lack of focus, of not being comfortable in my own skin and it wasn't until I actually felt proud of what I did that I actually thought, no I can do this.

Michael Parkinson:  When was that?

Michael:  I think probably when I first started work ... actually probably the last year I was at Drama School and when I actually then went for an audition, got a job, got an equity card, that I thought I wasn't wrong - I can do this.

Michael Parkinson:  Self esteem.  Because you were teased at school were you not about being a fat boy?

Michael:  Yes, but isn't everybody.

Michael Parkinson:  But people can react in different ways to it can't they, it can be everlasting with a lot of other people and it can cause lack of confidence that you are talking about ...

Michael:  I think that when you are kids you all have something that is a weakness and kids will pick on that and you either get stronger because of it or you let it defeat you.

Michael Parkinson:  Alright let's talk now about another track on Centre Stage and that's The Boy From Nowhere, now this is from a show that disappeared without a trace.

Michael:  The Matador.  I remember first hearing the song, they released the song first, Tom Jones did it and I thought this is a great song, it's got all the details that I like ... it's a story song, it's powerful anthemic music and then going along I went to see the show and it was a howler, and it's so disappointing isn't it when you think no this is quite a good idea and that sort of whole Ernest Hemmingway thing and this could be really good ... but it wasn't ... but the song I've always remembered and I thought I'd record it some day.

Michael Parkinson:  Let's listen to it.

They play Michael singing The Boy From Nowhere

Michael Parkinson:  Er ... we was ust having a laugh actually.   Now can you tell that story?

Michael:  Yeah!

Michael Parkinson:  It's just we were talking about giggling on stage, and Michael Ball was telling me about the last night he did the last day he did Phantom.

Michael:  Last day I did Phantom, there's a tradition on your last matinee ...

Michael Parkinson:  Yeah ...

Michael:  The people play terrible tricks on you

Michael Parkinson:  Yes

Michael:  ... or you do it on them, so I had this thing worked out at the end of the show.  First I came out and I had a tatoo written on my arm saying Raoul 4 Christine, Raoul being the character I'm playing and at the very end when we've escaped from the lair theres a thing at the back where we reprise All I Ask Of You, and the boat goes off in the background, and myself and Christine ... so I'm in the wings, I stuck on a hairy chest, I got a medallion, and I had a Cornetto in my hand cause we were on like this, this punt thing and I could see the girl playing Christine I thought getting into the ... er getting into the boat, we're about to set off and she starts singing but the voice isn't coming from the boat and I'm looking and I can see the actress Jan Hartley who was playing, in the wings, singing into a microphone, and I go well who the hell am I in the boat with and look down and it's a friend of mine Claire Moore who's dressed up with the biggest flase eyelashes a false moustache on, buck teeth, a hairy chest as well and I turn round and I've got a Cornetto in my hand melting and all I had was one line which is "Say The Word and I will Follow You" and it came out as ... Michael sings in a very strange way the words Say the word and I will follow you.  And we got back afterwards and I had some friends in and they came and they said well we could tell it was your last day working here because the emotion in that last scene was so intense we cried, I felt a bit of a charlatan.

Michael Parkinson:  Oh thats wonderful

Michael:  ... Oh ...

Michael Parkinson:  But we, I mean not again, reading what you, not every theatrical occasion's been that pleasant for you because had this history of panic attacks.

Michael:  Yeah

Michael Parkinson:  Didn't you?

Michael:  Yeah ...

Michael Parkinson:  Still doing Aspects of Love then?

Michael:  No, it actually started in Les Mis, what had happened I got sick with Mynuculosis, Glandular Fever, which had made me very very ill and very tired and I didn't, I hadn't been diagnosed as having it, so I didn't know what was wrong with me.  I took some time off from the show when they finally did and I came back but it had kind of undermined my confidence and I found myself on the stage and I would lose my concentration and I would suddenly have these extraordinary panic attacks where you, you can hear your heart beating, pounding in your ears, you couldn't remember your words , a cold sweat and you  just want to run off and this was happening two or three times in a show and eventually got to the point where I couldn't go into work, I'd be on the tube coming in I'd start having the attacks then and just go straight home and I had to give up Les Mis because of it and er ... left the show.  I think what happened was once you ... once I realised how vulnerable you are on the stage prior to that you know it has just been oh get on there and do it.

Michael Parkinson:  Yes, yes!

Michael:  There was no ...

Michael Parkinson:  Yes?

Michael:  ... thought of a risk.

Michael Parkinson:  Yes.

Michael:  Once that had happened and I realised just how precarious it is and that anything can happen and you're being stared at by a couple of thousand people it ... it ... they just got worse and worse and I gave up for a while.  I just couldn't ... I couldn't perform or go out of the flat.

Michael Parkinson:  And how do you get back?

Michael:  I kind of ... I took 9 months off and then, er ... God bless him, Cameron Mackintosh said
"Look you've got to get yourself sorted out and  we're recasting Phantom and I think it would be ideal for you to come and do this if you're up to it" so there was a live tv ... I used to honestly think I don't know why, that I would die in front of an au ... I thought the thing would become so huge that I would actually die.  It's ludicrous talking about that now, but that was the way my rational was, and there was a live television show I'm almost embarassed to say what it was, I think it was Miss England or something and they used to have a cabaret slot in the middle of it while the judges are deciding like Anglia Television or something, and they asked me if I would sing a song in the middle of it and I thought well it's live television, I'm gonna go and do it and I'll either die or I'll get better and so I went on, paralysed with fear, but got through the song, I didn't die and I thought well I can only get better now.
And I just kept on.  Still have them but learnt, learning to control it ... learning to ...

Michael Parkinson:  Yes

Michael:  ... make the nerves work for me and never going that bit over the edge where you're out of control.

Michael Parkinson:  So every time now you still get it, but you can control it and ...

Michael:  Yeah

Michael Parkinson:  ... and then channel it

Michael:  Yeah, and its a lot easier now ... much easier.

Michael Parkinson:  It's, it's a pity also too isn't it, cause you mentioned also there the television and you had that very successful series, but that's gone now isn't it, there's no television like that?

Michael:  There's no television ...

Michael Parkinson:  No entertainment show is there?

Michael:  No, no!

Michael Parkinson:  It's very sad that, I wonder why it happened!

Michael:  I think it's money!

Michael Parkinson:  Is it?

Michael:  As much as anything.

Michael Parkinson:  There's so much talent in this country.

Michael:  Yeah!

Michael Parkinson:  Which doesn't have an outlet!

Michael:  True.  We were saying about this only the other day, the only things that we watch and not a sycophant now your show is fabulous to watch because you do get interesting people on who are talented who perform, who are, ought to be on there but er ... I watch Eastenders ... er ... but radio is the medium that's happening at the moment and there is no outlet, especially for someone like myself ... um,you know, I don't cook in public ...

Michael Parkinson:  Not yet!

Michael:  ... my DIY is pretty shaky, I'm working at it though cause my job starts when I'm forty as we were saying earlier.

Michael Parkinson:  Yeah, exactly so!

Michael:  So I'll have a new, a new outlet.

Michael Parkinson:  So let us beg the question of course, and you are approaching 40 at a time you look back and assess and look forward as well, so how do you see it going yourself and what do you want to do, what's left unfulfilled for your life?

Michael:  Um ... not ... not that much is left unfulfilled.

Michael Parkinson:  You've done a lot!

Michael:  I've done alot, I've packed a bit in.

Michael Parkinson:  You've done Coronation Street, East ...

Michael:  Oh, you're reeling out the triumphs.

Michael Parkinson:  Eurovision Song, Broadway, West End, best selling albums, Royal Variety shows.
Oh tell me, you must tell me before ... there's a wonderful story in research, about the Duke of Edinburgh and you, what was it?

Michael:  Well the last time I did the Royal Variety was with Barbara Cook and it was the occasion of er ... their Golden Wedding anniversary, Prince Phillip and the Queen's, and so they said when they were courting, this is what the researcher said to us, when they were courting their show was um ... Oklahoma, and their song was People Will Say We're In Love, so thought it would be really lovely to have Barbara Cook who was the original in Oklahoma, ... myself, to reprise this ... so we though what a ... how lovely.  We went on we, rehearsed it, performed People Will Say We're In Love, and afterwards you know in the line up, and the Queen came past and was absolutely lovely and charming, "thankyou very much" and Prince Phillip comes up and he goes "what was that you were singing"  I said , well, People Will Say We're In Love! "Where's that from?" Well it's from Oklahoma sir!  It's kind of your song I was led to believe. "I've never heard it in my bloody life"  You big romantic fool you!  (Michael does a lovely impersonation of Prince Philip)

Michael Parkinson:  Oh he's a lovely man isn't he?  Oh what a patron of the arts!

Michael:  Oh that's my knighthood done with innit!

Michael Parkinson:  Oh no, you'll get more than that for saying that story!  Oh that's lovely.  Alright, so we've got the record 'Centre Stage' which is released now.  Er ... any tours coming up?  Are you?

Michael:  Well I'm thinking at the moment that there ... I had proposed a tour for next year ... What you laughing at?

Michael Parkinson:  Oh I love that ... wonderful impressions of The Duke as well.

Michael:  Might do a tour next year, but I really have got a hankering to get back into the West End I want to do a show so ...

Michael Parkinson:  Anything looming?

Michael:  Yeah possibly!

Michael Parkinson:  Oh good.

Michael:  Tell you after the air.

Michael Parkinson:  Oh fine.  Ok we'll the CD's called 'Centre Stage' and thank my guest Michael Ball
very much I enjoyed that, smashing.

Michael:  Cheers