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POPULAR actress Lisa Maxwell will be
right at home in Malvern this week – literally - commuting daily from
her Cotswolds home to the theatre where she is playing the lead role of
Judy Garland in Peter Quilter’s hit musical drama
End of the Rainbow She needs the tranquillity of the beautiful
countryside to relax after gripping performances of this brilliant but
hugely challenging play-with-music which focuses on the final days of a
once glittering star . . . and there’s no place like home. Lisa, who made her name
in TV’s The Bill
and Loose Women,
explained the highs and lows of the drama, set in the swinging sixties,
when I met her after a matinee performance at Coventry’s Belgrade
Theatre. “It’s a wonderful play, and a great opportunity
for me to show off a bit,” she chuckled. “It is a difficult role, but
it’s worth it because any actor wants something they can get their teeth
into, and this is definitely one of those. “The fact that I get to sing and to play the
complete woman is what’s really interesting, because we are familiar
with seeing Judy Garland on stage in certain things, and the whole show
is set in London where she is playing a six-week season, so I get to
perform as her on stage. “But what really interests me is what’s she’s
like off stage, and I think people have really taken to the idea and
warmed to the fact that she, bless her, wanted to live a totally
different life, I think.” Lisa admits coming to the project reluctantly,
initially, because she knew how hard it would be . . . a mountain to
climb, and she didn’t think she could do it. But she recalled: “They
told me to get round a piano, see how I would feel, and they brought
this wonderful vocal coach along who gave me confidence, becaus “So I thought ‘oh, that went quite well’ maybe I
could do it. We worked together for a bit, and I took on the
responsibility of trying to be Judy Garland . . . and this is a role I
didn’t want to do ‘badly’ because she is an absolute legend to me.
“It’s also singing as Judy Garland . . . it’s not
just singing. You can’t just go out there and just sing the way you like
to sing, you have to sing in a style, and a very familiar style to
everyone sat out there. There’s nowhere to hide, so it is very
demanding, and I haven’t had a drink since Christmas Day.” There is some strong language in the play when
Judy is battling with drink and drugs and at times is reluctant to go on
stage at The Talk of the Town, and it may shock some people. Lisa explained: “She was probably more clean cut
in her early years, but as life moved on she was very much ‘one of the
boys’ who would go out with the Rat Pack and hold her own drinking wise. “You can’t do a play about Judy Garland without
song, and you can’t do a play about Judy Garland towards the end of her
life without showing the fact that she was a raucous old bird at times,
but she is so funny, and some of the lines (in the play) are just
ridiculously funny, so quick witted. “You do get an ‘ooooohhh’ from the audience,
especially about one particular word I say about ten minutes into the
play, and it’s probably the worst word in the whole play, but once
you’ve got that out of the way it settles down a bit. But I think they
are a bit shocked at first.” Some of the powerful scenes in her suite at The
Ritz and on stage at The Talk of the Town, with a drug, booze and
sex-charged pumped up Judy letting fly have the audience holding their
breath, and Lisa says: “It’s a challenge for anyone to play this role
and to get the songs, comedy and tragedy right, and I’m exhausted at the
end of the show. “She was a woman in her 40s – a legendary
Hollywood star – who just wanted the love of one man. I just wish she
had found someone and she could have lived happily ever after.”. Lisa has great support in the play from Gary
Wilmot, playing her loyal accompanist, and Sam Attwater, her much
younger fiancé at the explosive six-week comeback run in London. But it’s easy to
understand why she needs the tranquillity of her Cotswolds home to
recover from the enormous pressure of the show, even though she clearly
loves singing memorable hits like The
Man That got Away, Come Rain Or Come Shine, The Trolley Song,
and, of course, Over the Rainbow. Paul Marston |
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e
I hadn’t sung for 16 years.