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Kit Orton in the early days of Tommy Woodward IF enthusiasm
alone sold shows Tom –
The Musical would be
the hottest ticket in any town it visited. This is a labour of love, a Welsh show from a
small Welsh community theatre company based on an industrial estate in
Neath punching way above its weight, telling the story of a Welsh legend
from the Valleys, Sir Tom Jones. But this is not your usual jukebox musical packed
with songs from a tribute act jammed into a wafer thin storyline about a
wannabe star who makes it to the bigtime. For a start the show
has none of the songs that made Tom a household name - and kept the
frilly knicker industry in business for years. Its only nod to his
career as a global superstar comes at the end with Jones’s first hit
It’s not unusual.
That song was the end of the Tommy Woodward story, the story Theatr na
nÓg wanted to tell, the story of the real Tom Jones battling to escape a
life in the valleys among the pits. True there is an encore of Jones’s hit, but that
is an extra scene, like with a DVD, something to watch after the main
feature has finished. Kit Orton, who plays the Welsh star, is 32, an
age he feels is right to play the young Tom Woodward as he was then.
“Even though I am playing him when he was 22, he had such an interesting
voice that I am only ready to play him now because his voice was just so
mature for his age, I feel he was 10 years ahead. “And there is the drama of it as well because he
had such a hard life, I don’t think any 22-year-old could convey what he
went through from 16 to 24 . . . it was insane.” It is a dream role for
Newport-born Orton, who, in his time in the West End playing Sir
Lancelot in Spamalot was a karaoke regular for a bit of fun, selecting
Tom Jones classics with a particular favourite
It’s not unusual
so it was a well-honed performance when it came to auditions for the
part of Tom.
He is a big fan of Tom Jones and other powerful
singers who know how to use their voice such as Freddie Mercury. “The
first time I heard Tom Jones I didn’t know if I liked it or not, I just
knew it was awesome.” And he spent a lot of time imitating him, and
other singers he liked and sang along to and after opera training found
even more in the Jones’ voice. But it is not just the singing which appealed. He
said: “I see it as a play with music rather than a musical because if
you say musical there are connotations that it will be a jukebox musical
or songs will be shoehorned in and won’t make sense to the drama,
whereas what we have is a good script, a true story about his early life
that no one really knows about. “There is an interesting story of him striving
and struggling in the valleys and trying to break out of that life that
everyone was forced into, forced to work from a young age, to slog their
guts out. It is a good enough story in its own right to have it as a
play and leave the music out and it would work just as well. “The music is not shoehorned in and you are
seeing him at his most vulnerable when it is just him and a piano in a
room in working men’s club, trying to sing over people drinking. Its him
before he became Tom Jones.” Orton might be a West End star but he is not well
known outside the capital’s theatreland, not a household name, and many
a producer would have wanted a TV celebrity in the title role, a soap or
reality TV star to put bums on seats, but that would have lost the whole
point of Tom, the son of a miner from Treforest, Pontypridd. A rags to
riches story that doesn’t need to distraction of a celebrity playing a
nobody. And sticking to her guns on that is Theatr na nÓg
artistic director Geinor Styles, director of the show who has nurtured
it from its inception. The appeal to her was that the script told a real
story. She said: “I love the music anyway, I love rock’n’roll, but it’s
about the drive to succeed, a lot of the work we do is about people in
extraordinary situations, ploughing on against all the odds, that’s a
big thing for us as a company. “Growing up in the valleys you know about Tom
Jones and you know he is in America and he is a big singer, but that’s
about it really. “I didn’t know the back story, I didn’t know the
struggles he’s had, I just knew he was out in LA and making a fortune.
It’s about that. He doesn’t just appear; he’s done a lot of digging. He
never sound checks, he just turns up, belts it out and he goes home,
he’s that accomplished, and that takes graft and I am a great believer
in grafting. It’s not going to be handed to you on a plate, ever. “In the play we go from
Tommy Woodward, his birth name, then he becomes Tommy Scott and the
Senators and then Gordon Mills takes him and he evolves, he morphs into
this icon. We finish when It’s Not
Unusual gets to Number 1.” She thinks audiences are sophisticated enough to
want what she sees as a great story, with great characters and a love
story all rolled into one and although, like Orton, she thinks the story
could stand on its own as a play she added: “But that would be like Tom
Jones losing his voice.” And his story has been given its voice by tiny
Theatr na nÓg, a theatre company few have heard of and even less can
pronounce but like Tom, has made it to the big time through graft. Tom, the musical, the story of Tom Jones, runs at
the New Alexandra Theatre from 1- June. Roger Clarke |
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