Interview: Jon Robyns On CHITTY, MEMPHIS And More!

Hello Jon! You're starting this new production of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at the West Yorkshire Playhouse before it goes out on tour - so everything's on you. No pressure!

Yes! I get to do the fun bit. One of the best bits of what I do is getting to create things - or re-imagine, and re-create things, so I get to do all the fun work and the nitty-gritty, and then perform it for two months, which is a decent length of time, and then graciously hand it over to Jason [Manford], who I'm sure is going to be absolutely brilliant.

Did you see it at the Palladium, back in the day?

I've never seen it! I've seen the film, and my kids watch the film all the time, but no, I never saw the original production, which I think has served me quite well, because I don't have any bias about how things should be.

If you know the film, though, is that influencing you at all?

Yeah, it's difficult not to do Dick van Dyke, to be perfectly honest! I think I've found my way round it now, but the first couple of rehearsals, I was definitely Dick van Dyking myself into a corner. That's a new verb.

Do you have a favourite bit of the show or the film?

One of my favourite bits is working with the kids. The Jeremys and Jemimas are so cute and so wonderful, and so honest - it's really difficult for a grown-up actor to be that open and that honest, and these kids don't know any different. It's really refreshing to work with people like that.

I like doing Hushabye Mountain because it's an iconic song and we've really put a deeper emotional journey to it, which I really enjoy exploring, and Ol' Bam-Boo is going to be great fun. I've not yet been hit by bamboo, but there's time.

You've had a really busy 2015 - what with Memphis and now Chitty - do you get a break at the start of 2016?

I've got a little bit of time off after this, which I'm going to really enjoy. Memphis and this really dovetailed perfectly. Memphis finished on Saturday, then I packed my stuff and got on the train to Leeds on Sunday, so it's been busy, but you don't complain about these things, it's just wonderful to be involved in productions of this sort of calibre.

Memphis got a very strong response from its fanbase, but didn't seem to get the run I imagine you'd have been hoping for.

I have a dual consciousness about that. Yes, the show deserved longer, and I think the fanbase would have agreed, the critics agreed, there wasn't any sort of negative feeling about it from anyone at any point - the word of mouth was good, the atmosphere in the company was great, and so it should have run longer. But I feel as if in this day and age, a year's run in the West End is not that bad, considering other musicals that opened in the last year or two have had considerably less than a year and been in possibly better positions than the Shaftesbury. So getting a year out of a show is not so terrible these days; I wonder if the days are gone of ten-year runs?

I don't think if you said that to producers they'd be that happy, but you may well be right.

I can't speak for producers, but as an actor they asked me to do a year, and I did a year. Anything after that is an unexpected bonus which would have been gratefully received, especially by me, because I loved being part of that company. It was a great year, and the silver lining of it is that when someone says, "I saw Memphis," you know they mean you.

And what about being an alternate? You're playing it regularly, but maybe not as regularly as you might like. Do you feel you have unfinished business with the character?

Yes. I feel like I got a decent bite of the cherry. The stamina shown by Killian (Donnelly) and Matt Cardle - they were just both machines. They were so rarely off. Because I was there every week, and did holidays and the occasional sick days, and some press engagements, I felt like I got my fair share of it. The producers and the company, they were really keen to point out to me and Rachel John (alternate Felicia) that we weren't considered second-class citizens in that respect. The parts are leads, and they are massive; trusting us with those roles - if you're on there in front of a packed house telling that story, it's in your hands. So to be given that trust in any show is really humbling.

One more thing - how did your Singular Sensations solo gig, at the Charing Cross Theatre, go?

It was great! Wonderful. Edward Seckerson is such a pro - he knows what he's doing. He and I had a couple of meetings before the gig and figured out we'd have no problem chatting about various musical theatre-based things. We ran over time in the gig - probably due to us nattering a way. It's really nice to do a selection of songs that are exclusively special to you. Most of the time, when you do gigs it's someone else's work, or someone asks you to do a certain song, or you only get to do one song that you pick. With that, I did seven songs, all of which really meant something to me, deep and impactful. I'm hoping the series goes from strength to strength.

Jon Robyns plays Caractacus Potts in West Yorkshire Playhouse's Chitty Chitty Bang Bang from December.

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