BWW Interviews: Rebecca Lock of MAMMA MIA!

It's a sultry day in London, and a sticky walk through Covent Garden to meet Rebecca Lock, who's just started her year-long run as Rosie in Mamma Mia!

Still, that's nothing to the discomfort she's evidently been incurring in her 70s costumes. Anyone following her on Twitter will have seen some pictures of the nasty grazes and bruises she's accrued - and I can confirm that they're just as painful-looking in person.

"I got my platform caught in my flares on the way up for Super Trouper," she informs me, pointing to one especially garish abrasion. "I tried to style it out, like she'd just tripped, and stopped myself on the door. I came off and just went, 'OW.'"

She points her foot at me. "I've got one coming up here as well! That's the shoes. It's all very glamorous!"

The new job is helping her forget the pain, though - she's gleeful and teasing when talking about her younger castmates ("the young slip-of-a-things!" "really ugly, REALLY unfit") and delighting in the female-led company.

"I'm having a lovely time. It's very fun!" she giggles. "The people who really love it are the mid-40s women - they come with their mates, they drag their husbands along, they are up and they're loving their lives. They can relate to every single one of us Dynamos."

Lock taking on this particular role might have been a surprise to some - but her career to date has been somewhat eclectic. She played Widow Corney in Oliver! at Christmas having completed a run as Carlotta in The Phantom of the Opera, and before that Kate Monster in Avenue Q.

"I think some people were a bit surprised!" she agrees. "Why not? I like doing everything. I like the way that my CV is very diverse - it's a bit of everything, people can't pigeonhole me."

But her spells in Oliver! and Phantom were playing characters that have been typically played by performers a fair bit older than Lock herself - and she wonders (along with many other people) if that's a trend across musicals in general.

"It's changed so much - it's mad. It's so nice to see Joanna Riding playing the romantic lead in The Pajama Game, opposite Michael Xavier - go, Jo!"

The Pajama Game is one of the shows she's seen recently, with Miss Saigon also on her to-see list ("I really want to go and see that! But they have the same matinee day as us - so selfish") as well as Dirty Rotten Scoundrels ("I heard lots of good things about that when it was on Broadway").

But unsurprisingly it's tough to find time to go to the theatre when she's had a busy rehearsal period and is now doing eight shows a week - and has her son and husband at home.

"I'm glad Mamma Mia! isn't doing a Sunday show," she says. "I do get it [in terms of the argument for audiences wanting to see a show on a Sunday]. But you'd be out all day Saturday, and on Sunday, and then your child would be at school on Monday, and you'd never see your partner."

So she and her fellow Dynamos continue to delight the crowds at the Novello - and she's really enjoying her work, declaring: "I'm terribly, terribly lucky to be in this job that I'm in."

Rebecca Lock stars as Rosie in Mamma Mia!

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