BWW INTERVIEWS: LA CAGE AUX FOLLES' Philip Quast and Roger Allam

How's everything going?

Both (in unison): Great!

Both enjoying yourselves?

Both (in unison): Very much!

I know you'd both say that anyway, even if you weren't...

Roger Allam: Well, it's hard work, and it certainly took me a while to enjoy it, because the first half, particularly for Albin, is incredibly frenetic. You run on stage, jump around, sing, dance, and then go off-stage and jump into other costumes.

Philip Quast: I've got one dresser, to help me change my shirt, and I see about four descend on you!

Roger: It's like a flock of seagulls! What's lovely, on Saturday night, for instance, we had a riotous audience who loved it all the way through, they stood up and were cheering and clapping. That's incredibly enjoyable, to feel that you're sending an audience out like that. It's a standing ovation most nights.

A show like this must depend quite a lot on the audience, because there's interaction with them throughout.

Roger: Yes, it depends on the demographic. It really does. It's one of those shows where you can get a table of four people that can affect the whole audience, or turn them off - I don't think that's happened, but it could, like any comedy really.

Philip: It can turn a comedy into a tragedy!

Roger: You could just get silence - that's happened to me and you just feel embarrassed. The audience at the end is cheering and standing up so they've obviously had a good time, they're just not very loud. They might not be into the verbal comedy side of it, the side-gags.

You mentioned the costume changes - is it difficult putting your make-up on on-stage while singing, as you have to in A Little More Mascara?

Roger: Well, when you start doing it, it's impossible, you can't do it. But it's like all these things, you just practise and practise it until it's OK. I don't put much make-up, really. I'm already wearing really quite a lot at the top of the show! It's just adding a bit of eyeshadow, blusher and putting the eyelashes on.

Philip: Yeah, but that's pretty amazing. I watch you sit there putting false eyelashes on. I wouldn't be able to stop my hand shaking.

Roger: They sometimes go a little bit awry - never right over there on my cheek.

Philip, you're back in the show having opened it at the Menier. Has it changed since then?

Philip: Not a great deal, I don't think. No. Not in terms of staging. The feel is different. Roger and I, the age feels absolutely right with the two of us, we have the same sort of family life, and it has the right tiredness, shall we say! It's interesting. The orchestra's not as present as it was. Certainly now it's a bit wider - not that I'm a dancer, but I can sort of have a bit of a jump about - it was a small space for a big person, but I can have a leap around now, and it gives me a bit of space to fall over.

And Roger, how are all your dresses? Was it a different process getting them fitted than a normal costuming?

Roger: It was different in that there's so many of them. I don't appear in the same costume twice throughout the whole show, so that I guess is what was different. And generally, of course, I don't get fitted for dresses.

You have done before, though, haven't you?

Roger: I have done before, yes! Once, in Privates On Parade at the Donmar. But there's far more costumes with this.

Which is your favourite frock?

Roger: I don't know, I don't think I've really got one! The funny thing is when you put on all that stuff, somewhere in your head you look like someone fantastic, you look like a singing star, a real, proper, beautiful woman or diva or whatever. And then you catch sight of yourself in the mirror!

Philip: [laughs uproariously]

Roger: And...yes. It's not quite what's in one's head.

Had you seen the production before you came into it?

Roger: I saw it at the Menier.

Do you think that's affected the way you interpret the role?

Roger: Well, luckily it was a long time ago I saw it, and I only saw it once, so I have very, very good memories of it but not so much detail. On the other hand, I did see Graham [Graham Norton] when we were rehearsing to remind myself what the show was like. Constantly in rehearsal, someone will say, "Oh, Doug [Douglas Hodge] did that there, but Graham's doing this." So there are various alternatives already, various styles that one can try, as it were. I think you have to make that an advantage - two very good but very different people have done it before. You don't feel haunted by it.

Philip: You spend a lot of rehearsal finding yourself in the character, finding what's written. If I've got a scene with my son [on stage], I play it like it'd play it with my son [in real life].

Have you changed the way you play the role since you came back?

Philip: Oh, I don't know. We're creatures of habit. I'm sure there's a lot of it the same. Certainly with Roger it all feels like it's fresh and new and completely different. It may not be to an outsider, but to me it feels new.

You've both done such a variety of work, but when I first heard that you'd be playing opposite each other, the first thing that occurred to me was, "I wonder if they'll argue over who was the best Javert in Les Miserables?"

Philip: It's come up quite a lot!

You bringing it up, or other people bringing it up?

Roger: Other people! We both ruined our knees, actually.

Philip: Roger invented this fall off the bridge [in the suicide scene], which we all had to do. We discovered we shared a knee deterioration as a result because of the constant falling on one knee. When you're 30 it doesn't seem to matter that much, but 20 years later one knee is playing up. We definitely compared knees.

Roger: We met in the mid 1990s and worked together then.

Philip: Roger did it first; I did it fourth or something here, then went to Australia. Since then, hundreds of people have played it. It's been running for so long.

What did you work together in?

Roger: At the Royal Shakespeare Company.

So you knew each other well before you came into this?

Roger: Oh yes.

Philip: That was part of wanting to come back for me. We've been friends for ages.

What's the last thing you saw in the West End that wasn't your own show?

Roger: A View From The Bridge. Did you see that after Godot?

Philip: Yes. Yes, I did.

Roger: It was wonderful.

Philip: I saw Burnt By The Sun at the National, and Spring Awakening - I thought it was tremendous, absolutely fantastic. It was fresh, and appealing to a young audience - just a shame that there wasn't more of them, but tickets cost money. 16, 15,14-year-olds - I don't know how many of them have that kind of money.

There have been quite a few shows closing recently - Spring Awakening, Sunset Boulevard, Joseph. What do you think the secret of La Cage's success is?

Roger: La Cage has got a broad appeal. It obviously appeals to the gay community, but it's also a good, fun show that appeals across a broad audience, a great big mixture. It's funny, it's warm-hearted, it's got great tunes -

Philip: It's got a strong story.

Roger: It's got a very strong story. I don't know. I'm just describing the show, and saying, "Maybe that's it!" Also, Graham must have brought his own following in to see it, and Doug and Denis [Denis Lawson] opening it, they must have done very well; with Albins doing it for shorter runs, three or four months, that will keep the interest going - people come back and think, "I wonder what they're like?"

And John Barrowman will be taking over from you in September.

Roger: That'll bring a whole load of different people in to see him.

Maybe the Doctor Who crowd, who haven't been interested in musicals before?

Roger: Yes, it may bring them in, but he's done the - what's that show called?

Philip: How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?

Roger: Yes. I think more of those people will come in, but maybe you're right and the Torchwood people will come in too. We'll see!

Philip and Roger are running in La Cage Aux Folles at The Playhouse until September.