Interview: Jamie Muscato On BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM!

Congratulations on the role! How are you feeling about taking it on?

I'm thrilled, it's such a fun show. I've never taken over a role before so it's all new territory for me. I've been performing it for a weeks now so I'm starting to find my feet and relax into the rhythm but still, sometimes when there's a silence over the show relay I get convinced that I'm meant to be on stage and everyone's waiting for me! Luckily that hasn't happened... yet!

Had you seen the show since it opened?

I only saw the show for the first time after I got offered Joe - I had meant to go much earlier but I'd been away for a while with a job. I think I made up for it by watching the show a whole bunch of times during rehearsals though!

How are the company welcoming you?

Amazingly. I already knew roughly half the cast from the workshop I did for the show so I didn't feel like I was coming into a building full of strangers and those who I didn't know have been so friendly and very helpfully keep pushing me in the right direction when I look lost backstage!

You've done a fascinating range of work lately - how do you pick your projects? And what's still on your wishlist?

I'm not quite at the stage in my career where I can just pick projects yet - but I'm very lucky with the auditions I get seen for and the ones that have gone my way have all been so varied and awesome. For example I would never have dreamt that after belting out the classic 80s songs in Rock of Ages I'd ever sing Sondheim with the Welsh National Opera just a few years later, those worlds are so opposite. I haven't got anything concrete on the wish list, I love doing new work and having as much variety in jobs as possible so I guess my wish list is just more of the same as I'm doing now!

Jamie Muscato stars in Bend it like Beckham at the Phoenix Theatre.