Interview: Actor Clive Rowe on Joy, Happiness, Laughter and Playing Uncle Fester in THE ADDAMS FAMILY UK Tour

The Addams Family, which had concert performances at the London Palladium last year, is now set to be touring the United Kingdom beginning in July. The musical, with music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa and a book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, is inspired by the original The Addams Family comic strip that was created by Charles Addams in the 1930s. Audience members are introduced to the unusual family of death-obsessed people who clash with the rest of the world. 

Recently, we had the chance to talk with Clive Rowe, who will be playing Uncle Fester in the touring production. We discussed what it is like to be taking the show on tour, why he’s not going to listen to the original cast album and how acting as a career is a bit like eating chocolate for a living!

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So starting with a bit of a general question, how did you first get started in the world of theatre? 

How long have we got? [Laughs] I was taken to amateur theatre when I was a kid by two good friends. One was to a pantomime at St George's East Crompton, and one was to the local Playhouse Theatre. I fell in love with pantomime! 

I was seventeen and I said, “By the time I'm nineteen, I'll take people's advice and I will go to drama school.” But I thought I'll go to drama school because then I'll have three years to work out a proper job. I obviously don't use that statement anymore, because I know acting is a proper job, but I was a good Northern boy from a small town, so what proper job can I go back to the North and do? 

I was very lucky. I got accepted at Guildhall at my first attempt. I had a fantastic time! And in my second year at Guildhall, there were two musicals, Porgy and Bess and Carmen Jones. Carmen Jones was at Sheffield Crucible with Stephen Pimlott and Jeremy Sams and Porgy and Bess was being directed by Trevor Nunn. The policy was that you weren't meant to go out for auditions or do outside jobs while you're at the college for three years, but they felt that, because it was so unusual that there were two musicals of colour at that time - this was in the 1980s - coming into town, that it would be great for me to audition, because I'd get great experience from it. But it would be a different thing to see if I actually got the job!

I went in for the Porgy and Bess audition because the other audition didn't come through. And while I was in the audition for Trevor Nunn, Stephen Pimlott and Jeremy Sams were sat in, doing a dual audition. They ran out after me after my audition, and said, “Look, if Trevor doesn't use you, we would love you to come down to Sheffield.” And Trevor didn't want me. I spoke to the head of the department, she said, “Yes,” and I went down to do Carmen Jones at Sheffield Crucible. That was my first professional job!

And so what made you want to be a part of The Addams Family tour? 

There's a couple of reasons. I love the concept of it. I've listened to a bit of the music of it. Matthew White, I respect as a director, and then I found out that Leslie Joseph was doing it - I did Sister Act with Leslie, so I thought I'll have a great time with her, just on a personal level. Yes, it is a job, but the happier you are, the better the performance you give. And it's a little tour down to Leicester Curve and to Birmingham and to Manchester, the Lowry. My family's from Manchester, and it's always difficult because my family wants to support me, but it's a lot for them to come to London. Just staying overnight is 200 quid! There's four of them, so I don't like to ask them to come to London to see me. But if I do get a chance to do something that I want to do that's on tour, like The Addams Family, it's a perfect example, to go down to the Lowry and do some work that they can come and see as well.

Had you seen the show before?

I've never seen the show! I've obviously watched the films and I used to watch the series. They’re creepy and they’re kooky, aren't they? 

Were you ever watching and thinking, “Oh, I'm going to be Fester one day?”

I've got to be honest, no. Fester wasn't on the top of my hit list at all! As a kid, I never thought I was going to be an actor, so I didn't have any aspirations, even when I was at youth theatre. My sister describes acting like eating chocolate for a living. I know you eventually get sick of chocolate, but I'd have to eat my body weight of chocolate in one day to become sick of chocolate. So for me, it was like, “Oh, this is incredible! I get to play out,” because it is playing out. It's very structured playing out.

There's no more truth for acting than when you're young and you're playing out - you fulfil those characters that you play with every fibre of your being. There's no holding back at all. So for me, it is playing out, and I try and have that attitude when I'm performing, 

And so what is it like to be performing a show on tour versus in one theatre?

The pedantic answer to that is, I'm not working from home. I'm having to travel, go to a place, and then go to work. So that's the literal answer of what it's like. But each town has its flavour and feel, and each audience from each city has its own flavour and feel. Even though you're working within a very tight structure with a musical, you're still easing yourself into that environment. And each theatre has its own group of people within it. On a personal level, I have incredible respect for every function within the theatre. There's no unimportant function within a theatre. The performance starts from the minute somebody walks through the door. I've not met many theatres that are bad at that, but there are some theatres that are incredibly good at that.

There are some theatres and front of house people that completely understand what how the whole machine works, and there are some beautiful theatres. The Lowry is just a beautiful space to to work in. And I've been down to Leicester before, and the Curve was an incredible theatre to work. It changed the idea of theatre in the sense of, the audience gets to see the actors coming to the stage. Because the theatre is surrounded by the front of house, so you have to walk through what you would call the front of house to get to the stage. So people within the front of house get to see that mechanic happening. And sometimes you get to go to the seaside, and if it's beautiful and warm, you take all that in. So each place that you go to gives you something different to respond to. Manchester, for me, it's getting as close to home as possible. My immediate family lived just outside Manchester, about thirty miles away, so I don't stay with them, but I do make a point of going down and seeing them. 

So you said you've listened to the songs from The Addams Family. Do you have any favourites so far?

My own song, my main song, “The Moon and Me,” my romance with the moon. It's a beautiful song. But we've got some incredible performers in Addams Family. Ricardo Afonso, Alexandra Burke, the lovely Leslie Joseph . . . We've got some great performers and singers in the show. In some ways, it's a bit like unwrapping a Christmas present.

I want to hear Ricardo sing the song, because I know Ricardo has got an amazing voice. I know I want to hear Alexandra sing the songs, because I know she's got an amazing voice. I don't need to hear other people singing them, no matter how good they are - I just want to live in the moment of the company. 

And it'll be pretty unique perspective having not heard them before, because a lot of people have!

Exactly that!

What do you hope audiences take away from The Addams Family? 

Joy, happiness, laughter, forgetting the troubles of the world for two hours. That's what I hope they take away from it. I think it's important, especially nowadays, with the trials and tribulations that are going on in the world, that we find these little oases of calm and pleasure, to be able to go, “It's not all bad.” It's okay to laugh, it's okay to enjoy yourselves. It's okay to have an ice cream, have a drink. It's all right to spend my little bit of money, to do something that I know I'm going to love, and to come away going, “That was an incredible evening.” I find it hard to believe, with the quality of the script, the music and the performers, that it's going to be an unenjoyable evening at the theatre.

And finally, how would you describe The Addams Family in one word? 

I'm gonna go with kooky, because it's in the song. I don't think that song's in the show, but everybody knows the song!

The Addams Family tours from 10 July to 30 August with stops in Birmingham (10-12 July, Leicester (15 July - 10 August), Salford (12-16 August), Canterbury (19-23 August) and Blackpool (26-30 August).

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