Tell us how the rehearsal process is going for The Cabinet Minister?

Rather brilliantly, I think. We spent a lot of our first week working through the musical elements of Nancy Carroll’s brilliantly giddy adaptation and also chatting through the family groupings and knotty relationships in the world of the play. Week 2 has had us starting to explore the physical life of the play and begin staging our scenes within our beautiful design.

What can people expect from the show?

The unexpected! Nancy and our director Paul Foster have excavated a gem of a play from 1890 that’s not been seen in the West End since 1991 and added a sprinkle of 21st Century brilliance to let it ignite for a new audience. It’s a play about families, class expectations and secrets with a gorgeous dollop of farce, music and romance.

Tell us all about your character, Sir Colin Macphail of Ballocheevin, which is a mouthful in itself! :-)

It is a real mouthful! In the play, Sir Colin is described as ‘the proprietor of eighty thousand acres. Head of a great clan. Yet…remains a child incurably attached to his mother.’ He is quite a surprising human, so I wouldn’t want to give too much away....

Tell us about your journey into the world of performing?

I started at an amazing youth theatre, Gwent Young People’s Theatre based in Abergavenny when I was about 14. It was run by a professional theatre company (Gwent Theatre) and we were treated as members of that company. We did 2 shows a year - directed by the wonderful Stephen Badman & Gary Meredith - and I stayed with them until I left home to go to drama school having being shown a world and career that was pretty invisible to a boy growing up in the South Wales Valleys. Sadly, neither the theatre company or youth theatre are in existence anymore - both victims of the cultural vandalism of funding cuts. It feels pretty impossible to imagine making the career choice I did now that they are gone. 

Have you had a favourite job to date?

I’ve been very lucky to work with a host of brilliant people during my career but the production of ‘The Fair Maid of the West’ for the RSC in Winter 2023 has to be one of the happiest and most exciting I’ve been part of. It was a new play written and directed by Isobel McArthur who was brave enough to build her play on the most inventive and generous of companies - it felt like a true collaboration between all the parts of the creative machine.