BWW Exclusive: Diary of an Englishman in New York- A Visit from the Clintons

Academy Award winner Helen Mirren returns to Broadway as Elizabeth II in Peter Morgan's The Audience, which just opened at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre. Playing one of Her Majesty's twelve Prime Ministers is Rufus Wright, who takes his audience with the Queen nightly as the UK's current PM, David Cameron.

Follow along as Wright takes us behind the scenes of The Audience's Broadway journey with 'Diary of an Englishman in New York'. Be sure to check back later this week for his latest installment!

Follow Rufus on Twitter (@rufusgwright) for even more updates!

---

1 June 2015
A Visit from the Clintons

The West Wing is my favourite TV show. Seven years ago my wife walked down the aisle, in a traditional English country church, to the theme tune played solemnly on an 18th Century organ.

So I was pretty excited when I heard when I got to work last Saturday that I was going to meet a former American President. And a possible future one. Bill and Hillary had decided to skip Clinton The Musical at New World Stages and were heading to The Audience.

Since they've been, Chelsea, and Hillary's Chief of Staff have both come too. I think there's something reassuring about that. when you tick 'word of mouth' on those marketing questionnaires, you're in good company.

Now, when famous people are in the audience (rather than The Audience), a few things happen.
1. The show goes up late. Bill was on time but Hillary was a little late (maybe she's got a bit more on at the moment).

2. Unassuming looking men in chinos and dark glasses hang around backstage and probably know your name. Not because they saw you on TV, but because 'it's their job to know your name'. They might even know if you've got some outstanding parking tickets.

3. The audience will not know someone famous is in during the first half, but they will be spotted in the interval and there might be selfies.

4. The second half goes up late because- the selfies.

5. The audience will laugh more in the second half because the jokes just seem funnier, and because everyone there is already wording their tweet/anecdote at work about how they went to to theatre on the same day as the CLINTONS!

6. This last one can backfire. I was in the original production of Frost/Nixon at the Donmar Warehouse in London. David Frost came, very discreetly, to an early preview. It was the quietest house we'd had- Michael Sheen, playing Frost, could not work out what was wrong. Only later did we realise Frost was in. If large parts of the play are essentially saying 'Look at this 1970s idiot being an idiot!', and said idiot is in the row behind you, you aren't going to want to laugh. It'd just be rude. And in a 250 seater, word gets round fast.

7. The actors, so often propositioned for selfies themselves, start wondering how to get one with one of the Clintons. But not one of those awkward lean over a crash barrier gurning ones, more of a firm handshake/ deep in conversation/ sharing a joke/ both of you in suits one. Like the ones you see on the wall of the very expensive Doctor you've been to see about your knees on the Upper East Side. Except actors selfies end up on the dressing table they share with 2 other actors or in their mum's kitchen.

Our selfies didn't happen. Apparently the most famous people in America aren't wild about people they've never met pointing things at them that haven't been x rayed and swabbed. Fair enough. We made do with one of those selfies that you'd take if your selfie stick was a fishing rod. It had about 50 people in it.

So. I think they loved the show. They shook everyone's hands on stage after the curtain call and Bill told a few stories about at least 3 of the Prime Ministers he'd worked with. We all bathed in that famous charisma. And knew that meeting Hillary might be an even bigger deal than meeting Bill.

---

Previous Entry
18th May 2015
Voting Myself out of Work

Last week I wrote about the British actors in The Audience watching our General Election unfold during our show last Thursday evening.

In the show I play Tony Blair and David Cameron- the Conservative leader who won the election. He's known as a large and contented looking chap, with a face like a big toe, millions of pounds in the bank and close links to the network of old Etonians that run the country. He came to see the show in London and was perfectly charming, although politically I'm not a fan.

Those of you who have seen the show will know the premise: all of us PMs have one or more scenes with Helen Mirren's Queen. The Cameron scene is kept up to date with current events. When we performed the play in the West End in 2013, every fortnight or so we'd incorporate references to whatever was happening in the news: Margaret Thatcher's death, the Pope's resignation, or Prince George's birth. Often, we'd cut the jokes after a few weeks, when they started to feel stale. Bizarrely, only the Pope reference has stayed in: the Queen says: 'To be the Queen of England is not a job or a shift you put in. There is no abdication. Or retirement. Like the Pope'. It still often gets a round of applause two years after Pope Benedict resigned his position as pontiff through ill health.

On Broadway we started with material about the death of King Fahd of Saudi Arabia. The Queen mischievously tells Cameron that she took him for a ride around Balmoral in a Land Rover (which is true), and he was completely terrified, having never been driven by a woman before. After the King's death didn't feel current anymore we cut it and went on to a chat about what gifts the Camerons had exchanged with the Obamas after a recent trip. As the Election loomed, we knew we had to mention it.

Helen, writer Peter Morgan and I exchanged emails and ideas about how to add references to the election- Peter sent a draft, and Helen and I met before the show in her dressing room to run through the new material. In the week before the election, Helen added the line 'Don't you do all your campaigning on Twotter, or Twatter, or whatever it is?...'

As election night loomed I really thought I'd better take a look at my contract. An actor friend in London told me he had an audition to play Ed Miliband (the Opposition Leader) in the London production of The Audience (starring Kristen Scott Thomas), and would slot in if Miliband won the Election. In the end his audition was obviously cancelled, along with half a dozen other actors who'd been up all night practising their Miliband impressions in the mirror.

So if he did win, where did that leave me? My Blair scene would remain, I'm sure- but would the producers get another actor in to play Miliband in New York as well? I'm a pretty good mimic and had worked up a fairly good impression- the wig mistress had her eye on a big dark wig that would work- would they let me play 3 different PMs in the show?

Also I had voted for Miliband myself: would this be the most unusual way yet someone had indirectly got themselves fired? 'How did you lose your last job?' 'I voted myself out of office. I fundamentally disagreed with the way I was running the country and decided it was time for change.'

Well. My job's safe. And we're crossing our fingers for Britain.

---

Rufus trained at The Central School of Speech and Drama in London. He created the part of David Cameron in the West End production of The Audience and previously worked with Peter Morgan on the original Donmar Warehouse production of Frost/Nixon and in the filmThe Special Relationship. Other theatre credits include: The 39 Steps (Criterion), The One, The Backroom (Soho Theatre) The Empire (Royal Court), Serious Money, The Madness of George III (Birmingham Rep), Private Lives (Hampstead), Crown Matrimonial (Guildford and Tour), Mary Stuart (Donmar Warehouse and Apollo), Journey's End (Duke of York's), Trust Byron, Life With an Idiot and Franziska (The Gate), Single Spies (West Yorkshire Playhouse), The Secret Garden (Salisbury Playhouse), and Richard II (London Pleasance)

Photo Credit: Walter McBride / WM Photos