London Calling with Champagne Charlie Dateline: 27th Feb 2009

“I know why Madonna keeps changing!

If you keep changing then you appear to accomplish when in fact all you accomplish is change”

That’s the conclusion of Zoe Lewis amazing one woman show presented and performed by Sadie Frost in her return to theatre in a new fringe production called ‘Touched…. for the very first time’

The show tells the story of 36-year-old Lesley from Manchester from the moment, aged 14 that she hears Like A Virgin for the very first time. From that point on Lesley dreams of being a modern woman… and of being best friends with pop icon Madonna!

The show has been a critical and audience hit attracting a very different crowd in these recession hit times. The type by their own admission to me after the show ‘would never set foot in a theatre if they we paid”

Calming down after the theft of some valuable private papers writer Zoe Lewis chatted on the mobile to me while on the way to that nights show.

Champagne Charlie: How much of the lead character Lesley is you?

Zoe: It’s about 60%. I lived in Manchester, was ‘posh’ but mixed with all sorts of children.

I just remember being dragged from one Shakespeare to another and thinking it’s great but – it doesn’t speak to ME! I mean the language is great but this isn’t about my world. I made nearly all the mistakes the character made…

Champagne Charlie: That’s why the play has been packed with people who would never go to the

Theatre. And that’s probably why Sadie played it so well. Women and men understood her, the character and how things are in REAL life.

Zoe: That’s right. We all make mistakes and it’s what happens, the story that counts.

Champagne Charlie: How did the show come about?

Zoe: Well I wrote in a week and Edinburgh was happening so I thought…we’ll I am not an actress but I can do the accents because that’s where  I’m from…I’ll play the part myself with a prop of a single bed.

It was a tiny room and word started going around there was this Madonna play and everyone came. We had drunken stag nights to celebrities and other performers came

One night Jenny Éclair (a UK comedienne) came. I didn’t recognise her but her phone went off…I went mad and told her to get out!

Champagne Charlie: Well someone liked it!!

Zoe: That’s right. Imogen Lloyd Webber caught it and she immediately got it.

That sort of person who knows traditional theatre but could see that people would see through it. She then said to me there was a lot of work to do, getting the right director and Sadie (Frost) to play it was crucial.

Champagne Charlie: Well people forget that Nick Hytner first tread the boards at the Manchester Royal Exchange Theatre - a city in which she spent much of her childhood – in Mumbo Jumbo under his the direction. That Sadie then went on to star in more than 20 films including Francis Ford Coppola’s cult film Dracula, Uprising, Shopping and The Heavy, working alongside actors such as Anthony Hopkins, Gary Oldman, David Schwimmer, Jude Law who she married and divorced, Winona Ryder and Keanu Reeves.

Zoe: That’s right. But Imogen saw it had to be turned from a one woman show or stand up with a bed into a real play so she brought in Douglas Rintoul to direct and really turn it into a play.

Champagne Charlie: With the theatre full and it doing well what next, it seems to have defied any critics that knocked her or the show

Zoe: That’s right; I know we are talking about a tour of some sort. As for me I’m finishing up on some new work. One play is about a religious community and looks at whether living within a tight community helps you and protects you from things or do you do that for yourself.

Champagne Charlie: Well we wish you all the best and well done with TOUCHED!

And with my goodbyes hit the missed call button to get the show’s producer Imogen Lloyd Webber.

Imogen: I’m glad I got you and thanks for likening the show.

Champagne Charlie: That’s fine. How did you get into producing?

Imogen: Well I had been in film financing and thanks to a change in the tax law loads of things fell apart….I had to do something so I cam up with the idea of doing a book called ‘The Single Girl's Guide’ about what happens to us single girls now Carrie has found Mr Big and Bridget Jones married her Darcy. I got a whole lead of my friends together and talked about it and from it emerged the book.

Champagne Charlie: And it was a huge hit here and in the US. What was it about the theatre though that made you want to go at it full time?

Imogen: Well you have to have lots of things we have to be working on. Everything takes SO long to happen. I saw this at Edinburgh and I could see it could be more that a stand up show with props. I needed the right director and Sadie was perfect. She really does act well and women understand the character. We all make mistakes and you can see that in ‘Lesley’. But it needed to be turned into a real piece of theatre.

Two years after seeing it has hit the West End in one of my favourite spaces – The Trafalgar and it has really worked with the public.

Champagne Charlie: What next for the play?

Imogen: Well Sadie has only a short run in this. She has 4 children so touring is out but there others. Yes that would be great; to take it on the road.

Champagne Charlie: Good luck then!

Photo of Zoe Lewis by Tiggy Kennedy

Photo of Imogen Lloyd Webber by John Swanell

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