A Pre-Show Chat With Olivier Award-Winning DOUGLAS HODGE...

"I was worried about playing a cross-dressing transvestite, screaming, and hysterical homosexual!" says Douglas Hodge with a smile. "But I could see that it's a phenomenal show and a phenomenal story; it's not about being gay or camp. It's about family and vulnerability."

The show that Hodge is speaking of is Harvey Fierstein and Jerry Herman's glorious and glamorous La Cage Aux Folles; the story of a gay couple, Albin a colourful, highly- strung drag queen and Georges, the owner and compere of a French nightclub, where Albin performs his drag act under the alias of Zaza.

In January 2008, the musical was revived at the Menier Chocolate Factory, starring Hodge as Albin and Philip Quast as Georges. This production of the show was rapturously received, as was Hodge's electric performance, and the show was transferred to the West End in October 2008, taking up residency at The Playhouse Theatre. Hodge played the role of Albin once more, while Denis Lawson took over from Quast as Georges.

At its new home, La Cage Aux Folles received heaps of praise from both critics and audiences, five star reviews galore and eventually, the most rewarding plaudit of all, when at the 2009 Laurence Oliver Awards, La Cage Aux Folles won Best Musical Revival and Hodge beat off the competition of his co-star Lawson to win the Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical, a startling and well deserved achievement.

Since Hodge finished his run as Albin, the part has been played by high-profile television personalities, such as Graham Norton and John Barrowman, but now he is reprising the role for five weeks until January 2.

As he began rehearsals for his return, I met up with Hodge, at a pizza parlour in BethnAl Green. We settled down in a quiet corner and between sips of lager, he explained how he is preparing to get back into the role. "I have two weeks of rehearsals. Normally I'd have five weeks rehearsals but I've played the part for six months before, so..."

Denis Lawson will also be returning to play the part of Georges, much to Hodge's delight. "If it was another actor who I hadn't worked with and didn't know, I would have asked for three or four weeks of rehearsals."

Hodge is using his current stint as Albin, on the West End, as training for the massive test of playing the part on Broadway and impressing the American public. "The thing about Broadway," Hodge explains, "is it really is the best in the world at musicals. La Cage is an American musical; it's supposed to be played in an American accent. I'm going to be the only English person in the cast. The expectations are huge!"

Hodge does not underestimate the scale of the challenge ahead. "I wanna do the part in the West End for five weeks so when I get to New York I hit the ground running. I want to make sure I'm both vocally and physically up to it. It's a fitness thing; I see it as being an athlete. I need to get in training, get the role back in my bones, sing it to death and know exactly what I'm doing, so when I go to New York with a completely new Georges and a completely new cast I'm ready and rock solid."

Hodge, so far, has played opposite Quast and Lawson in the role of Georges but neither will be making the trip to Broadway with him. The role was "offered to Mandy Patinkin and a major Brazilian opera star who were both unable to do it" and it has now been announced that Kelsey Grammer, of Cheers and Frasier fame, is the famous actor taking the part.

It is inevitable that there will be pressure on Hodge to wow audiences on Broadway and now due to his Olivier Award win he will be expected to be a contender for the Tony Awards. Has he thought about this? "The Tonys make a huge financial difference to a show. If I win a Tony for the part then I'll make a lot of people rich, if I don't it's likely I'll be coming straight home."

Hodge has only ever performed in two musicals, Guys and Dolls in 2005 and now La Cage Aux Folles, so it would be fair to assume that when his stint as Albin finishes on Broadway, he may like to perform in another show. This, though, is not the case; it seems he would rather take on more traditional theatre roles, "I'd rather do Shakespeare... if the Scottish play came up I'd do that." Why? "I find musicals an unbelievable discipline, eight shows a week, the energy that's required... you really have to live like a monk and that's not true when you're doing theatre."

In the late 80s and early 90s, Hodge made a name for himself as a dishy young television star, in shows such as Capital City and Middlemarch, but has tended to refrain from long running TV roles; his theatre CV is much more extensive than his television one; why is this? "I've tried to bat away any television work. If I'm honest, I can't stand, any more, the committee scripts that I'm offered in television. I find the same part all the time...there's no challenge to them and even though they pay you very well and you become famous, therefore you can do whatever you want... I've just, kind of, lost interest."

What kind of scripts does he receive? "It's either a massive period novel that we all know, normally Jane Austen. They never do the Russian novels which drives me bonkers- there are brilliant, brilliant novels that could be done but they always coast around these safe, English novels and they're always the same kind of theme. Or emergency services scripts- police, doctors, firemen - and they're of no interest to me."

Recently, Hodge has filmed an episode of the Channel Four teen drama Skins and an episode of BBC One sitcom Outnumbered; he says of these programmes, "They're very good television but these kinds of shows are few and far between." After a moment of consideration Hodge, says with sincerity and disappointment in his voice, "I think we're living through the worst period of television in Britain's history at the moment... I do... I really do."

Hodge has also recently finished filming small roles, in two mega-bucks movies and this is clearly something that interests him, more than the television work, "I'd love to do small parts in movies here and there... I've just done Ridley Scott's Robin Hood film with Russell Crowe and a movie called The Whistleblower with Rachel Weisz, so those kinds of things are very interesting."

Hodge, is obviously a very, very busy actor, in demand for theatre, television and film work but his main ambition is not performing... it is directing. "I'd like to direct Chekhov, Shakespeare, Brecht... that's what I'm more interested in. I really love the nurturing aspect of directing; it's what I've always wanted to do. When I went to Rada, I wanted to direct but I never felt I had the right to tell other actors what to do... it seems to have taken me 25 years to get the confidence to feel I can do that."

So is that Hodge's master plan for after he finishes the part of Albin on Broadway in September 2010? "I don't want to agree to do anything until I've done Albin on Broadway... everyone knows that after doing a part in Broadway, your life can change, radically. It may be that I do some film stuff after that, maybe I'll get a career as a drag act. Or maybe I'll just shoot myself!"

 

 

 

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