Interview: David Hunter Talks SONGS FOR A NEW WORLD at Vaudeville Theatre

David Hunter has certainly been busy during lockdown. He may have said goodbye to his role as Dr Pomatter in Waitress virtually (the pandemic closed the show's run before they could have an official closing night), but he's taken part in several online gigs, co-written a musical with Caroline Kay and performed in one of the first shows at the London Palladium post-lockdown.

Songs For a New World was meant to be just two performances at the London Palladium. The Jason Robert Brown song cycle will now enjoy a longer run at the Vaudeville Theatre next year, with the same cast. We talk to Hunter about why he loves being a part of the show, juggling his passions and making creative Cameos for his fans.

Songs For a New World was originally meant to just be two performances - did you ever imagine it would get a West End run beyond that?

I think you're always hoping, and you're always told there's a chance; whether you're doing a workshop or a short run or a one-off night. They always say there's a chance, and generally, it turns into nothing, so it's just very exciting when it turned into something.

We've got this lovely run, and the idea of being there, settling in and getting into the rhythm of it again is really exciting after such a long break.

You were one of the first shows back at the Palladium and indeed, the West End. That must have been an amazing feeling?

It was an incredible day. To be in a theatre again and to really appreciate that world, having had it taken away, was amazing for the cast, the band, the producers and the crew.

When the audience came in, they obviously had the very same feeling. The way they responded for both shows, it's something I've never seen before. The guy came out at the beginning to make a COVID-19 safety announcement and he got welcomed to the stage like he was Elvis Presley, the audience went absolutely bananas.

We got to come out one by one singing these songs, and they just went absolutely wild. The energy was palpable from the moment they came into the auditorium, you could just feel that buzz that everyone has missed so much.

It must be an odd thing to perform to audiences wearing facemasks. Or does their energy make you forget that?

It made me forget certainly on that occasion, they were so up for it.

We were preparing ourselves for a more reserved audience because we felt maybe the mask would make them feel a little less able to shout out or be more energetic. But it didn't have that effect on this occasion, and I hope that's true moving forward.

The run at the Vaudeville will have the same cast as the Palladium show. Are you excited to be reunited?

I am! It'll be nice to spend some time with them.

For the Palladium run, we went in and did a week's rehearsal. It was a lot of hard work just to get it ready and making sure we had our lines and harmonies down. This time, we can come in a bit more confident, as we've done it once before we know how it works. We can refine it and make it better, and then we can just relax and be in this together, build on it and enjoy it.

That's the most fun thing about being in a show: building that rapport as a cast, the in-jokes and those moments where you connect over time, and now we've got that time.

I feel like I've got the best seat in the house. When I wasn't singing, I'd sit down amongst the band with all the music swirling around me, looking at Rachel [Tucker], Cedric [Neal], Rachel [John] or Shem [Omari James] and watching them perform.

Seeing the whole auditorium in front of me looking beautiful and full of masked, albeit happy faces. I just thought, "I'm so fortunate to be sat here and experience this," at a time where there's such a lack of theatre. In amongst all the angst and hope that I'm doing a good job, I kept saying to myself, "Dave, shut up for a minute and just enjoy it."

The show is absolutely packed full of musical numbers. Have you got a favourite song in the show?

My favourite song isn't one I sing. In fact, all my favourite ones I don't sing.

I love "Stars and the Moon" which Rachel sings. It's so clever, funny and such a brilliant gag, and then it hits you so hard emotionally at the end with a lovely twist.

"Flying Home" is one of Cedric's songs, which is absolutely glorious and beautiful. He can sing anything; he's got the greatest voice I've heard in my life and I hate him for it.

Out of the ones I sing, I think my favourite is probably the duet I sing with Rachel John called "I Give It All For You". I really connect and understand it, and think it's a beautiful ballad that's very relatable, honest and sincere.

I feel I've got a great front-row seat to watch all these incredible performances every time I'm not singing. It's amazing.

Do you have any pre-show rituals before you go on stage?

Nothing major really, I just try and stay relaxed and enjoy it.

My big thing at the Palladium was, we're here for one day, we're so lucky to be here and there are a million actors out there that would give their right arm to be sat where I'm sitting right now, so I just want to enjoy it.

A lot of what I do before a show is just about calming myself down to get any of those nerves or anxieties out the way. Pre-show stuff for me is about chilling out, relaxing and watching some TV.

The show is going into the Vaudeville Theatre, which is on the Strand in the West End. You're no stranger to that area, having appeared in Waitress and Kinky Boots down the road at the Adelphi. Sadly COVID-19 cut the Waitress run short. Was it hard not getting to say a proper goodbye to it?

It was hard because we missed out on those big emotional last moments. Like when you're watching from the side and thinking, "These lines that I've said however many hundreds of times, I never will say again". You took those things for granted as well as the connections with cast and crew.

Saying goodbye to the whole routine that you do eight times a week is a really odd feeling and a very emotional one. So, it's nice to have a few speeches to send some love to each other and enjoy the after-party, which is something we didn't get to do with Waitress.

Since lockdown, the whole cast has been saying as soon as we're out of this, we can come together and have a drink, and obviously, that still hasn't happened. In our mind at the time, we would get together on 4 July - which was going to be the closing night - and have a drink.

That was just bonkers looking back on it now as we weren't anywhere near getting out of this in July, but I think certainly we all want to come together and celebrate at some point. It was a strange thing to say goodbye, but it was such a happy place and experience, and nothing can take that away.

You've been busy during lockdown - you performed in the Leave a Light On series, you did a streamed gig with Lucie Jones, wrote a musical with Caroline Kay, on top of starring in Songs For a New World and spending time with your family. Do you think the pandemic allowed you to explore projects creatively that you might not have had time to do otherwise?

Yeah, 100%. There are loads of things I'm doing even now that I wouldn't have had time or inclination to do. Especially if you're in a show eight times a week, there's very little else I can do other than raise my children, which is obviously quite an important part of my day! So squeezing in anything or giving energy and thought to anything else becomes incredibly difficult.

I've been able to reach out to people, explore things and take a step back and think, what can I do? And I enjoy that challenge. Obviously, I wouldn't have wished this to happen, but as it is, it's allowed me to be as creative as possible and try new things, which has been nice. I've been able to flex some muscles that I haven't been able to flex before and I've enjoyed it.

Now I'm just excited for things to get moving again, so we can all jump back in and take these new things forward.

You've also been doing Cameo videos for fans during lockdown. What's been your most memorable requests?

I've had lovely ones, and I've loved doing them as well. Writing a little song for people, if that's what they want, early on in lockdown really kept me going creatively and gave me some headspace and a break from worrying about things.

My favourite one so far was the girl who wanted me to write her a jingle, so she could send it to her friend and come out as bisexual. It had my favourite ever rhyme which was, "I know she could just text you all, but she wants you to know she's bisexual".

I love it when people give me weird and wonderful requests because it really gets you thinking. In fact, one of the songs from an old Cameo has turned into a song that I've written fully for other things which is really fun.

Whenever that song sees the light of day, I think it will be really interesting for the person who requested it because it wouldn't exist without them. It had been buzzing around my head ever since I recorded it; it was a Cameo request from a girl called Becky, so she's out there somewhere and she'll hear it at some point I'm sure.

Being a songwriter yourself - if you could write a song for this new world, what would it be called?

It would have to be about hope because it's a pretty dire state of affairs at times and I think it's quite easy to get engulfed in all that. But the fact of the matter is, returning to all the things that we've missed so much is going to be such a celebration, and that day is coming.

I think I'd call it, "Just Around The Corner". It would be playful, fun and about giving a slice of hope and saying our time is coming.

It's not the same feeling, but it's like ending a show. You feel like you're going to be doing those eight shows forever and you take all those things for granted because it's just what life is. And then one day, you suddenly realise there's just a week left, then a day, and then the last night happens and it's over.

Our return to some sort of normality, some sort of theatre, some sort of life that's been completely overshadowed by the pandemic will come, and it will creep up on us, and we'll go, "Wow, it's here! The day is here!"

Any plans to write more with Caroline Kay after your success with The Space Between?

We've nothing in the diary, and we've still only just met very briefly. We met at stage door after Songs For a New World from a safe distance and masked up; so we still haven't even had a cup of tea together and properly met. But the time will come, I'm sure. We're both working on other things at the minute, but there's been whispering back and forth about what we could do.

Sometimes we think, is there another chapter in The Space Between perhaps? When we wrote it, we thought it was done, but then we thought, what if they got thrust back together at some point?

Not to get back together per se, but what if there's a moment where their paths cross, however long afterwards, and we see them, maybe even in the real world having done the virtual one, for a real-world continuation of it. I don't know for sure though, the ideas flick past our eyes.

I'm sure we will come together at some point, even just to perform The Space Between live, which we'd really like to do. It's just finding the right format, because obviously it's just three songs. We can't just do a The Space Between gig because it wouldn't be very long.

But whether Caroline and I do sets of our own stuff and then we do The Space Between sandwiched in the middle, I don't know. But it'd be fun to give it an airing and let everyone celebrate it if they grew to like it in that time.

How do you juggle both your love of songwriting and performing in theatre?

Just as best I can, I think. Life is a big old juggle when you've got a couple of kids - one is two, the other is four - and I want to perform and I want to sing, but I also want to write, and get better at writing and do more, and write bigger things.

I've got a lot of wants and things I want to do, so I just try my best, but I think, funnily enough, I do a lot of my best writing in stolen moments. We'll be heading up to bed and I'll say, "I'm just going to nip down to the basement and play this little idea". I could be there for hours and I've got to pull myself away because I've got to get up at 5.30 am, whether I like it or not.

You just have to try and grab the inspiration as it's floating past your ears and try to note it down. It's a balance, but I love all those things so it's worth the juggle.

And you're not the only songwriter in the family - your four-year-old son Rufus wrote a song called "The Bear's House", which you've performed at your gigs. Is he still writing and singing?

Ru is an amazing songwriter! He just writes songs all day long, I think it's because he sees us doing it. Everything in this house is a song, you can't do anything without someone making it into a silly song - there are songs for bath time, bedtime, sticking the TV on, getting dressed... just constant songs.

You'll just catch him out the corner of your eye and he'll be saying something that he doesn't realise is quite profound. He was singing something the other week that seemed quite dark and brooding; he was singing, "You don't understand me, you don't understand me!". I thought, wow he's going dark on this one!

I keep promising I'll record more of Ru's singing but it's really hard to catch him without getting spotted, and then he goes all shy!

What would your top tips be for aspiring songwriters?

My tip is also to myself as well; just get out of your own way. Don't worry if it's a line you've used before, or a chord sequence you've used before or you think it sounds too this or that; just write it.

It doesn't have to be the best one of your life. If you're feeling it, just write it and then write another one and another one. That's the joy of songwriting, you've always got another one to lay down.

That's been the nice thing for me with the Cameos, it gets me out of my own way. It's just sit down and write these songs for Becky about her son or for this girl who wants to come out as bisexual to her friend, it just gets you out your own way.

You can forgive yourself rhyming things for fun too: I used the line "Becky, Becky what the hecky?" at one point which I thought was a great line.

My whole life has been perfectly balanced with massive confidence and massive self-doubt, just constantly ticking back and forth with songwriting. It's, "Wow, this is great" and, "Oh God, this is awful" and just trying to get out your way to make it work, which is what I'm trying to do at the minute, to be honest.

Why should people book for Songs For a New World?

It's just wonderful.

I was amazed to find what it was when we did it the first time around. I'd just started learning all my own lyrics and harmonies, and when I came together with my four brilliant castmates and saw their incredible work and what these songs were and how they spoke to people. And then we put them in front of an audience, and I saw how they reacted to those songs and to the story.

It's so current, modern and relevant to all parts of life in a pandemic. It's bizarre really, everything that's been going on for all of us is so relatable and I've no idea why.

I almost question whether Jason Robert Brown [the composer] is some sort of fortune teller and he didn't warn us that it was coming just for the sake of having a hit musical.

It's just a wonderful and glorious collection of songs that really speak to where we are right now, and where we hope to get to, as the "new world" is "just around the corner".

Oh! I've just realised...I think I've nicked that song title idea of "Just Around The Corner"! I'm literally quoting famous lines from musicals and saying I've just been inspired, look how clever I am! What an idiot.

Songs For a New World runs at the Vaudeville Theatre for a strictly limited run from 9 February

Photo credits: Danny Kaan

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