Interview: Stephen Wight Of McQUEEN!

Hi Stephen, welcome to BWW:UK. How's life at the Haymarket?

Fantastic. It's an amazing theatre, steeped in history, and it's an honour and a privilege to portray Lee in that space. I love St James Theatre, but to be somewhere as prestigious as the Theatre Royal Haymarket has been brilliant. We're playing to great houses.

I've seen lots of nice quotes from Lee McQueen's family about your portrayal of their relative - how does that make you feel?

Relieved! It was the only pressure, and what I really cared about - to get that approval or validation, portraying someone they lost so terribly so recently. To meet them was phenomenal, to have them believe in my portrayal is something I can't quite quantify. It's a profound moment in my career. It's the first time I've taken on playing someone who was a real person. Their validation has meant everything to me.

How did you go about approaching the role? You're playing a real person, but you're also portraying a text, and bound by the nature of theatricality.

You've touched on it, that's exactly the process - reading as much as I could about Lee, watching footage of him online. The parameters of the play is the Lee we portray - everything outside the play is something different. I said from the first audition that I wasn't interested in doing an impersonation, I wanted to find the essence of Lee. His vocal quality wouldn't have lent itself to the theatre and that environment. So it was a conscious decision to find my own "Lee" voice, and the mannerisms and the physicality of the man was something I worked incredibly hard on.

Most of the cast transferred, but Carly Bawden has replaced Dianna Agron. How is Carly settling in?

Fantastic. Dianna couldn't come with us due to work commitments, so we explored the play again with fresh eyes when Carly joined. For someone else to come in with their own views, that's helped me to explore other elements of the character, and Carly has been fantastic and a joy to work with. She's really questioned everything, and we're having great fun. Every night is different, and it's a great kind of tennis match that we play - we feed off each other and find new things all the time. I'm very lucky to have her.

So this runs until November...

Yes, November 7th - we're going great guns at the moment with audience numbers. People have seemed to really engage with it, and that's the most important thing.

Stephen Wight plays Lee in McQueen, running at the Theatre Royal Haymarket.

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