Interview: "Being Myself on Stage is Something I Am Petrified About" Carrie Hope Fletcher on Imposter Syndrome and Touring Her New Show AN OPEN BOOK

Actor and Musical Theatre star Carrie Hope Fletcher is preparing for her debut solo concert tour An Open Book, hitting
the road in May and June this year.

BroadwayWorld UK had the chance to speak with Carrie Hope Fletcher about the process of creating the show. We talked about imposter syndrome, what it's been like to perform solo instead of with large casts, and even a bit of audience participation!

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What inspired you to tour An Open Book?

It was Jamie Lambert, one of the producers, asking me at the right time! Being myself on stage is something that I am petrified about doing. I'm so used to being with a full cast, having the support of a full cast around you. If I'm on my own on stage and something goes wrong, I've only got myself to blame, and that is absolutely petrifying to me. I've only ever done one set of solo concerts before and that was in 2018. And it was as petrifying but as fun as I expected it to be! But after I did that, I was like, "Right, I've done it now - I won't do it again. That's it, I've done it. Tick completed!"

And then Jamie Lambert just happened to message me on the right day and was like, "Hey! Tour . . . solo . . . how do you feel?" And I just felt like I was up for the challenge again. That was almost a year and a bit ago now. So it's been long enough for me to think about how I really wanted to do it, to build a team to make it happen with me. And now I'm a few weeks away from it happening, and suddenly the terror is setting in! But I am very excited. I'm very excited because I feel we, the team, we've managed to find a way to make it a solo tour. So it is very much a solo tour and what people will expect from a solo tour from any musical theatre artist, but also a nice happy medium between that and making it more like a show, making it more like how I'm comfortable being on stage so that I don't freak out every night! [Laughs]

What was the creative process like for creating An Open Book?

The first thing is always the songs. You've always got to think about the songs that you can't ignore, the songs that are so iconic that you have to sing them, regardless of who might be singing them. They just have to go in any musical theatre tour because that's just the unspoken rule of musical theatre tours. But then you also have to make it a bit more personal and sing songs that really resonate with you. Maybe songs from your career that you feel are really important, pivotal points in your career, even though they may not be very familiar songs to a general audience. But it's also the chance for me to be a little bit self-indulgent, because, after all, this is my tour!

[Laughs]

I'd love to sing some songs that I know I will never get the chance to sing because I'm just not the right casting for the role that happens to sing them. And it is so hard because there's so many wonderful songs in musical theatre. How do you pick? What's the maximum you're gonna sing? Maybe 18, 20 of them each night? So I think we've managed to find a way to make it a little bit different every night and for the audience to have a little bit of interaction, a little bit of say, in what I'm singing every night. So every audience is going to get something slightly different, which I'm very, very excited about.

But again, the creative process is so funny, because there's things in your head where you're like, "No, we could never make that happen," and someone goes "Actually, that's really easy!" And then there're other things that you think are gonna be really easy, and they're like, "Are you insane? There's no way we could possibly make that happen!" So it's been fun finding out those boundaries, or where there aren't boundaries. But I'm really happy with this idea that we've come up with to make it a little bit more like a show as opposed to what I call a "park and bark". Like I love a "park and bark" - I love someone who just parks themselves on stage and sings at an audience, but I'm just not very good at that. That's where I crumble, unfortunately. So the more I can make it a little bit more like a show, the better.

You've mentioned that the show is going to be a bit of you talking about your life with the songs. How are you bringing in the storytelling aspect?

That was one of the challenges that we faced because again, I didn't want it to be a park and bark. I'm not very good at just grabbing the microphone and being like, "Now, ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to tell you a story about how . . ." I'm not good at that! I'm not good at just talking for the sake of talking, which is ridiculous considering half my job is being a vlogger and it's literally me talking for the sake of talking. But when there's suddenly a live audience of 1,000 people and there's lots of eyes on you that you can physically see in front of you, it's a different story. So I wanted to come up with a fun way that it was almost scripted and I had reasons to tell the stories. You'll have to come and see the show to find out how! It was a challenge to figure out how to make that happen without it being forced and weird, but I think we've come up with it. I hope! We'll find out in a couple weeks. [Laughs]

Are there any particular venues that you're excited to visit?

I'm excited to go back to all the venues that I've been to before, but equally, I'm excited to go back to cities that I've been to before but not been to the same venue. I think Bradford's one of them where I performed at the Alhambra, but now I'm somewhere else. So I'm excited to be in the same city but explore a different venue. I'm obviously very excited about the Palladium because it's London, it's my hometown, and I performed there as a child as well! It feels like going back to somewhere that I performed as a kid, which is just very, very exciting. And, of course, there's lots of new venues as well. I've done four tours around the country, and there are some venues on this tour that I've never been to, so it's gonna be exciting! There's so many venues sometimes on tours . . . This is my home country and I'm like, "I have never been to that place!" I live here, I'm 30 years old, and there's places on this tour that I have literally never visited. So it's nice to have an excuse to go to those places that I've never been to before.

What do you hope audiences take away from An Open Book?

I want people to come and feel relaxed because that's how I want to feel. [Laughs] I want to feel relaxed and comfortable on stage. I don't get a kick out of park and bark, of putting on an evening gown and singing at people for a few hours. I want people to feel like this is all of us coming together to celebrate musical theatre. I just happened to be the one in the room who does it for a living and has the most experience, so get to share these stories. I was a theatre kid! I was a kid who used to hang upside down off of the banisters pretending to be Enjolras on the barricade!

[Laughs]

That's who I was! And I know that there's going to be lots of young teenagers coming to see the show, who maybe think that musical theatre is massively untouchable like it's something that they just can't do for whatever reason, whatever barriers they think might be in the way. Or they think that musical theatre stars are these uber-professional people, that you have to have some sort of written invitation to do what we do. And I want musical theatre people to go away just being like, "Oh, we are now who she once was! I'm that theatre kid who sings in front of the bathroom mirror into a bottle of hair gel!" Singing musical theatre songs - That was me! That was what I did!

I feel like one of the lucky ones who managed to sort of breakthrough and no one's figured it out yet - that I'm just a massive theatre fan, who's like sitting amongst West End people . . . I feel like a massive fraud - impostor syndrome is strong with this one! So yeah, I want people to feel like I'm just an undercover theatre kid who then gets to share all this stuff with an audience.

How would you describe An Open Book in one word?

Warm, I hope! I want it to be warm and inviting and charming and endearing and not intimidating in any way. I don't want people to come in and feel like, "Oh my God, it's a big 40-piece band, and she's wearing a dress that I could never afford!" I am very much going to be wearing what I feel comfortable in onstage, which will probably be a pair of stripy tights that's got holes in it and a dress that I've had for seven years. I very much want it to be just me and you having a fun time, with musical theatre songs and stories interspersed.

Carrie Hope Fletcher - An Open Book tours across the UK in May and June 2023 with shows in Bradford, Oxford, Southampton, Norwich, London, Llandudno, Salford, Birmingham, Sheffield, Liverpool, Nottingham, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Leicester, Milton Keynes, Southend, Bath, and Glasglow.

Photo Credits: Michael Wharley

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