Interview: KT Tunstall on Touring, Making Unpopular Music and Bringing SAVING GRACE to the Stage

Ahead of Saving Grace's opening run of twelve shows at the Riverside Studios, BroadwayWorld caught up with BRIT-Award winner and Grammy Award nominee KT Tunstall to chat about her first experience of writing for the stage.

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What is the story of Saving Grace?
It's an adaptation of the film from 2000 which is a beautiful film with Brenda Blethyn and co-written by and starring Craig Ferguson who is in this show. He's playing a completely different character who doesn't really exist in the film.

What I'm realising is there's kind of intrinsic issues putting a film onstage. Often it's focused on one main character and you can't really have one main character in a musical, you've got to have these weaving stories. There's also kind of tricks and details in film like maybe a close-up of an eye or a letter or hearing something that you can't really convey onstage. You don't have that close-up ability.

I think as well something with this piece that we've been interested in is offering an adaptation where we're making something new. Craig was really up for that, making something new inspired by the story of the film. One of the things that's really special about the performance we're doing here is Dianne Pilkington [who plays Grace]. I could just talk the whole time about Di. But it turns out that Saving Grace is one of her favourite films which is just beautiful.

It's the story of a trophy wife stuck in a very sort of twee life which she loves and the only thing she's good at is gardening but her husband dies and it turns out he's screwed her for money. In our story, we've upped the stakes where he's screwed everyone in the town for money. So she has to try and save the day and realises she's very good at growing things other than flowers!

Di has just been an utter joy and has completely blown us away. Firstly, I didn't realise she was Northern because I didn't get the chance to speak to her for the first three days so her acting is on point and her accent is perfect! But she's such an extraordinary singer as well and this show is such a big ask.

How did you come to be involved in it?
I think it's quite cosmic. As you know, because I've told you before, I was not a fan of musicals.

I wasn't sure if you'd admit to that.
No no I'm totally fine to talk about it! I loved movie musicals but I wasn't a fan of stage musicals. I loved Bugsy Malone, I loved Oliver!. I was Nancy in Oliver! when I was like 11. They tried to get me to take my dress off my shoulder to be a bit slutty and I was crying because I was such a tomboy and it was so disgusting.

I think because I was an 80s kid I saw some really over-the-top stage musicals in the 80s and 90s and I just couldn't connect with them, they didn't feel real or believable. I want to be suspended in the belief that this is real. And then I saw The Book of Mormon. I was so shocked and I didn't think I could be shocked at this point in my life. It was so irreverent and funny and such risky material. I was amazed people weren't walking out and I was thinking, if people are up for this- I think I can do this.

The progression of where popular music has gone- and I'm quite happy to make unpopular music- having a massive first record I've not stayed at like Taylor Swift popularity which I have no problem with! In terms of making a living, it isn't viable to make money through records anymore and touring is just so expensive. I've also done it for a long time and I don't want to be away from home all the time. It was just sort of striking me that musicals were kind of more suited to my skillset which is storytelling, quite old-fashioned songwriting and emotion.

Basically, it felt like what I could do would suit this world and pretty much as soon as I put it out into the ether I got a phone call from Barney Wragg the producer who asked if I'd thought about writing a musical. I partly said yes because it's quite an obscure title. It's not a massive well-known film which kind of takes the pressure off a bit for both me and the whole project.

It's been in the works for six years and then Covid was sort of what galvanised the whole thing because everyone was at home and more available.

Was it difficult doing it over Zoom?
No, because you're not writing music over Zoom. The music was done by me, on my own, in the bottom of my house. The meetings were to discuss plot and then I would be given homework at the end. The difference with this is that when I write a pop song I can write something catchy and repeat it for three minutes whereas with a musical a song has to achieve something, it has got to have a reason for being there.

Your last few albums have actually had a narrative as well.
Yes, that's true. There's been a very conceptual thematic aspect to those three records and I've really enjoyed that. To the point where I feel a bit bereft about finishing the trilogy. I don't want to write a record that's just random songs now because having to ring-fence it means you dig really deep.

Is it weird writing these songs and then letting them go off on their own and be sung by other people?
Oh God no. Quite the opposite. I'm never writing this for myself to sing these songs and hearing other people sing them is so exciting and so cool. I've never craved that aspect of adulation and I love playing live but I actually think I'm a bit introverted.

For this project it's a relief to not be the face of it. I'm happy to be the name on the poster. But it's really great to be an artist and a creator and im loving that part of it.

And you also have a slightly theatrical background as you were part of the Scottish Youth Theatre!
Yes! That was actually my first ever gig. It was a six-week course in Glasgow when I was fifteen because I did actually want to be an actress for years. At the end of the course, everyone was asked to do a sketch and I went, I'm going to sing a song. And that was pretty telling being on a theatre course and going actually I think I want to sing. It went quite well.

Do you think you ever would act?
Yes. I actually auditioned for Girl From the North Country and I was a little bit young for the role and the director thought it was too much of a risk. With hindsight, I'm glad I didn't get it. I'm not ready to do that.

So say for this run of Saving Grace, there's an emergency, there's no understudy. Can you go on?
No! I might know the words but I wouldn't know where to go or what to do. As of this point right now being in a show seems like a nightmare. Part of gigging for me is the stimulation of moving around so much so I think the eight shows a week in one place would probably drive me absolutely mental.

Why was it decided to present Saving Grace in this sort of workshop format at Riverside Studios?
It's like the advent of seeing behind the curtain. People love reality shows where they kind of get a bit of a peek how things have been made. It's worked really well in the pop world with horrible programmes which I've never been shy to share my opinions on.

I think it's quite an exciting thing to do to let an audience see a show in its early format. It's going to be a different show every night because things are changing and being rewritten. It's amazing for us as well to get this feedback from an audience. We did a dress rehearsal for friends and family but this is our first night with a proper audience so it'll be fascinating to see if the same stuff lands.

What's the plan for the show going forward?
Well, this is really the workshop that will tell us if we have a West End show. Laurence Connor is just a genius and I'm thrilled to get the opportunity to work with him.

The first meeting we had with him we already sort of had a show when he came on board and he murdered one of the main characters within the first five minutes of the show. That character had a song and everything but it did not do anything but improve the show. If you can take away a lead role and it doesn't affect your piece then you were barking up the wrong tree. He's constantly doing stuff like that. Where's the fat? Cut, cut, cut.

He's an unbelievable problem solver and I get really clear direction from him. I feel like I've taken like a duck to water with it. I was a huge Roald Dahl and Dr Seuss fan as a kid and I just loved this perfect rhythmic rhyming.

There's a song in the show that I think is the thing I'm most proud of having written ever. It's a scene where they get this lawyers letter and it had to be a musical number in official letter language. I'm sure you've heard me talk about The Elements before by Tom Lehrer and this is basically my version of it. Managing to craft something that shouldn't be musical into a musical number.

You go into a meeting and they're like "right, we need to lose this bit!" and it's like Jenga. If you take that out other bits don't make sense and you become more flexible and elastic. And they're right, it needs to serve the story.

Are you more open to being asked to make changes than you would be with your own records?
Way more! WAY more! It's true collaboration and I think it's nice egotistically from my point of view where it's fine now. Maybe five or ten years ago I might have struggled a bit more. I think because I've never done it before and I'm sort of flying by the seat of my pants. These guys have had huge successes and I'm bringing something that is working. I taught myself guitar and singing and it worked. I had a lot of piano lessons and I'm still a shit pianist! I think the gut and intuition is my favourite part of the job.

Do you think there's more of that in theatre writing than albums?
I think it's a different area of it. With my albums it's got to be more instinctive and emotional and with this there's a lot of practical necessary pieces. It's more of a puzzle to solve whereas my own stuff is very free. With this, you have to achieve a certain job and get across important information. I'm learning so much and you know I love a metaphor but you can't really do that in musicals because it's going to take a second for the audience to work out what that is and by that time they've missed the line.

It's about trying to get the strongest emotional message in the least amount of time with the best tune possible whilst still being clever and interesting and sophisticated. You've still got to keep your character as an intelligent feeling human being and I think we've done a really good job with that. The people seem like real people.

You're obviously super passionate about your own records but you're so clearly excited about this project which is really lovely to hear.
I'm SO excited about it! Someone asked me earlier in an interview because I've done all these albums and am now doing a musical, am I bored? And actually, I think I have been. The trilogy was such an amazing end of an era. Here we are nearly 20 years since the first record so in some ways it feels like a really cool way to do something new at this point in my life. That's not to say I won't make any more records or gig anymore but I was definitely getting itchy feet.

Part of why I wanted to do what I do is that I didn't want to work for someone else and I also didn't want a life of repetition. And I've realised that you can have a life of utter repetition as a musician if you choose that. Touring is relentlessly repetitive. Especially when you're doing something artistic and creative and it requires your soul and passion. I just think you want to be careful doing it in a way that kills it. I felt like I was doing too much of the same thing. I also want to learn. The older I get the more interested I am in learning new stuff.

And the next thing for you is a UK tour in Feb/March?
Yes! At some point on the tour I'll be singing a song from this show. Not on the spring tour though- which isn't to say you shouldn't come!! We've got to release it as the musical first but I'm sure I will do my own version of the eleven o'clock number because it's a banger.

The tours going to be amazing. I'm very pleased to share I'm trying to amass a supergroup for my band. It's Andy Burrows from Razorlight on drums, Seye Adelekan from Gorillaz on bass and I'm trying to get Nick McCarthy from Franz Ferdinand on keys and guitar. So a Razorlight, Gorillaz and Franz Ferdinand supergroup onstage singing KT Tunstall songs!

Saving Grace runs at Riverside Studios until 4 December

KT Tunstall is on tour across the UK in February/March 2023