Michael Ball: The theatre is not a business for snowflakes
The musical theatre star and broadcaster talks about his prodigious work ethic and his 10-year partnership with Alfie Boe
You only have to look at musical theatre star Michael Ball’s calendar to vaguely understand his monumental work ethic.
This year alone, he’s done a solo tour, taken over Radio 2’s Sunday Love Songs from the late Steve Wright, is currently appearing with his pal Alfie Boe in a Les Misérables arena tour, has brought out his latest novel and released Together At Home, a new album with Boe. Their UK tour, celebrating their 10-year partnership, kicks off in March, before they take it to Australia later in the year.
The momentum of his career never seems to let up and he admits he’s hugely pro-active.
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“I learned that lesson really early on that if you sit and wait for a phone to ring, it won’t. If you go out and make things happen, the phone will ring more. I get ideas and I’m really lucky now that I’m in a place where people will listen to them.”
At 62, Ball, who is currently suffering from the ‘Langford Lurgy’, a flu-like bug which he believes he caught from Les Mis co-star Bonnie Langford, is still a bundle of energy. There’s much giggling in conversation, enthusiasm at the notion of new opportunities and TV projects, while any hint that he might retire is met with derision.
“You don’t retire, the phone just stops ringing,” he says frankly. “Very few people in our business properly retire, but you become more choosy and you think more about the impact that jobs are going to have on your real life.
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“I couldn’t be away from home for six months touring now. There was a time – but I wouldn’t want to.”
He says his six-week tour of Australia with Boe next year will be his limit because he’d get homesick.
“I know it looks like I’m constantly working but I’m not, other than doing the radio show which is a couple of hours on a Sunday. I have big long periods when I’m at home. Seriously, I’m inherently lazy and there’s nothing I like more than sitting down and reading or watching telly, just lying on the sofa with my dogs and occasionally getting up to cook a meal.”
His partner of 34 years, former journalist Cathy McGowan, whom he met when she interviewed him when he was starring in Aspects Of Love, keeps him grounded but makes sure he doesn’t become too sedentary at their home in Barnes, South-West London.
Ball has a stepdaughter, Emma (McGowan’s daughter from her previous marriage) and step-granddaughter Grace Crompton, who was in the Team GB rugby sevens squad in the Paris Olympics. Needless to say, he was there to cheer her on.
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He’s currently promoting his second novel, A Backstage Betrayal, a follow-on from his debut, The Empire, the eponymous theatre in Yorkshire which forms the backdrop to secrets and dramas behind the curtains in the 1920s.
Behind the smell of the greasepaint are some murky goings-on in this cosy crime caper involving gangsters, romance, feuds and clashes of egos – and he has seen many of those in his time in showbiz.
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“I’m never going to name names, but there are people who aren’t quite aware of what their position is in the hierarchy. When you have two stars it can either be the best thing – like Imelda (Staunton) and I doing Sweeney Todd, the greatest creative, friendly and loving relationship I could have ever wished for. We made each other work really hard. We laughed all the time. There was never any ego on or off stage.”
On occasions when he has encountered anyone with an over-inflated ego he has “just been better than them”.
“I know every trick that anyone can pull and I can absolutely deal with it. It’s harder when you have a director who’s a bit of a d***.”
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Some of the younger actors he has encountered have a different attitude to his generation of performers, he agrees.
“Some are hardworking and diligent and some really aren’t. There is less of a ‘The show must go on’ attitude, without a question. People are far less resilient. There is a definite difference in attitude and graft. All that you can do as a leading man is lead by example.
“There are those who absolutely get it and they’ll do really well. The advice I always give to young performers is that it’s not about this job, it’s about the next one.
“It’s about being the person that has a good reputation, that people want to work with again, that delivers, not just on opening night, not just in the audition, but every night, who goes the extra mile to make something work. That’s how you sustain a career.”
“This is not a business for snowflakery,” he continues. “This is hard and fabulous. The rewards when it goes well are incredible – and I’m not talking financial rewards. I’m talking about your soul.”
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He talks about the ups and downs of showbiz careers and, indeed, Ball has had his share of those, most notably when he went through periods of crippling stage fright in his early career, during his first run in Les Misérables in the West End, which ended in a breakdown and him leaving the show, hiding himself away in his flat for nine months.
He still gets stage fright, he admits. “It’s less and I know how to deal with it. I give myself a good talking to. It’s a dialogue you have within yourself and breathing is vital, and taking the brain away from the idea of the adrenaline coursing through you, and going ‘This is a good thing’.”
Boe, his long-term friend and fellow performer, makes things easier, he agrees.
“You’re with someone who’s got your back, who’s going through the same things you are, who is committed to working hard and doing a good job, just as you are. There’s a shorthand, and it’s nearly 10 years now that we’ve been a thing.”
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The partnership has got better, he reflects, the voices working together, the songs they choose and even the differences in their personalities.
“I’m so much more showbiz than he is. Alfie can be very funny but in a much dryer sense than me. I’m Mr Positive, even when I’m feeling rubbish, and that’s not him. We’ve kind of developed that into a double act.”
He says when they are on stage together “it’s sort of magical. It’s nothing but a blessing.”
There’s not a whisper of a snowflake about Ball, who oozes enthusiasm when revealing that the rights to The Empire have been bought for a six-part TV series and an ‘amazing writer’ is on board.
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Ball will be an executive producer and says he might do a cameo in the series, but won’t play a major role. In the meantime, he hopes to write a third novel around The Empire.
“It’s if there’s an appetite for it, like anything I do. The only reason for doing it is to have an audience. Nobody wants to perform a show in a room on their own.”
A Backstage Betrayal by Michael Ball – Available now from Amazon
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