One of the hottest musicals on tour right now is 42nd Street. This new production premiered at Curve, Leicester before transferring to Sadler’s Wells, London.
It is now on tour around the UK, with a slightly different lead cast. I had the pleasure of interviewing not one, not two, but three of the new cast members: Oliver Farnworth (Coronation Street), his partner Samantha Womack (EastEnders), and Faye Tozer (Steps).
I interviewed Faye Tozer at The Stage Debut Awards 2023, where she presented the award for Best Performer in a Musical, which was won by Jessica Lee, who played Kim in Sheffield Theatre’s reimagining of Miss Saigon.
Tozer made her professional stage debut in a national tour of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Tell Me on a Sunday, sharing the role with Patsy Palmer.
“When they revisited Tell Me on a Sunday, Denise Van Outen did it in town, and I did it as part of the UK tour. So, yeah, that was my first-ever professional musical debut!”
I asked Tozer how she would compare her music career with her musical theatre career.
“It’s like a bit of a double life really. Totally different. Steps is our business; its our baby. We celebrate all our music; we create new music. It’s nothing like doing theatre, really. I really love, and I’m a little bit addicted to, the grind of the 8-show week. I love it; I get a real buzz and adrenaline off it. I love touring, and I love the live applause – they’ll tell you if you’re great or if you’re not… straight away! But I think the buzz that I get from working with other people is just incredible; I just love it. I can’t stop it – every time I finish Steps tours, I’m like, ‘When can I go back into the theatre?!’”
Whilst Tozer lives a “double life”, I noted that Steps are very theatrical. I asked Tozer if she brings her theatre side to the band.
“Well, I guess we really like the heightened sense of the costumes and the drama and the campness, but obviously the music is different and the sound is different and it’s not acting, although we love to put on a show, for sure!”
I told Tozer they should do a Steps jukebox musical.
“Well, hold that thought,” she said.
I then had the pleasure of chatting to Oliver Farnworth over Zoom. I received an email telling me that Samantha Janus (aka Samantha Womack) was in my waiting room. I worried that the PR had booked me in with Womack even though they had told me I was getting Farnworth – but it turns out that Farnworth was Zooming me from their shared dressing room, and Womack has a better phone than him!
Farnworth is originally from Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire before moving to Devon aged 14, but he considered Hebden Bridge is “spirtual home” and loves going back.
Farnworth is best-known for his television work, especially Hollyoaks, Mr. Selfridgde, and Coronation Street.
I asked Farnworth about the differences between the stage and screen. Farnworth said that actors have to put on different heads depending what you’re doing, even within one specific genre. For instance, Mr. Selfridge was single camera so one scene will takes a long time to film, and you have to keep your energy up for hours – but you do get to have multiple takes, which is not the case with live theatre.
However, the theatre allows you to vibe off the crowd, and you can make changes along the run and “adapt it as you go… It does sort of change as you go”.
I told Farnworth that I have seen him onstage in two plays – The Girl on the Train and Fatal Attraction – but I had no idea that he could sing.
“I had no idea I could sing either,” Oliver admitted. “Fortunately, I’m not tap-dancing in this one; I’ll leave that to the professionals.”
Farnworth sang a bit when he was younger, including some involvement with Opera North in Yorkshire when he was a child and later some singing at drama school, but then he went straight into TV.
He said he has enjoyed getting back into singing, even the warm-up before each show.
“It’s been really, really nice to re-engage with that, and going forwards, I’ll definitely keep my eye out for more musicals.”
He said that, when you are younger, you often box yourself into categories, but as you get older, you are more willing to embrace other types of art.
However, when asked about his dream role, he told me that he loves Tennessee Williams and would love to play Brick in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, before admitting, “I’m too old to play that now.
“When you’re young, everybody says Hamlet, but I think angry, young, middle-age-ish man – I really enjoy playing parts like that.”
Farnworth had never seen 42nd Street when he was cast but soon found out that the musical includes some really iconic theatre standards. He and Womack got to see the show at Sadler’s Wells, which made him realise he had to up his game in terms of energy and performance level. Rehearsals have been great, and the energy of his co-stars has been “infectious”.
I had to ask Farnworth what it’s like working with his partner. He previously starred alongside Womack in The Girl on the Train but they were not partners back then.
“It’s amazing,” he said, before telling me, “I’m in our dressing room at the moment. I’ve got my side of the desk, and there’s a firm line, a line of tape! But no, it’s really good; we obviously get on like a house on fire. We’re touring in our van so it can be close quarters at time but it’s an an absolute joy. We get to share the experience and tour the country together.
“It’s also great because our work and time off coincide. When this finishes, we’ll go back home to Spain. If it’s two couples touring [in different shows] at the same time, the timing never quite matches up, so it’s been really great and I’ve learned a lot from her. The only thing we argue about is who finished the oat milk and who’s taken my nail clippers and who’s finished the shampoo – it’s never me!”
Farnworth and Womack did not get together until after The Girl on the Train finished its year-long run.
Farnworth and Womack are both best-known for their soap roles. I asked Farnworth if he would ever go back to a soap.
“It would depend… Corrie was amazing because I got three years there. I got some really big storylines; I got to die twice. I also had a reason to move back North and reconnect with where [I’m] from… I’m definitely dead in Corrie, sadly, but we’d have to see, if and when things come up.
“I guess Emmerdale would be the likely candidate because I’m from there but also now we’ve moved out to Spain, so we’re working a lot of our jobs and commitments in and around getting back there and really starting a life out there.”
Farnworth and Womack had travelled to the south of France and considered moving there before travelling farther south to Barcelona; they liked it but were not sure if they wanted to live in a city and somewhere so expensive. They travelled farther south to Valencia and fell in love. They looked at about 15 properties before finding a property up in the mountains but not far from the beach.
“It’s a real different pace of life there. When we get there, it takes a few days to get out of work and city mode but we really find ourselves relaxing. It’s quite a healthy way of life. We just fell in love with it.”
Suddenly, Womack appeared in the background.
“Sam’s just come out of the bath in the background; you might have seen her scurry past in a towel. Wrecking my interview.”
Womack then popped back in frame and waved.
“Here she is – photobombing my interview!”
“What a brilliant cameo that was; you couldn’t write it,” I joked.
The tour wraps in Belfast at the end of October; the couple plan to jet right back to Spain – where their dog is waiting for them!
I remarked that it will be nice to chillax after touring the country and playing eight shows a week. Farnworth said he looks forward to resting and getting rid of the moustache – though he’s quite attached to it.
“He’s not chillaxing!” Womack said. “He’s gotta re-render the house; I’m getting him straight to work!” Womack said.
Farnworth said that he is going on a plastering and rendering course: “There’s no relaxing,” he joked.
I asked Farnworth to describe 42nd Street to those are unfamiliar with the show and might just be going to see it because it has such an amazing cast.
“It’s an absolute joyous riot of colour and spectacle and these huge tap-dancing numbers, huge, beautiful orchestral numbers.”
I told Oliver that I had interviewed Tozer the other day; she told me that she is brilliant in the show. I told him that I am excited to finally see Tozer onstage, especially as a Steps fan – which prompted laughter from both Farnworth and Womack!
I told the pair that I have seen Farnworth onstage twice and Womack onstage thrice: The Girl on the Train and The Addams Family but I could not recall what the other show was, before Womack answered my question for me: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.
“That was brilliant; she was amazing,” Farnworth said.
“Samantha, you’re very good at playing bitches,” I laughed, to which she responded, “I’m amazing!”
“Because the thing is, when you’re so kind and warm-hearted, you need a counteract, right? I’m basically a hippy that goes around rescuing anything with a pulse.”
“Including me,” Oliver admitted.
“Including Ol, yeah!”
I proceeded to ask Womack what it is like playing somebody so iconic. and so awful – Dorothy Brock, one of Broadway’s best bitches!
“She’s been played as a kind of tyrant in the past with no heart, and then she’s been played as a comedy stooge. It depends which actress takes on the role; there’s a broad scope what you can do with that part,” Womack explained.
“Actually, I’ve chosen to make her a bit more fragile, so she barks a lot at the beginning but she’s scared, she’s terrified. This is one of her last opportunities to get back her status. she’s also not worked for a long time; she knows dancing is not her forte: she’s a great actress and a great singer but she can’t dance. So, she’s got this sugar daddy invested. But actually, I play her from the very beginning as someone who’s covering up her fear.
“The number ‘I Only Have Eyes for You’ is now very much a front-of-cloth inner-working of Dorothy’s mind, which is, she’s falling apart. She’s in love with someone that she’s never allowed herself to have ’cause she’s been on the stage and given her whole life to something that’s now letting her go.
“She’s at a sort of crossroads, and so at the end now, I give her a lot more fragility and warmth, and actually, it really pays off, ’cause then by the time you get that kind-of meeting of the two female leads, with Dorothy and Peggy, there’s a kind-of exchange, old versus new, and there’s a warmth and an understanding.
“It’s kind-of beautiful really ’cause this industry can be brutal so the whole premise of the piece, when Peggy’s talking to the producer about the beauty of the industry and the magic and the sparkle, and he’s kind-of a bit more cynical, he’s more about money and getting it done – you get to see both sides of the coin, kind-of what’s happened to people that have been in the industry a long time but also the excitement and desperation of the people that are just starting out. So, it’s very clever – it’s a bigger book than we thought, isn’t it?”
Farnworth concurred: “There’s a lot in the story; there’s a lot you can get out of it. They’re economical with the words -“
“But actually, if you’ve got good performers, you can squeeze a lot out of it. It’s like a good sponge isn’t it? You just keep finding more stuff with it,” Womack added.
“I didn’t really know it; I just knew the numbers from it. I’d never seen it. I was like, ‘Oh, it’s a tap show. There’s lots of dancing; I’ll probably get bored in the second half – and then we went to see it at the Sadler’s Wells, and I was like, ‘Oh, my God, this is amazing!’”
I admitted to finding classic musicals quite dated but the musical’s acknowledgement of the brutal aspect of showbsiness, especially with roles drying up for female actors once they hit 40, remains relevant.
“Yeah but also cost-of-living, coming out of the pandemic, trying to get a production made when no one’s worked; everyone’s desperate to work,” Womack added. “But there’s a need for escapism as well, and that’s prevalent with the audience – you can see them almost desperate to let go. From the minute the overture starts, there’s a rupture of applause because people just wanna escape more than ever.
“The kind of gritty thrillers and dark, you know, Chekhov or Brecht or whatever – people just don’t need that right now; they’ve got enough of that in their own lives. They’re [upbeat shows] are the shows that are doing well, and i think it’s definitely because of the pandemic. Sign are timed. People are pushed. -emotionally, financially – they’re pushed, so it feels really good to be in something joyous.” Womack said eloquently.
“[I] totally invaded your interview,” she told Farnworth.
I ended the interview by asking if I was okay to take a photo.
“Not of me, you’re not – I’ve got wet hair and no make-up!” Womack said, her inner-Dorothy popping right out!
42nd Street began its run at Opera House Manchester on October 16 and plays there until 21. It wraps up its UK tour at the Grand Opera House, Belfast, where it runs from October 24 to 28. It then runs at the Princess of Wales Theatre in Toronto, Canada from December 9 to January 21, with a slightly different lead cast, some of whom starred in the Leicester and London productions which preceded the UK tour.
Photos: Oliver Farnworth and Samantha Womack; Faye Tozer. Credit: © Johan Persson
JADAR 