Crooner or later for Foyle`s War star Julian

24
www.thestar.co.uk
The Star, Thursday, May 3, 2012
Holby star doing
THEATRE
TIME OUT
Powell back
in a medical
setting for
comedy role
Fifteen months after
leaving Holby, one of our
best-loved actors
wears his stage
stethoscope for
a Sheffield shift.
Robert Powell
talks to David
Dunn
AND
EVENTS
HOTnews
Library laughs
THE Invisible Dot Tour
brings funny’s new
wave to Sheffield’s
Library Theatre on
Monday with Adam
Riches, pictured,
sketch duo sisters
Toby and SKY1’s Gates
star Nick Mohammed
spilling laughs.
A show for those who
like their comedy
“inventive and offbeat.”
The likes of Edinburgh
Comedy Award winner Tim Key and cult
favourite Daniel Kitson
have emerged from the
Dot stable.
Doctor In The House: Robert Powell as Sir Lancelot Spratt
ROBERT Powell could just
save your life.
It’s a fact. After six years
on the popular BBC drama
the enduring actor knows a
medical trick or two.
“I learned a great deal, CPR
and stuff like that, because
you’ve got to look like you
know what you are doing,”
says Robert, ahead of a Lyceum turn in Doctor In The
House from Tuesday.
“Just as if you were a nurse
at college, I was trained the
same way. I wouldn’t want
to do it, but I know how to
do it.”
Of course, one stark irony
is that quite often the pretend
wards of Holby City look better equipped than most real
hospitals these days.
“We did have some quite
good kit,” Robert concedes
with a laugh before revealing he was Holby’s Mark
Williams “a lot longer” than
intended.
“I was originally contracted for a year, which seemed
to be a long time, the longest
job I’ve ever had.
“I ended up staying for six
years, but I stayed because up
to the point that I left I was
really enjoying it. They gave
me terrific storylines.
“The character evolved
and the nice thing is you sort
of lead the writers instead of
the writers leading you. They
What’s going on here? Tom Butcher, Allison McKenzie and
Robert Powell in Doctor In The House
give you a start and then see
where you’re taking the character and they follow.
“It meant the character
was so open he could virtually do anything and it would
not be considered to be out of
character because he was a
very broad character. It was
lovely.
“But there was a change of
personnel and I decided the
change was not going to be to
my taste, so I went.
“Holby served its purpose.
I had a good time and it allowed me to develop a character over a long period, create
a believable character, and
we did that to good effect...
the number of people who say
they miss him. He was a sort
of rock around which a lot of
other stuff happened. Very
human and fragile emotionally.”
For now, however, the actor that TV robbed the stage
of for so long is back on the
theatre circuit – even if he is
playing another medical type.
In between times Robert
went back into theatre at
the deep end, tackling the
big solo job that is Jeffrey
Bernard Is Unwell, for four
months.
“That’s a tough call as it’s
virtually a two-hour monologue, eight shows a week,”
he says.
So joining Joe Pasquale
on rounds at St. Swithin’s
Teaching Hospital in Richard
Gordon’s medical comedy
Doctor In The House comes
as light relief.
“I wanted someone else to
share the work and the burden of the narrative of this
play is taken on by the rest of
the cast. The part is perfect
because I have four or five
scenes as Sir Lancelot Spratt,
but when he’s on he’s on, a
very forceful character.
“But Phillip Langhorne
who is playing Simon Sparrow only has about five
minutes off the stage so he
does all the work, which suits
me down to the ground.”
Even so, we have to suggest
Robert’s casting alongside the
curious voice of Mr Pasquale
seemed unlikely, perhaps.
“They said me and Jasper
Carrot was an unlikely partnership and it turned into
a very successful, very long
lasting partnership of several
years with The Detectives.
Joe’s terrific, great fun to
work with.”
Crooner or later for Foyle’s War star Julian
CHARISMATIC performer
Julian Ovenden admits he
gets some strange looks when
he’s practising in his attic.
“We have a studio at the
top of our house with no
sound-proofing,” he says
from Peckham, south London. “You can see the street
and when you’re singing people turn their heads thinking
‘What the hell is that?’”
And with the Sheffield-born
artist married to an opera
singer, there’s plenty to hear.
by david dunn
Feature Writer
Julian is best known for
his role as fighter pilot Andrew Foyle in ITV’s Foyle’s
War and has earned his musical theatre stripes in the West
End and Broadway alongside,
among others, Sheffield Theatres artistic director Daniel
Evans.
But the actor, who spent
the first few years of his life
in the Steel City where his
father was a parish vicar, is
currently making waves as a
singer with his début album
If You Stay.
“Because this is the first
time I’ve released a record
everything is new to me, but
I’ve had an amazing time
putting it together.
“It took us about a year
and a half, quite a long time,
choosing the repertoire, making sure it all fitted together. I
started in Los Angeles with a
band then did vocals in New
York, then an orchestra in
London – I’ve been all over
the place.”
Then it kind of reflects the
tenor’s life so far.
The son of Canon John
Ovenden, now chaplain to the
Queen, at seven Julian won
a scholarship to St Paul’s Cathedral School before moving
to Eton.
“They didn’t have the money to send me to the school
they wanted me to go to so
music scholarships allowed
me to have that specialist
education.
“It was a bit of a culture
shock, some people arrived
by helicopter. I had a room
next to the Crown Prince of
Kuwait, who at 17 had six
wives”
Oxford University and
London’s Webber Douglas
Academy were followed
by a role with the RSC and
later the lead in Sondheim’s
Merrily We Roll Along at the
Donmar Warehouse.