Adrian Scarborough on His Meaty West End Musical Debut in Betty Blue Eyes
After years of exploring classic plays—from Shakespeare and Stoppard to David Hare and Alan Bennett—at the National Theatre, Adrian Scarborough is making his musical theater debut in Betty Blue Eyes, a stage adaptation of Bennett’s 1984 cult hit film A Private Function. Scarborough comes to the role of villainous meat inspector Wormold after an Olivier Award-winning performance in the revival of Terence Rattigan’s After the Dance. (Look closely and you can spot him as a BBC radio announcer in the opening moments of the Oscar-winning movie The King’s Speech.) Broadway.com chatted with the delightfully protean actor early one evening prior to the announcement that the run of Betty will end early, on September 24.
You made your name acting in classic plays. Are you surprised to find yourself in a musical?
I’d always wanted to do a musical! I did a lot of dance when I was a younger, so that has always been a great passion, and when this opportunity came, I leapt on it with both hands. The bit I felt perhaps less confident about was my voice. I sort of thought that if I am going to do anything, it would have to be a pretty strong character role so that I could do a bit of a Rex Harrison on it. But doing Betty Blue Eyes is about more than ticking a box on my CV [resume]; it has been a lifelong desire and passion to do a stage musical, and I’m having the time of my life.
It’s an entirely separate discipline from doing a straight play.
Yes, but I have to say that rehearsals get you pretty match-fit. You start every morning with a half-hour dance class and serious vocal warm-up, and you’re flinging yourself about, and I was cycling there every morning and evening. I lost about a stone [14 pounds]; it just fell off. I’ve subsequently put it back on from eating too much [laughs]. Ain’t that the way?
What was your reaction to the idea of a stage musical based on A Private Function? [The film is set in Yorkshire in 1947, during post-war rationing and before the royal wedding of then-Princess Elizabeth and Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten.]
My parents had taken me to see the film as a child, and I remember it vividly, not least since my career has allowed me to spend quite a bit of time in Alan Bennett’s company in various forms. The whole idea of turning it into a musical seemed like a ludicrous and ridiculous thing to do—so batty—but that was before I heard it and thought it was terrific. It had all the songs in the right places, and the structure was very compelling.
I agree, and I’m fascinated that so definably British a piece has a book by two Americans, Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman.
That’s extremely odd, isn’t it, but also wonderful and eccentric. I love the idea that they were essentially just watching the film in the very, very early hours of the morning while editing a series they were doing in America, and Dan reportedly said, “That would make the most fantastic musical!” Ron was very skeptical and argued the toss, but in the end Dan just kept plugging away and drafted where he thought the numbers might go, and here we are.
Did you pattern your performance as meat inspector Wormold after Bill Paterson’s screen take on the same role?
My character bears no relation at all to Bill’s, although he has the same name. I had to go for a slight pantomime villain feel, complete with a black trilby [hat] and an enormously heavy leather coat that took two cows to make: We call it “dos taurus,” the bull [laughs]. I have a pair of glasses and a little Hitler mustache and a rubber apron covered in paint. Bill’s performance is subtle and understated and really, really controlled, whereas mine is like a piece of modern art: It’s very big and out there and paint-spattered!
Much was made of the fact that there was a West End musical set around a royal wedding playing during the recent real-life royal wedding.
That was pure serendipity. There was some speculation as to whether Cameron had actually instigated this one—you know, said to Kate and William, “If you could just get on with it while I put this musical on, that would be very useful.” [Laughs.] It’s remarkably fortuitous that it happened when it did, and the austerity thing is amazing, as well—that we find ourselves now in that kind of a situation today. The issues are pretty universal.
Have your culinary tastes changed as a result of doing a show about the attempted killing of a pig—the blue-eyed porker, Betty, of the title?
I think my love of pork has gone up rather than down. The pub opposite where we go for a social event sells the best pork scratchings [the British snack] that I have ever had in my life, and I’m usually the first person to go to the bar and ask for them. That said, there are one or two vegetarians in the cast, but I won’t be joining them.
New York theatergoers have been hoping you might join them on Broadway in a transfer of last year's extraordinary National Theatre revival of Terence Rattigan’s After the Dance.
That was talked about for a while but it’s over now. Benedict [Cumberbatch, the leading man] decided not to go with it, which I can completely understand from his point of view, and when Ben pulled out, the light went out on it. What should happen now is that somebody should mount a new production of the play in America and cast me. That would be great!
What’s wonderful about your career is the breadth of work you get to do as an in-demand character actor.
I know. We start filming the second series of [TV’s] Upstairs Downstairs in Cardiff [Wales] at the beginning of October. It’s always been my mantra that I should be a Jack of all trades and master of none because it’s very easy in this profession to concentrate on one thing and then there aren’t enough job opportunities to make a career out of whatever that one thing is. What’s been lovely for me has been dancing around from institution to institution, doing serious comedy, telly, film and lots of radio drama, as well, which I really adore. I still have to pay my bills at the end of the day, but I am the luckiest man on earth.