Melanie C on Spicing Up London's Blood Brothers

After several decades, you might think the British musical Blood Brothers had long ago lost the capacity to surprise, but that denies the thrill being generated at the Phoenix Theatre by the legitimate stage debut of onetime Spice Girl Melanie C (actual last name, Chisholm), who took over in November as the hapless Mrs. Johnstone, mother to twins, one of whom she is forced to give away. The erstwhile Sporty Spice has received a spate of (deserved) five-star reviews for her musically rich, emotionally raw performance in the same year that has seen her give birth to her first daughter, nine-month-old Scarlet. (The father is her partner Thomas Starr.) Early one recent evening, she was in utterly down-to-earth, undiva-ish mode when Broadway.com caught up with her backstage while the 35-year-old Liverpudlian discussed the joys of a supposed exercise in stunt casting that has after 19 years living in London made Melanie C a West End star.

Congratulations on your great reviews. I think it’s fantastic for such a long-running show that you agreed to be reviewed—replacements often never face the critics.
Thank you. It’s part of the fun. That’s the thing with reviews: if they’re good, you believe them, if they’re bad, they’re rubbish. At the end of the day, I’m my harshest critic. If I think I’m doing a good job, I’m happy and if I’m not, I need to work on it. And if I’m honest, it’s been quite nice being the underdog, really.

I saw a 4pm Saturday matinee that ended around 6:45, and you had to start the evening show an hour later. When do you eat?
That's quite tricky because I'm on stage from the get-go, from when the show opens for the first 34 minutes, but who's counting, right? [Laughs.] You need to eat because you need to keep your energy up, but then you can't overeat because you don't want to feel bloated. The adrenalin gets you through.

So what do you do during that hour between shows?
Get ready for the next one. I literally come in here, hair out, rollers back in. I quickly have something to eat, then the makeup is back on and it's my call.

Did you have managers or agents or whoever urging you to make a move into theater?
No, it was all me. I was working a little bit up until having my baby. I didn't know how I was going to feel, so I put no pressure on myself at all. I thought, if I never want to work again, so be it, and I had a feeling I would want to because I really do enjoy my work. The first few months of her life, it was me and her at home and that was it. But then when she was about five or six months old, I was getting a bit itchy to do something, and I'd always wanted to do the West End—and would love to do Broadway as well, that's a big dream of mine. I fancied doing some theater but had never had the right time in my career, so after having my little girl, I thought that to work and live in London is perfect. It's a great way to get back into working. I think after having the baby, I felt more brave.

What about the repetition eight times a week: that's hard for anyone. Have you missed any performances yet?
I missed one. It' s that time of year when you have lots of cast members having the odd show out here and there. I had been performing the Thursday matinee and had a bit of a sore throat and could feel myself closing up and my instinct was take off a night and get through the weekend or do [the performance] and miss the whole weekend. Knowing my voice and with the experience I've had in the past, I thought [the first option] was the best thing to do, and it worked.

Is it true that you're the first Liverpudlian to actually play this Liverpudlian single mother? There have been so many Mrs. Johnstones over the years that doesn't seem possible.
It's crazy! I don't know if I could do a piece with an accent. So that was the great thing: that it all felt pretty natural to me, and the dialect was one thing I didn't have to worry about. The script is so beautiful that you don't need to do anything: it does all the work.

How much of the show seems to you a dramatization of Liverpool life. Is there truth in the material?
It's so real. It's a highly dramatic piece and very edgy and gritty at times. Of course, it's set a little earlier than my memories of growing up, but I don't think it's over-dramatized at all.

The issue of class hangs over this show like a shroud, despite the fact that we are always told nowadays that Britain is a classless society. Do you think it is?
I think we are very class-obsessed in this country; we've always been like that, and it's all over the country, not just the north, not just Liverpool. It's the whole country.

So what hope does poor Mrs. Johnstone have?
She is such an amazing lady. She's knocked down again and again, but she always pushes herself up and carries on because of the love of her children. She's very hopeful; she's always looking at the positives. She has her seven children—eight in the end, once Mickey comes along—so her aspirations are doing the best for her children. Her aspirations for herself are at the back of the queue. She comes last.

It must be unbelievable doing a part eight times a week where a mother has to give away a child, having yourself just had a child. It seems like the last role you would want to play.
It's actually been very beneficial for me because I can really draw on emotions of a situation that, luckily, I will never be in. Though at the same time, I know all about the love of a child. It feels to me like quite a true emotion.

Did you see Mel B (a.k.a. Scary Spice) on Broadway in Rent? Did you trade notes with her on doing a theatrical run?
Yeah, we talked about the ins and outs. I think she was on Broadway for four months, and she said to me, "Wow, you're doing six [months]!" And I don't think she did quite as many shows a week. But I went along to see her in New York and was blown away. It's been great here: I had Geri [Halliwell, a.k.a. Ginger Spice] in last night and Emma [Bunton, a.k.a. Baby Spice] came to my opening night. It's so funny because you know each other so well as friends and as performers and my one wish for anybody seeing this show is to forget that it is me—and both of them said that without me prompting it. I took that as the biggest compliment. Victoria and David [Beckham] haven't been yet, but we've had Victoria's mum in.

Do you think you might extend beyond April?
I'm loving doing something different, I truly am, but I do miss my music career. Much as I love being here, I'm missing being me on stage, missing being Melanie C. It's funny: I've toured all over the world, but I'd say the thing I've found a lot easier about being here in the West End is being in one place and going home to your own bed. That makes such a difference. At the same time, when you're touring, you spend a lot of time traveling, so you don't have shows every night. The two disciplines have their different demands. Actors and people who work in the theater work so hard. I was actually quite shocked at how hard they work after working in music.

Tell me about Spice Girls - The Musical.
There have been lots of rumors of Spice Girls - The Musical, which is something us girls have talked about—saying how much it would be great fun and we really want our music to live on and to be performed—but there's nothing in the pipeline. But hopefully it's something that we'll do in the future. People ask, too, whether we’ll get back together: I would jump at the chance to work with the girls again. I was always dead against it until we eventually did a few shows here and in America, and I had such a good time that I would do it tomorrow. But at the moment there are no plans.

Don't you miss getting to be a diva? Your dressing room is too small for a major ego.
Not really. I like getting my hands dirty. We all like nice things and being treated nicely, of course. But I'm here very much as a part of the cast, and I would not want to be treated in any other way.