Billy Elliot's Diane Langton Recalls a Lifetime on the London Stage

There’s hardly a major musical, British or American, that West End veteran Diane Langton hasn’t done at one point or another, whether you’re talking Chicago (as Mama Morton), Mary Poppins (as the Bird Lady) or any of a slew of landmark Broadway shows in their West End debuts. Now in her sixties, Langton is well into a year-long run as Billy Elliot’s feisty, funny Grandma at the Victoria Palace Theatre. Broadway.com spoke to the warm, engaging performer one afternoon by phone from her 15th-century thatched cottage in Hampshire, an hour or so southwest of London.

It’s wonderful to have you back on the West End as Grandma in Billy Elliot. How did you end up in the show?
I got the same feeling on this show that I had when I saw A Chorus Line when the Americans did it here, which was, “I have to get in on that.” With this, I saw the show six months in and thought, “I have got to play that role!” I rang my agent and said, “If Ann [Emery] leaves, I must go up for it,” and I was told: “Ann’s never going to leave; she’ll leave in a box.” [Laughs.]

In fact, she’s now across town in Betty Blue Eyes.
Exactly: I had an instinct something like that might happen. So, they called me in to audition, and I kept thinking, “I’ve got to get it, I’ve just got to.” I’ve always believed in feelings and visualizations, so I kept doing that and, in the end, couldn’t believe my luck.

What did you connect to most at Billy Elliot?
It’s such a human story and there’s so much love in it; it’s about solidarity and people standing by one another, and I find that very, very moving. And you know Grandma’s big song [about her awful marriage]? I had a husband from my first marriage who was exactly as that song describes. I thought, “I’ve been there. I know just what she’s singing about: That’s me. That’s my role.” Luckily, while I was doing Hair, I met my second husband [performer Derek James], and we’ve been together 35 years!

You’ve been part of an extraordinary array of shows, from the London premieres of Hair, Pippin and A Chorus Line to A Little Night Music and The Rink.
I used to literally theater-hop: It was absolutely wonderful! Once I did Hair, there was a rock musical circuit. All the people in Hair would go into the next one and the next one and the next—that’s how I did Jesus Christ Superstar and Two Gentlemen of Verona.

Did you take your clothes off in Hair?
You know, it’s terrible, but I didn’t. I was in the very first cast, and at that time, it wasn’t compulsory. There were four people who didn’t, and I thought, “I really can’t.” My mother and father would disown me! It sounds wimpish, but I am a practicing Catholic, and I just couldn’t. I know it’s 15 seconds and then a blackout, but I was 23 and I had a little boy—I was a mum. My father would never have spoken to me again!

You must have gotten a kick out of the recent West End revival, with Gavin Creel and the rest of the Broadway company.
I thought it was amazing! I had worked with Gavin here in Mary Poppins, and I love him. He’s just a gas—a lovely, lovely soul. And did the show ever bring back memories! I began in the Tribe and then the Jeanie left because she got nodules so they gave me the job. It was wild: We used to call each other “man” and everything—as in, “Hey man, how ya doin’?” [Laughs.] And then four of us, including Elaine Paige, formed a band called Sparrow, after the bird, and we made an album. It was lovely.

You’ve worked with musical theater legends such as Bob Fosse, Michael Bennett and Hal Prince.
It’s been phenomenal. I worked with Fosse one-on-one when I did Pippin at the Haymarket, playing the king’s wife, and Pippin’s stepmother, Fastrada, a terrible woman who does all sorts of dreadful tricks to get her husband to be king. I got to sing “Spread a Little Sunshine,” and I remember thinking that I had arrived! That was before A Chorus Line, when I was still a dancer, and I came out of Jesus Christ Superstar to do Pippin.

How did A Chorus Line happen?
The original Broadway company came and did six months, and I took over straight away as Morales, singing “Nothing” and “What I Did For Love.” At the time, they hadn’t cast Morales because they couldn’t find someone who could sing those numbers and dance, as well, and I auditioned and auditioned. They asked me to lose weight, which I did—a lot! I had to lose four stone (56 pounds). I did a year in A Chorus Line and then I left to do a TV show and came back to do the last six months. They asked me to return and I said, “Are you kdding?” I’d have taken their arm off to do it! I loved the show so, so much.

Billy Elliot is quintessentially British, but it’s amazing how steeped you have been in the American musical repertoire.
I get on so well with Americans. They just seem to take to me, which is very fortunate; I sometimes think I get on better with them than I do with my own! I think my accent makes them laugh. I remember saying to Hal Prince during Night Music, “I’m a Londoner; I’ve got a very London sound,” and he looked at me and said, “I would never have guessed!” [Laughs.]

What are your memories of meeting Sondheim during the run of A Little Night Music?
I was playing Petra, and what was frightening is that you wait all night for your big moment! I used to wish I was on in Act One so that I could get the song [the 11 o’clock showstopper “The Miller’s Son”] out of the way. Sondheim was wonderful to me. He was in the stalls [orchestra] one day and we were rehearsing and I finished the song, “I shall marry the miller’s son.” Boom! And Stephen tiptoed over and went, “Diane, when you sing that at the very end, just give the audience the tiniest smile, because you know exactly who you’re going to marry and that smile gives it away.” As he left, he said, “Don’t tell Hal I told you this.” [Laughs.]. So, I would do a tiny little smile, and there was huge applause; he was right. It’s such a sweet, sweet story.

You seem genuinely to love working on stage.
I’m compulsed! [Laughs.] I know there’s no such word, but that describes what I am. My son says to me, “Why don’t you retire?” and I say, “To what?” I would go insane. When I don’t work, I’m a nightmare after two weeks.