DMT_Hamilton_Print_1712_Print 2_Vis1(1)

FIVE GUYS
NAMED MOE
WN!
Photography: Graham Michael.*Calls to Delfont Mackintosh Theatres 0844 numbers cost 7p per minute plus your phone company’s access charge
might they employ to stress a point?
How is their journey expressed vocally
from beginning through the middle to the end?
Ask him that and you'll travel from back-country hoedowns
to suave nightclub cabaret to Carnegie Hall to church, all in
song. Ask him to imagine, and you get the song ‘Is You Is…’.
Tickle Paulette’s funny bone and you'll find yourself locked in a giggle box
with aching sides... not the box, you. Searching for songs to fit my narrative,
I asked Neil and he brought me about a dozen LPs and cassettes.
Prior to putting together this team, I staged one song for an evening’s
entertainment while on the road with Carmen Jones: ‘Five Guys Named
Moe’. It was quirky, fun and enjoyed by everyone. That was the seed. If I
could find more of Louis’s songs and treat them in the same way, there might
be something in this… Over the next four years, life presented me with an
abundance of ‘Nomax’ [the main character] situations to draw on.
In 1989, I asked David Aukin at the National Theatre for permission to
present the Guys in the Cottesloe. During the three-night presentation,
Phillip Hedley saw the taster and, months later, asked if I could develop it for
Stratford East. Without a moment’s hesitation, I put together my dream team.
Cameron Mackintosh came to see it at Stratford, picked it up in the interval,
sprinkled it with some Mackintosh magic and took it to the West End… and
the rest is history.
Clarke Peters is directing the new production of Five Guys Named Moe
– presented by Underbelly Productions in association with Cameron
Mackintosh, Steven Harris and Westminster City Council – at the Marble
Arch Theatre until 24 March 2018. For information and to book tickets,
call 0844 482 5116 * or visit delfontmackintosh.co.uk