Publicity - Press releases - Reviews - Interviews

Little publicity for NDdP
"I really enjoyed it" Michael Coveney, Daily Mail
"The voices are as good as any heard on the London stage in the last 20 years... This is a very different musical spectacular, the score is a winner" Michael Coveney, Daily Mail
"Great music... A musical extravaganza" Charles Spencer, Daily Telegraph
"The show is tremendous, I had a terrific time" Chris Tarrant
"It's all very visual and endlessy acrobatic" Robert Gore-Langton, Daily Express
"Terrific acrobatic choreography" Bill Hegarty, News of the World
"One of the finest scores I've heard in a long time" Roger Foss, What's on
"Raises spectators to the emotional stratosphere" Irving Wardle, Sunday Telegraph

NOTRE-DAME DE PARIS THE MUSICAL SPECTACULAR TO OPEN IN LONDON AT THE DOMINION THEATRE ON TUESDAY 23 MAY 2000
"Notre-Dame de Paris", the musical sensation which has taken Europe by storm, will open in London at the Dominion Theatre on Tuesday 23 May 2000, following previews from 15 May. Based on "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" by Victor Hugo, the musical has lyrics by Luc Plamondon and music by Richard Cocciante, with English lyrics by Will Jennings, Oscar winner for 'My Heart Will Go On' from the film "Titanic".
The cast in London will be headed by Australian recording star Tina Arena, making her West-End stage debut as 'Esmerelda', with Daniel Lavoie as 'Frollo', Garou as 'Quasimodo', Steve Balsamo as 'Phoebus', Luck Mervil as 'Clopin', Bruno Pelletier as 'Gringore' and Natasha St-Pierre as 'Fleur-de-Lys'.
Prior to the London stage production, Columbia Records will launch the English adaptation of "Notre-Dame de Paris" with a showcase featuring the UK cast at the Midem Festival in Cannes on 25 January. This will be followed by a March release of the album, sung in English, featuring the main stars of the London production. The album will include guest star Celine Dion as a guest star singing 'Live for the One I Love'.
"Notre-Dame de Paris" first opened in Paris in September 1998 to rave reviews and a massive public response, selling over 600,000 tickets in six months, and a subsequent four-month tour of Canada sold out more than 300,000 tickets. The musical has also played a sell-out tour of France, Belgium & Switzerland, with ticket sales exceeding one million. 3.5 million copies of the original cast studio album have been sold in Europe and Canada, with the album staying at No.1 for 17 weeks in the French charts. The live double album has sold over one million copies and the single 'Belle' has sold 2.5million copies in France alone.
"Notre-Dame de Paris" will be directed by Gilles Maheu, choreographed by Martino Muller and produced in London by Michael White.

NOTRE DAME DE PARIS MAKES A TRIUMPHANT RETURN TO MIDEM 2000
On January 25, 2000 the international music industry event MIDEM, for the second time, played host to a musical phenomenon when Columbia Records launch the English adaptation of Notre Dame de Paris. A unique showcase featuring some of the original performers took place in the Grand Auditorium, Palais des Festivals at 6:00 p.m. and was followed by the full original French version at 8:30 p.m. in the same venue.
Two years ago, on January 18, 1998, MIDEM attendees bore witness to the debut performance of this musical sensation that has gone on to break box office and CD sales records in Europe and Canada. Notre Dame de Paris, a traditional musical using the newest techniques of modern staging, returns to Cannes once again to launch the new English version
of the show and the accompanying soundtrack.
Based on Victor Hugo's timeless 1831 novel, about the lonely hunchback Quasimodo and his love for a beautiful gypsy girl Esmeralda, Notre Dame de Paris is set to hit London next spring and become the biggest musical event in London's West End. The powerful and emotionally charged soundtrack of the musical will be released in March.
The original French version of Notre Dame de Paris was written by Luc Plamondon (words) and Richard Cocciante (music), new English lyrics have been brilliantly adapted by Grammy, Academy and Oscar winning writer Will Jennings. Among the many songs written by Jennings to have acquired world-wide fame is Celine Dion's recent smash hit, 'My Heart Will Go On',
taken from the film, Titanic's, soundtrack.
The new English soundtrack features stunning new performances by some of the show's original stars (Garou, Daniel Lavoie, Bruno Pelletier and Luck Mervil) and inspired new rendition by Celine Dion, Australian star Tina Arena, newcomer Natasha St Pierre and Steve Balsamo, the latter took the West End by storm in the title role of 'Jesus Christ Superstar'.
The original Notre Dame de Paris soundtrack was launched at MIDEM in 1998 to an overwhelming and rapturous response. Since then the album has sold over 3.5 million copies in France, Belgium, Switzerland and Canada and remained at No.1 in the French charts for 17 weeks. In addition, the two singles taken from the album 'Belle' and 'Le Temps des
Cathedrales' have sold 3 million copies in France alone.
The show opened in September 1998 at the Palais des Congrès in Paris and has since toured throughout Canada, France, Switzerland, and Belgium. By the time it reaches London, over 2 million people will have witnessed the show's breathtaking dance routines and acrobatics. There is no doubt that the UK production will continue the phenomenon and that the British
audiences have an incredible piece of compelling theatre accompanied by a simply mesmerising soundtrack coming their way.

NOTRE-DAME DE PARIS ANNOUNCES NEW BOOKING PERIOD
Over 1,500 people, every single night since the first preview, have given the actors, singers and dancers of Notre-Dame de Paris a standing ovation. The producers of the French musical spectacular which opened in May to less than enthusiastic reviews from the sombre newspaper theatre critics, have confounded them all by announcing today that the Dominion Theatre are extending the booking period for the show to March 2001.
The energetic choreography, breathtaking gymnastics and stunning live vocal performances have captured the most important imaginations of them all, the only critics that truly determine whether a show will run or
close - the general public.
Recently some Capitol Radio DJs went to see the show and were heard to say on air afterwards:
"Awesome. It's brilliant. A really, really good musical" - Dr. Fox
"The show is tremendous.....I had a terrific time" - Chris Tarrant
"Notre-Dame was slammed by the critics but I thought it was absolutely sensational. I thoroughly recommend you go and see it" - Steve Penk
The soundtrack album has also continued to sell steadily, especially in the foyer of the theatre. So despite the critics, this show does go on and on and on and...

London critics have given "Notre-Dame de Paris" plenty of negative reviews on its opening night... Fortunately it's not the critics who fill the theatres, but YOU!

Extract The Daily Mail
"...It hails from Paris via Montreal, bids to be some sort of rock amalgam of Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables, and ends up as some sort of romantic Europop sideshow. As such, I really enjoyed it. Tina Arena sings the role of the gypsy girl Esmeralda and sings it sensationally well... This is not a musical. It is a concert with dance, lighting effects and a lot of French singers throwing their hair around in a collective display of gravelly-voiced pique. The music of Richard Cocciante, the book and lyrics of Luc Plamondon, with the lyrics translated by Will Jennings, are consistently and rockily entertaining... This, overall, is very different and its very own kind of musical spectacular. For a start, the music is recorded, so the singers sing to a backing track... The stage strains to show a different picture each minute and for that, despite everything, I really respect, and maybe love, this show. Tina Arena is superb, and the microphoned voices of French pop stars Garou, Daniel Lavoie and Bruno Pelletier, are as good as any heard on the London stage in the last 20 years."

Extract The Express
"...It's all very visual. The chorus of choreographed refugees is endlessly acrobatic. One minute they are cripples, the next they are doing cartwheels and occasionally the men wear nothing but underpants for reasons I couldn't fathom. Stage design is a disaster, with huge blocks of ugly concrete represnting Paris's beautiful cathedral. Richard Cocciante's surging Euro-pop score comes alive when Ms Arena splendidly lets rip in Live For the One I Love. But there is little romance, beguilement and fantasy. The show is all bats and no belfry."

Extract The Daily Telegraph
"...The one thing that can be said in favour of the piece is that Richard Cocciante's score is a winner, at least for those, like me, with lowbrow musical tastes. The more fastidious will probably think the music naff and too loud, but I found the soaring power pop and tortured masochistic ballads stirring. Unfortunately almost everything else about the show is a complete flop... The cast have clearly been chosen for their singing voices rather than their acting skills, and most of them seem to have given up any attempt at creating rounded characters. Instead the principals just march down to the front of the stage and let rip into their very obvious head-set microphones. But though the show - which uses a pre-recorded backing tape rather than a live band, which seems a bit of a cheat - will sound good to fans of middle-of-the-road pop, it looks dismal... On the plus side, there is some lively, acrobatic choreography, with much shinning up and down the back wall. Tina Arena makes a sexy, sultry strong-voiced Esmeralda... But director Gilles Maheu seems incapable of breathing dramatic life and passion into the show, the special effects are often far from spectacular, and one leaves the theatre feeling bludgeoned, exhausted and wishing that one had stayed at home with the delightful Disney video version of the Hunchback story."

Extract The Times
"Was it possible to enjoy a musical show that, thanks to endless latecomers and even a camera crew pursuing celeb nonentities through the Dominion, managed to start 25 minutes late, was greeted with whoops of idiot glee from start to finish, boasted a backing track rather than a live orchestra and contrived to be verbally inaudible for much of its sung-through length? Well, yes, last night it was, just about. Much needs excusing, including a pretty uninteresting leading lady, but not the tunefulness of Richard Cocciante's soaring, major-key score; not the quality of the Quasimodo played with such doleful energy by an actor calling himself Garou, not the verve and athleticism of dancers who leap and clatter and somehow whirl their bodies while standing on their heads. One could see, albeit sporadically, why the show has been such a success in Paris... There are occasional imaginative production touches: huge bells with writhing, upside-down humans for clappers, for instance. But if the show's creators aspire to mount a telling attack on an unjust, hypocritical, brutal society they have some way to go. Another Les Mis this isn't."

Time Out (May 31- June 7) by Jane Edwardes
Given the anti-French feeling that prevades the Blackladder film at the Dome, it might have been a good antidote to have imported Luc Plamondon and Richard Cocciante's musical as the Dome's main show. As a stadium spectacle, there are things to admire: Cocciante's soft rock recorded score; Martin Müller's athletic choreography; the powerful voice of the memorably named Tina Arena as Esmeralda; the gravel-scraping one of Garou's Quasimodo, and the broad sweep of a through-sung musical that never pauses for breath.
By most theatrical considerations, however, the show is a disaster. The classic story of the hunchback who falls in love with a gypsy girl and sacrifices his life to save her is almost impossible to follow. Director Gilles Maeu of the performance group Carbone 14 has given the tale a modish spin, turning the gypsies into today's asylum seekers who are regularly beaten up during the evening by riot police with truncheons and visors. The opening song declares "This is the Age of the Cathedrals" (sung by Bruno Pelletier's winsome Gringoire) but there's nothing mediaeval about Christian Ratz's blue lit, space age Notre Dame, a series of floating pillars with gigantic gargoyles on top. On the opening night, there was a nasty moment when an erratically moving pillar threatened to squash Daniel Lavoie's tortured priest (you could tell by his make-up that he was the villain) as he sang with increasingly real desesperation of his battle between faith and lust.
The visual confusion is not clarified by the emotional range of the principals who have clearly not been chosen for their acting skills. Looking like a stocky serving wench from a mediaeval banquet for tourists, Tina Arena hardly has the allure to drive men mad. Most of all, Will Jenings' English are invariably mundane and frequently gruesomely predictable. Failing the Dome, this spectacle should get to Wembly Arena where it belongs. At least Tina will feel at home.

What a "croque", monsieur by Nick Curtis
The French have a word that describes this witless Gallic musical, but it's too rude to use here. Suffice to say that this is a complete crock, monsieur. Writer Luc Plamondon and composer Richard Cocciante have taken one of the world's best-known stories and turned it into a nonsensical, through-sung procession of Europop ditties, re-upholstered with buttock-clenchingly clumsy English lyrics by Will Jennings.
Director Gilles Maheu's staging is reminiscent of a TV summer special, favouring an endless parade of flick-flacking dancers over content or coherence. Anyone who pays £37.50 to watch this has every right to get the hump. By comparison, Disney's animated film is a masterpiece of slavish literary faithfulness.
The curtain rises on a vast stone wall, adorned with the odd gargoyle. The poet Gringoire (Bruno Pelletier) tells us that it is 1482, but the precise date seems unclear. For one thing, Notre Dame is surrounded by asylum-seeking New Age travellers, and soldiers in riot gear. The hunchback Quasimodo (played by the mono-named Garou) is a gravel-voiced, gurning punk with a pillow stuffed up the back of his jumper. He, like most of the men on stage, falls for Esmeralda, played by Australian singing star Tina Arena, and then the story really falls apart.
One minute Esmeralda is shimmying her gipsy hips against Steve Balsamo's anguished Captain Phoebus; the next she's with Quasimodo on the roof of his "home so high, (where) the weather is always nice". She marries Gringoire, flirts with her refugee protector, and inflames the loins of Daniel Lavoie's hypocritical Frollo, who's marked out as a villain by his heavy eye make-up and the bat-wings on his priestly garb. Now, Ms Arena sings very nicely, thank you. But she doesn't have the sexual charisma that warrants the abandonment of most of Victor Hugo's story.
The singing of the leads is the show's only redeeming feature. Like Arena, Lavoie, Balsamo and the throaty Garou have voices well suited to a score soaked in melodramatic anguish. Even so, they strain to hit the high and low notes. And the quality of the songs is another matter.
Most of the (recorded) music disappears under a slurring bass thump. The most distinctive ditties are also the most derivative.
And Jennings has come up with some truly awful lyrics. Esmeralda sings of Phoebus: "He is shining like the sun, but he's as
tough as anyone". The original pronunciation of all the names has been preserved to fit the cadences of Cocciante's songs,
which makes them sound even more absurd.
Director Maheu and choreographer Martino Müller seem to think they can redeem this sprawling, maudlin mess with stage business and zesty dance routines. They send acrobats scampering up the boring facade of Christian Ratz's set, and fling break-dancers under crash-barriers in a riot scene. Sometimes, as music thumps and bodies fly, their approach works through sheer bombast. More often, it results in unintentionally hilarious vignettes. Dancers writhe in their underpants during Balsamo's rendition of I'm Torn. Frollo is molested by the very stones of Notre Dame. In the final scene, as Garou's Quasimodo launches into yet another verse of his throat-wrenching laments for the executed Esmeralda, various blokes come on with their dead girlfriends, and watch wistfully as the twirling corpses are winched up to Heaven.
This chronologically confused, misguided musical is so insultingly bad it's almost good. The large French-speaking contingent of the first-night audience received it with delirious enthusiasm, but I have a hunch it won't last.

Article found on a website by Nick Awde
Yet another French musical, yet another 'grand turkey' you can hear the critics grumble the length and breadth of Theatreland as the theatregoing cognoscenti bitch that 'it's revenge for Waterloo!' Yes, it can only be Notre Dame De Paris (let's call it Hunchback), in town to build on the success of a record-breaking run in Paris.
And it's rather good.
Not perfect and hardly a classic, Notre Dame De Paris still gets my money because: a) it's got Tina Arena in it, b) it's dramatic, c) it's got hummable tunes, d) it's a great night out, and e) it's got Tina Arena in it.
Oh, and it's not really French at all, since there are no French members that I can spot in the energetic multi-nationality cast except for a healthy quota of French Canadians (EU regulations helping them out there then), while the lyricist and director are also Canadian and the composer is basically Italian.
Hunchback is unashamedly a concert of a concept album - delivering high octane europop to moody lighting and set that goes with classic French grand spectacle. The fact that a crisp pre-recorded soundtrack takes the place of a live orchestra/band gives you the clue as does the frenetic ensemble dancing in the style of a TV commerical from trendy garment company The Gap.
All the songs are guitar/keyboard arrangements of verse-verse-chorus numbers. Dramatic effect is produced by repeating a word or phrase ten times and then straight into the next chorus.
By default it's sung-through, and the plot is basically throwaway - bring your own summary or ask the person sitting next to you - with no indications given in the book (since there isn't one) as to what's happening. Where you can hear them, English lyrics by Will Jennings (he worded Titanic theme My Heart Will Go On) are a tad facile, but add punch to the original somewhat whimsy French versions.
Tina Arena is achingly perfect as the simmering gypsy Esmeralda, adding her own magic to tunes such as The Pagan Ave Maria, Live For the One I Love and the duet Shining Like The Sun with Fleur-De-Lys, played opposite a lamentably under-used Natasha St-Pierre. Matching Arena's power is clarion-voiced Bruno Pelletier as narrator Gringiore, who grabs his moment by belting out the sublime intro The Age Of The Cathedrals.
As Quasimodo, Garou is a little one-dimensional but gives his all in big numbers like The Bells with its giant bells with human clappers. Also working hard are Steve Balsamo as the dashing Phoebus, Daniel Lavoie as the sinister priest Frollo and Luck Mervil as the refugees' leader Clopin.
Thanks to the composers and director Gilles Maheu, the mould of the West End/Broadway musical has been deliberately broken here - and well it should, since our musical type hardly sits well with French showbiz tradition. But unlike Lautrec, a perfectly reasonable musical destroyed only by its UK production team, Hunchback takes up where Rent started to go, i.e. to talk to a broader spectrum of theatregoers by letting the music and the performance take centrestage.
In terms of le grand spectacle it's a winner, if not to everyone's taste. Now, if only they'd rejig it and give Tina the final number...

Time Out (2001) by Brian Logan
The addition of Dannii Minogue to the cast of this pompous French blockbuster hasn't relieved its glaring inadequacies. She plays a character - Esmeralda - whose love life charts blitheringly incoherent course, in a musical without the remotest idea how to tell a story. Will Jennings' lyrics are largely unintelligible - which, on the evidence of "Here in my home in he sky/The weather is always nice", is just as well. Gilles Maheu's production fails even on a visual level to suggest answers to that fundamental question: what the hell's going on?
Plot developments only ever become clear in hindsight: in this, nothing unfolds. It's essentially a pop concert, a series of 49 songs that loosely relate to Victor Hugo's novel. Richard Cocciante's tunes - predominantly of the power ballad variety - are sometimes stirring. The sci-fi design is bereft of period atmosphere: the show's comic highlight features three towering stone plinths trundling round the stage in hot pursuit of Esmeralda's lusty agressor, Frollo.
Why are 2,000 people drawn here, every night? Perhaps because this is totally passive entertainment, like a telly. It makes no demands: the spectacle harbours neither complexity nor intimacy. I've seen bad musicals that nevertheless succeed in manipulationg my emotions. But when Dannii was hanged at the climax to this one, my heart maintained its weary plod.

Click on the picture to see the interview

DANIEL LAVOIE	DANNII MINOGUE #1
DANNII MINOGUE #2

Interview made by Alma Mulalic and Marina Delmonaco on 29th July 2000. © Alma - Site Daniel Lavoie

Alma: You did NDP in French and then you chose to come to London, do you prefer NDP in French or English?
Daniel: I think I prefer Notre Dame in French, it was written in French and I find that Luc Plamandon's libretto evoked Notre Dame more than the English translation. That's normal, the adaption is never the same standard as the original.

Alma: What do you think about the English audiences?
Daniel: The English audiences are quite warm. They don't know of Notre Dame and they come in complete ignorance to each show, so we can't expect a reaction like in France where everyone knew all the songs. It's true that in France we had warmer reactions but having said that, the English audiences are very very warm.

Alma: What did you think on the day of the premiere when the critics criticised the show?
Daniel: The way that the critics criticised the schow was so unrealistic and francophobic (French-hating) that I felt a great disappointement with the English press. I thought that they were being stupid. But I've seen the reaction of the public and I've found that the English audiences aren't stupid like the critics and furthermore, time has proved that. It's getting better and better.

Marina: Which is your favourite moment in the show?
Daniel: I have many favourite moments. I think that one of the moments I like the best, and which I've always liked, is the song "Florence". It's a peaceful song which speaks of history and carries Notre Dame into another dimension and makes it not just a story about girls and boys. After "Florence", I like the scene at the cage. It is a very pretty scene but it's very difficult to sing.

Marina: What do you think two seconds after singing "I looooovveee"?
Daniel: It's very techincal, I have to think of my breathing and each time, the manner in which I sing it is different.

Marina: Have you read Victor Hugo's novel?
Daniel: I've only read the summary of the book. I haven't the patience to read the whole novel but I think I will have to. Luc Plamandon adapted the show in his way and I've made my Frollo from what Luc wrote more than what Victor Hugo wrote.

Alma: What do you do backstage, while the other singers are singing?
Daniel: I listen, I talk. I sing, I harmonise. I have the habit of doing that now after 445 shows....

Marina: How does the way you play Frollo change the way you sing?
Daniel: I don't sing the same when I sing Frollo and when I sing my own songs. Frollo is more severe, more technical because he must be 'hard'. In my own songs I have a softer voice, it's different, it's another technique. But probably Frollo has influenced my way of singing, I'll tell you next year.

Alma: Who do you best get on with in the cast?
Daniel: I get on well with everyone. It's with the original cast that I have great friends. I don't have favourites. I have my good friends, Garou, Luck, and Bruno.

Marina: Have you seen other musicals in London?
Daniel: Yes, but I haven't yet seen one that I like. I've heard that "Chicago" is good so I'll go to see it, but apart from that I haven't found the others good at all. I don't care about what the critics say, I think that Notre Dame is above all of them because it's different, it's very modern, and not at all like the 'usual' musicals which are beginning to become boring.

Alma: Are you annoyed when we shout during the show?
Daniel: I love it when you shout. It's true, I like it. We love it when the audience screams, when the audience shouts. We love that, don't hesitate. Everyone likes that. It gives me energy.

This interview was made by Julia Davis for "OK Magazine" (Issue 250 - Feb 9 2001)
Note: I only copied the questions about "Notre-Dame de Paris".

Australian Singing Sensation DANNII MINOGUE talks exclusively to OK! about her new theatre role on the stunning set of her exciting West End show.

She's a successful soap actress, pop start and TV presenter, and now Australian beauty Dannii Minogue is about to set the stage alight as she takes on her first lead role in London's West End.
The magazine pin-up starts in Notre-Dame de Paris as Esmeralda, the exotic beauty who captures the heart of hunchback Quasimodo in this spine-tingling rock opera.
Dannii, 28, who divorced fellow Home And Away actor Julian McMahon in 1995, divides her time between
London and Monaco, home of her fiance, Formula One heart-throb Jacques Villeneuve.
OK! spoke exclusively to Dannii backstage at London's Dominion Theatre as her transition into Esmeralda took place and told us about her exciting new role and plans for the future...

Dannii, congratulations on your new job! Although it's a singing role, Notre-Dame de Paris is not a traditional musical, is it?
It's technically an opera, because there's no spoken words, but it's really more of a 'popera' because it's all pop-rock music. The dancers are fantastic, the music's great and it's very dramatic and edgy. It's about falling in love with the wrong guy who turns out to be a rogue - and we've all done that! Actually, I find a lot of musicals very naff. I did Grease in Australia because I'd grown up watching the film. They asked me to play Sandy, but I thought, forget that, I'm playing Rizzo, because she's much more fun!

Esmeralda is quite a demanding role, what with all the singing, dancing and emotion. Are you nervous about your opening night on February 13?
When I came for my audition, I was just standing there with a microphone in the middle of this massive stage.
It's the biggest stage in the West End. That frightened me! But when I go on I'll be totally prepared. I'll have a
good time and enjoy it.

You seem like a very confident person who isn't daunted by a new challenge. Is that how you see yourself?
Some people like a nice, safe job. I want to do things I've never done before. I don't want to be someone doing Home and Away for years. It was a great learning curve, but after a year I thought, now I'm just on the payroll. I don't want to go there every week just to get paid. I always say yes to a new challenge, then gasp and think, can I do this? But I don't want to take on something that doesn't have that edge to it.

This interview was made by "London Theatre Direct" ©2001 Silver Limited
Note: I only recopied the questions about "Notre-Dame de Paris".

Hi Dannii. Thanks so much for meeting with us. What’s like performing as Esmeralda in Notre-Dame de Paris? What sort of experiences have you had and how do you feel about the role?
I wanted to take on the role because it was a challenge to me personally and professionally. It’s a good challenge. I think people would be surprised that I’d be in a show like this. And I really like the story. It’s a classic story. I think it’s still something that’s quite modern; the themes, the storylines – nothing’s changed. People are still pretty much the same. I generally in acting pieces go for the nasty character and I like to be the (takes on witch-like voice) Ha Ha Ha! Wicked witch. Like the last thing I did was play Lady Macbeth, up in the Edinburgh Festival. And in this one, I’m playing the sweet girl who doesn’t really know what affect she’s having on other people and how their sick and twisted love for her ends up getting her killed in the end. It’s really really tragic… seeing the purity of Quasimodo’s love for her.

What similarities are there between Esmeralda and Dannii?
I think... I mean you always look for, you know, “what could be me in this character?” and she just does what she wants to do. She likes to see beauty in things even though there may not be beauty around her. She likes to be a really free spirit. I’ve always felt that that’s what I’ve done…

Is that part of being an Australian?
Yeah, yeah. I think so, definitely. And very much an Aussie-girl thing where she, she’s actually quite placid. You know, there’s an old saying about step on a sleeping snake and (becomes snake) KSSSSS! And I’m very much like that. Very much. I don’t care who it is, on what authority, or whatever, I don’t like for things to be between right and wrong and if you feel something is wrong, and somebody is being nasty for no reason, it can really upset me. Those things, I really have the similarity. And other things too about Esmeralda. She just goes about doing her thing. She knows she’s got the power to seduce a man and to do her thing. I like that to. Typical girl! You know that you have this thing that you want to use sometime.

Esmeralda is quite a demanding role. How did you prepare for it?
I did a lot of singing training with my singing teacher before the auditions and then after the auditions and before starting the show. Doing lots of very operatic vocal training because it’s a big range, what I have to sing in the show.

Was that fun, or just hard work?
No it’s good. Everybody…It’s such a dramatic piece that it can seem like that, but it’s a good cast, quite a young cast, For me, it’s fun. I wouldn’t have taken it on if it wasn’t going to be fun. I’ve got offered other West End shows before this and I didn’t want to do them. I’m not really into musicals. This is more like a Popera.

How do the audiences compare between here and Australia?
I’d have to have done the same show in both places to compare, but I think generally, British crowds are more reserved.