I Am What I Am

by John Barrowman

  The camera rehearsal can take all day and well into the evening. The most difficult part of this day was keeping focused when there was so much chatter and commotion, and while the crew were constantly moving around. Given the chaos, I tried to keep the mood light and to have some fun.26

  While I was rehearsing ‘Boogie Wonderland’ for one of the shows’ opening numbers, I did my signature turn and then sang the first part of the song while doing my impression of Shakira – which wasn’t half bad and cracked everyone up. When I shifted into Patti LuPone for the last half of the number, however, the laughter dropped to polite tittering because only Gav, Carole and Claire, our vocal coach, actually knew who I was mimicking. Oh, those television people.

  Midway through taping the series of shows, Gav, Mel, Mo and I made a decision to cut a segment that the audience enjoyed and I really liked participating in, but which was taking up far too much of my time during the week. The segment was called ‘Stage Fright’, and it involved me competing against a celebrity in a performance smackdown during the live taping. One week, I learned how to fire-toss – and managed to singe most of the hair off my lower arm in practice. Another week, I trained to be a freestyle footballer. I was rubbish at dribbling the ball, but I did master a couple of tricks, including taking my shirt off while keeping a ball27 balanced between my shoulder blades.

  On Sunday, the studio audience is seated between 5.30 and 6 p.m. (which usually meant Scott dashed into his seat at 6.15 p.m.). This became one of my favourite moments on a Sunday: standing in the wings having my mic adjusted, my make-up touched up, and watching yesterday’s craziness morph into … maybe not calm, but certainly a cool professionalism. The studio felt electric and alive with the energy from the band, the crew, the other performers and the audience, and when I stepped onstage, the energy ratcheted up two more notches.28

  When I sensed the same passion and excitement I had for the show from the crew, the cast, and even the viewers I met in Costco when I was picking up dog food, it made me want to push myself even more – not just onstage, but also creatively. I loved co-producing television for the first time, and in the future I’d like to add to my résumé and produce a show in the West End. I love that Barrowman Barker Productions could have a hand in bringing TV recognition to all the terrific theatre performers who don’t get much exposure. This was one of the reasons why so many of the dreams we fulfilled on TTN were related to musical theatre. The casts of Mamma Mia!, Hairspray and High School Musical were all part of Tonight’s the Night.

  Over the years, I’ve tried to learn something from every project I’ve ever been a part of. From this experience on Tonight’s the Night, I’ve noted that when a show has a good team of producers and they are all in sync with the talent, they feed off each other’s ideas and take the show to heights that may not have been planned for.

  Murn and my Auntie Jeannie would have loved Tonight’s the Night, and I thought of them often when I was watching the programme from my couch in Sully on Saturday nights.29 The first time I saw the show’s closing credits, and the Barrowman Barker logo came up right next to the big BBC one, I couldn’t stop grinning. Seeing those images side by side made my night and fulfilled one of my longest-held career dreams.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ‘JOINTS AND JAM’

  ★

  ‘Those who wish to sing, always find a song.’

  A favourite sign I saw in a theatre dressing room years ago

  Five highlights of my ‘An Evening with John Barrowman’ tour

  1 The fans, the fans, the fans (you’re all too good to be true).

  2 Ripping my trousers in Glasgow (this may be a regular occurrence in the lives of some, but for me it was a first).

  3 Performing at the Royal Albert Hall (Vegas, here I come!).

  4 The standing ovations (never got old).

  5 Having a catering service at my beck and call (for food, for food).

  I’m proud to confess that I’ve done something that I’m pretty sure the Rolling Stones, in all their years of touring, have not. Wait for it. To date, I’ve been on two concert tours: one in 2008 to promote my album Another Side; and another in the spring of 2009, for ‘An Evening with John Barrowman’ (also known as my Music Music Music tour). On each occasion – here it is – my parents were part of my entourage.1

  My ‘grey groupies’ took their position in my tour so seriously that they went into training a month ahead of time to get ready for tour life. Their training regime consisted of sleeping at odd hours of the day and night for inconsistent lengths of time, eating catered dinners with big yummy desserts, dressing straight from a single suitcase and, finally, practising doing ‘The Slosh’ in their bedroom.2 In truth, they really did get in shape for this tour, increasing their mileage on the treadmill at their home in Brookfield, Wisconsin, because they knew they’d need all the energy possible to keep up with their baby boy. When they stepped off the plane at Glasgow Airport to join me at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall on 14 May 2009, they were ready for their marathon of music, music, music.3

  For me, touring is one of the most satisfying things I do because when I’m singing in front of an audience, no matter how many, I feel more connected to my fans; and when I perform live, my audience never knows quite what to expect. I love being able to be spontaneous and to improvise. On my first tour in 2008, I scripted a lot of what I thought I might want to say between songs, but after the first night, when I realized I’d referred to the script only once, I binned it.

  For this most recent tour, I altered a few things from my Another Side concerts. My caterers on this tour had food as fabulous as their name – Eat Your Heart Out. I hired four of my J8 dancers from Tonight’s the Night (known as the J4s for the tour) and they had a variety of costumes and a number of wardrobe changes. I added more flashy suits with buckles of bling for yours truly, plus a video screen, showing family pictures and photos exploring my life, to complement the music; I hoped the images gave fans more insight into ‘JB’. I told stories that had either recently happened or that the majority of my fans would not have heard before, and most of my banter was pretty off the cuff. I sometimes had an idea about a bridge between my songs, or I used a repeated phrase at the end of my link to give my musical director, Matt, and the band their cue, but many times I didn’t know exactly what I was going to say until I started to say it.4 Oh, and I had Danny Boys with me every night.5

  What remained the same? I hired the same musicians for the band who’d toured with me in 2008, and most of the same hard-working crew. Plus, I kept the same parents.

  When Neil O’Brien, my tour agent, and Gavin and I were choosing the cities for the tour, I told them that I wanted to perform at bigger venues. Some day, I’d love to perform in Las Vegas, maybe even take my concert tour on the road in America, but promoters in the US are not interested in backing a tour until a performer can show that he or she can sell out in bigger venues. This tour was a step towards meeting that goal and, amazingly, I sold out every venue we booked. In fact, before I’d even reached my final performance at the Royal Albert Hall in London, I heard from their management that they wanted to make sure the Royal Albert Hall was on my itinerary for 2010.6

  Every audience on this tour had a distinctive personality. I adjusted my banter and played and joked with them accordingly. For example, about ten minutes into the show in Glasgow, I realized I’d slipped into my Scottish accent and was blethering with the audience just as if I’d gotten off the corporation bus with them at George Square. Normally, this wouldn’t have mattered, but the Glasgow concert was filmed for a DVD release – and so the accent might throw off viewers who don’t know my family’s history.

  As it turned out, my accent was the least of my concerns in Glasgow. I was having some fun introducing the band and the dancers when, suddenly, I tore my trousers: the rip was big enough that my white briefs could be seen from the balcony.

  Despite my comments in an earlier chapter about how well West End pe
rformers can lift their dance partners, I’d made a vain attempt to lift one of the J4s as she was leaving the stage. All I’d succeeded in doing was popping my trouser seam. Funnily enough, not everyone in the audience was aware of what I’d done, until I told them – in between bursts of hysterical laughter – because I initially kept my rear to the band. All was recorded for posterity on the DVD, of course.

  After Rhys, my PA, made a mad dash to the tour bus and rummaged through my already packed suits, I took a quick break, dashed offstage and changed into an intact pair of trousers for the rest of the show. Bob’s your uncle!7 Thank God for all those years of changing in the wings between scenes.

  In Blackburn, the audience was ready to ‘partay’. So much so that by the middle of the second act, they were dancing in the aisles and almost right onstage with me. Thank goodness the set was raised and I had some height on them. At one point, I cut out a couple of stories because I was worried about the folks in the front row … and myself, to be honest. Even at the close of my encore, the Blackburn fans kept dancing and shouting for more.

  At the Oxford concert, a hyperactive usher with a torch kept darting up and down the aisles, shining his light on anyone who was taking pictures on mobile phones. He was distracting everyone with his diligence, including me. If there was one phone on, there were hundreds (even though the tour management had, as they so often do, asked that no pictures be taken). In fact, it was a bit like watching a wave wash across the hall when they all beamed on … which reminds me of a relatively recent concert experience of my own.

  I was attending a charity gig at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium. It was being held on behalf of one of the aid charities raising money after the terrible tsunami in 2004. David Tennant, Russell T. Davies, Julie Gardner, Phil Collinson (then a producer of Doctor Who), and I were seated together in a private box. We had filled our plates from the buffet and were jamming to Keane when, all of a sudden, Russell and I looked across the audience and saw that a Mexican wave had started across the stadium. Russell looked at me and we both cracked up. Doing the wave at a tsunami concert was so wrong.

  At my concerts, which were slickly managed and precisely organized thanks to Paul Crockford (our tour producer) and Steve Rayment (tour manager), it turned out that there was a good side to the wave of mobiles in my audience. All those fans snapping pics and taking videos meant that my family in the States was able to track the tour via YouTube. When my mum and dad first joined me onstage in Glasgow, my mum to sing a duet of ‘Amazing Grace’ and both of them to dance with me, Carole and Clare texted ‘bravo’ to them within hours of their performances thanks to YouTube.

  My parents had so much fun doing ‘The Slosh’, a line dance performed at Scottish weddings almost as much as the hokey-cokey or the Gay Gordons.8 Although The Slosh can be set to any number of songs, our family’s favourite is Tony Orlando and Dawn’s ‘Knock Three Times’. As the tour continued, I worked it out with the male dancers, James and Jamie, that they’d lift my mum at the end of the dance. Unfortunately, the female dancers, ‘Jennie Fabulous’ and Kate, had a bit more work to do to get my dad into the air; instead, they’d lift up only one of his legs. At every venue, during the interval, my parents had a line of requests for their autographs and photos.

  I loved the fact that this concert tour was a family affair. What with having my parents physically with me, plus the company of the video of family photos, which showed snaps of the whole gang, I really felt as if the entire Barrowman clan was with me on this tour.

  When I performed at the Cardiff Arena, it was like playing on my home turf. Cardiff was my largest audience of the tour because the venue was an indoor stadium. The numbers were easily in excess of 2,500; I was thrilled. After that concert, I threw a party for many of my neighbours and BBC Wales friends, including David Tennant, who I had made sure had seats in a private box for the gig. He’d have been mobbed otherwise.

  From Cardiff, we headed to the Portsmouth Guildhall, where it was difficult to leave after the concert because the waiting crowds outside the stage door were massive. Regrettably, all I could do was thank them for their support, and then I had to get straight into the van.

  If I were to sign autographs after each concert, I’d be standing outside for hours after being hot and sweaty and exhausted. No matter how much I’d love to spend time chatting with my fans, first and foremost I have to preserve my voice. This holds true when I’m in a West End show and for pantomime, too. The next day’s audience, after all, deserves the same quality of voice and the same energy as the audience who are waiting outside after the show. To be fair to each audience, I no longer hang around for very long in the cool night air.

  When I played Jack in Jack and the Beanstalk in Cardiff in 2006/07, for Qdos Entertainment and Paul Elliott Ltd., I got really ill from signing after the show; and the same thing happened when I was in Aladdin in Birmingham in 2007/08; and again the following year while I was performing Robin Hood.

  Paul Elliott, by the way, is not only the Panto King,9 but he also has a history as rich and as long in theatre as, well, Shakespeare. Paul has been involved in some of the most celebrated West End productions since his career as a producer began in the sixties, including Private Lives with Alan Rickman; the RSC production of The Hollow Crown with Dame Diana Rigg and Sir Derek Jacobi; and, more recently, Thoroughly Modern Millie starring Amanda Holden; The Philadelphia Story with Kevin Spacey; and Macbeth with Patrick Stewart. I love doing panto under Paul’s auspices.10 He understands a theatre audience better than anyone I know, he’s funny, has lots of juicy theatre stories, a work ethic I admire, and he’s become a dear friend and mentor as I branch out into the production side of this business. When Paul says he’s going to do something, he does it. Oh yes, he does.11

  Given what happened to my health during those panto seasons, I did experience a learning curve and I decided the best thing for me – and my voice – was to get into the van right away after a concert. During the tour, that wasn’t always as easy as it sounds. You know me – I could never drive away from the stage door and not say anything to all the fans waiting, sometimes close to two hundred of them. That’s not who I am. Instead, I tried to give my fans something special before I left, even if it was only standing up through the sunroof and waving, or walking over to where the fans were gathered and saying a quick hello.

  Whenever I had a day off between concert venues, and if the journey was a reasonable one, my parents and I returned to my house in Sully, where I slept in my own bed, played with my dogs,12 and cooked my own meals. Otherwise, the rhythm of the tour went like this.

  My concert entourage travelled in two huge coach buses: one transported the crew and all the stage set-up, and the other carried all the musicians, dancers and their baggage. My parents, Rhys and I travelled in a kitted-out Mercedes Viano supplied by the Sinclair Group, Cardiff. My parents sat in the back on captain’s chairs, with their feet up and their books and their sweeties on their laps. I took the middle chairs that became a bed if I needed to sleep while we travelled from venue to venue.

  Immediately after a performance, my van and the band’s bus would travel to the next concert location while the crew stayed behind and de-rigged the venue; then, instead of going to the hotel with the others in the entourage, the crew would travel directly to the next venue and immediately set up for the forthcoming show.

  My parents and I often arrived at the hotel around 2 or 3 a.m. Rhys and Sean, my driver, would unload everything from the van. My mum and dad and I would sleep until midday, and then we’d go to the new venue for my soundcheck, rehearsal and a proper lunch. I always arranged for a late checkout from the hotels so that this schedule was possible and we didn’t have to worry about housekeeping disturbing our beauty sleep.

  After lunch, the crew would head to the hotel, where they’d sleep until the end of the show itself, and then they’d return to the venue when the concert was over, de-rig everything, and begin the process again. The only time the e
ntire entourage came together for an extended time was when the folks from Eat Your Heart Out served lunch, or early dinner,13 after the soundcheck rehearsal.

  Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise: food on the road was fabulous. Every night, we had a spread of dishes and desserts that was so luxurious that if I wasn’t burning up so many calories each evening, I’d have been ripping my trousers at every venue – not just Glasgow.

  The dancers and the band travelled in what I called the Super Bus. It was an amazing vehicle. I’d love to drive across this country or the US in one like it some day. The upstairs was kitted out as an entertainment room, with a big TV that was equipped with more video games than anyone had time to play. The bus had plenty of movies, and beds to cater to everyone’s needs, in case anyone wanted a snooze while we journeyed to our hotel. The kitchen was downstairs and comfortably sat four, plus there were showers, toilets – naturally – and lots of comfy couches.

  These buses were massive and expensive to run. I was originally planning to travel with my parents on a Super Bus, but because I wanted to have more dancers on the tour, the budget demanded I give up my bus.14 It was a worthwhile sacrifice. I loved having the J4s – Jamie, James, Kate and ‘Jennie Fabulous’ – with me. They made the show stronger, and since we had danced together on Tonight’s the Night, we had a terrific working and playing relationship.