To say that Norman
Bowman is excited is something of an understatement. As the Arbroath
born actor and musical theatre star prepares to open in Michael
Grandage's new production of Shakespeare's Henry V featuring Jude Law
in the title role, Bowman can barely contain himself. He may only be
doubling up in the relatively small parts of soldiers on opposing
sides, Nym and Williams, but, after a career playing in number one
tours of Grease and West Side Story, where he played the lead roles
of Danny Zucko and ex gang member Tony, doing Henry V is clearly the
biggest thrill in the world.
“I love Shakespeare,”
Bowman enthuses, “and with this job I've landed on my feet. It's
one of the best companies, the best director and a fantastic lead
actor, so it's fantastic. Actors very often do jobs out of necessity
rather than desire, but this is a labour of love.”
Bowman was cast in
Henry V after Grandage saw Bowman playing Ross in Kenneth Branagh's
Manchester International Festival production of Macbeth. Bowman had
already worked with Grandage, when he played Harry The Horse opposite
Ewan McGregor in Guys and Dolls. Bowman later took on the role of
Skye Masterson in the same show opposite Patrick Swayze, and appeared
in Grandage's production of Twelfth Night, which starred Derek Jacobi
as Malvolio.
While such a track
record wouldn't necessarily mean an actor would be fast-tracked to a
director's next production, Grandage was impressed enough by Bowman's
turn as Ross to offer him the part without an audition.
“That doesn't happen
very often,” Bowman observes. “I try to be cool, calm and
collected about it, but I'm literally on Cloud Nine.”
Bowman had little
notion about acting until, aged sixteen, a friend took him along to
the local amateur dramatics club, where that year's pantomime was
being rehearsed.
“I had no idea what I
wanted to do in life,” Bowman recalls, “but I thought this
sounded like fun, so I went along, and ended up joining other
societies, got a line here and there, which led to bigger parts,
which led to lead parts, and so it went.”
Bowman went to Perth
were he studied on a rock music course.
“I thought that would
be the closest I'd ever get to performing,” he says.
That was before one of
his lecturers, spotting Bowman's potential, suggested he go to London
and do the round of auditions for musicals. After three months,
Bowman was cast in Les Miserables, which he performed in both on the
West End and on tour.
“My life changed,”
says Bowman. “I look back at someone who was essentially a shy boy
from Arbroath, and I'm surprised at the leaps that I took when I
didn't really know what I was doing. That's what happens when you
want something, I guess. You take those leaps, and Les Miserables
became a part of my life for two years. It was a great introduction
for me, but it was also a little bit scary, because you think you're
not going to get picked up for another show, and maybe that's it.”
It wasn't, as roles in
productions of Sweeney Todd, The Pirates of Penzance, Sunset
Boulevard and Cats proved. Bowman also appeared in Carousel at
Chichester Festival Theatre and as Demetrius in an open-air
production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at Regent's Park.
“I'm still just a boy
from a small town on the east coast of Scotland,” Bowman says, “and
to look at all these people of worked with, I keep on having to pinch
myself.”
Beyond Henry V, Bowman
will rejoin Branagh's Macbeth company in June 2014 when the
production transfers to New York.
“It's fantastic to
have that on the horizon,” says Bowman. “Macbeth was a dream job,
so to get to do it again in such glamorous surroundings is even
better, especially as Broadway is completely saturated with Brits at
the moment.”
Bowman's ambitions
don't stop there, however.
“I wish I had the
cojonas to try some of the big, chunky Shakespeare parts,” he says.
“I'd love to have a go at Hamlet or Richard III. I just don't want
to get too set in my ways, and try to do work that excites me.”
Which brings us back to
Henry V
“Once more into the
breach,” Bowman says, as he makes his way back to the rehearsal
room, sounding every inch a king.
Henry V, The Noel
Coward Theatre, London, November 23rd-February 15th 2014
The Herald, November 19th 2013
ends
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