arts + lit In conversation: Leah Jamieson

Ella

Minty,

Arts and Lit Editor, interviews Leah Jamieson, an actress and musician part of the Pride and Prejudice* (*Sort Of) Tour

LEAH plays Anne, Mary Bennet, Lydia Bennet and Mr Gardiner on the Pride and Prejudice* (*Sort Of) UK tour, which is coming to Exeter’s Northcott Theatre from the 12th-17th June 2023. Read on if you want to know more about how water guns, karaoke and Jane Austen work together in this show...

É: The show has had multiple five-star reviews, has come from the West End and also won the 2022 Olivier award for Best Comedy — what do you think makes it so brilliant and popular with audiences around the UK?

L: Me! Haha, no, joking. I think the main thing about this show is it’s great for people who love Pride and Prejudice, have grown up with P+P and really vibe with P+P, but it’s great for people who have never read it or seen the Colin Firth version, because it’s so true to the Austen original but has brought in a world that’s a bit more accessible, it’s accessible for people who don’t relate to someone who doesn’t have the big posh hats, like I’m a Scouser and I play one of the Bennet sisters! So, it’s accessible for people who don’t feel like they can access classical literature, and it’s just really funny! There’s so much crazy stuff that happens onstage that Jane Austen wrote that our wonderful playwright Isobel McArthur just picks up and puts into her script — I’ve done this show for two years now, and it’s shameful how much I knew about Pride and Prejudice before I started this job. I am still realising that this line that this crazy character says is just what Austen wrote 200 years ago but just manipulated for a modern twist. I’m biased; I’ve done this over 200 times and I still love it!

E: So you weren’t an Austen fan beforehand, then?

L: I wasn’t. I had seen the Colin Firth version, I had seen him coming out of the lake; I had grown up and loved that, but when I got the job and the audition, I read through the script, did the audition, got the job and then thought, “Okay, cool, I need to read the book.” So I sat down and read the book, but because I was doing rehearsals alongside it, it was kind of Austen overload for me, so I didn’t finish it! I have looked at Sparknotes, haha, and I’ve read all of my characters’ scenes.

I think I have to become an Austen fan from doing this show, she’s an absolute genius. We got to go to Bath, which is where Austen grew up. We got to go to the Jane Austen Centre and meet everyone there, which was amazing; their love for Austen really shines through. I think I’ve become an Austen fan from this show; I’m in awe of her.

E: I love Bath, it’s one of my favourite cities! Sticking to the subject of cities, what’s your favourite city you think you’ve visited so far and what city are you most excited to visit on the tour?

L: Ooh! We’ve been doing this since September, so we’ve gone to lots of places. I love Inverness, and that was brilliant. There were beautiful bookshops, and a gorgeous river. We went to the Loch Ness, but we didn’t see the monster. We also did Penzance at the start of this year, and I’m very excited to come back down your way to Exeter and excited to come to Truro. You’ve got a really cool cathedral in Exeter, haven’t you?

É: Yes, we have. It’s lovely.

L: That’s what I want to see. I always love finding the cathedrals in new cities.

É: In terms of touring and going into a new theatre and acting space, do you find it difficult to adapt to a new location and is there anything you do to ease the transition?

L: I’ve got dyspraxia, so I find anything and everything in that sense difficult. But, what usually happens on the Monday or a Tuesday, whenever we start the week, we get in about 2/3pm, we go around the stage and have a look at everything, we look at entrances and exits because there’s a couple of audience entrances and exits, spoiler alert, the show is a little bit interactive. And, we get to run through all the big songs, we do a soundtrack; I mean, one of the hardest things is that every stage is different with sound. We’re at Birmingham at the moment and the seats really go up quite far, it’s like a wall of sound and really echoey. We’ve also done places like Chichester which is really spread out. What’s Exeter Northcott like?

É: Yeah, I’ve been there a couple of times. It’s a really nice space, quite a small audience, it’s not too steep. You’re really near the audience as well.

L: Fun for us; I mean, I get a watergun at some point during the show so that could be fun for the audience.

É: I hear there’s a lot of props in the show, and lots of things that can go wrong. Is there any funny onstage mishaps that stand out to you?

L: Every single night something will happen. At the start of Act 2, it’s Christmas so there’s Christmas bunting wrapped around the bannisters. There’s a big song at the start of Act 2 and we’re dancing, there’s a lovely staircase and we dance on the stairs where the Christmas bunting is. And, some nights, it does just fall off. The top bit will fall and then the whole thing, like dominoes, will just fall. But we’ve got to keep going. That’s happened, we’ve had a sofa break onstage, there’s been loads of different things. The worst thing about it is we as the actors are very professional but if something happens we will have a bit of a giggle. There’s no stopping it, we just have fun with it every single night. I love it when something goes wrong. We have cake falling into the audience and me and the audience have a bit of a stand off, like “are you going to give me back that doughnut?” I love it when things go wrong.

I Love It When Things Go Wrong

É: When everything goes right, is there any particular part of the play that you just cannot stop laughing at?

L: There’s a new bit actually, we had Isobel [the playwright of Pride and Prejudice* (*Sort Of)]come and watch us a few weeks ago. She gave us some notes; some things to work on and change up. There’s a moment where, because our Elizabeth Bennet is Welsh, there’s a moment where one of the other characters impersonates a Welsh accent. And, the Welsh accent just makes me laugh. We know every night that it’s coming up, we know where it is because we’ve been doing this for weeks now. Every single night we just stand there and just hold back the laughs. We’ve spent six months together constantly; I mean I’ve just got back from breakfast with the cast members; we are just constantly with each other. We’re all best mates, so any time something happens onstage we’ll just look at each other, you know when a teacher tells you to stop laughing; we’ll just look at each other and try not to laugh. It’s great because if something happens it’s the kind of show where the audience will laugh, we’ll laugh and then someone will make a joke about it and we’ll carry on. I don’t know what I’d do if it was a serious play, I wouldn’t be in it.

É: How do you think your training at drama school prepared you?

L: I graduated in 2020, so right at the beginning of when Covid was. I finished in March instead of July. I did the actormusicianship course at Rose Bruford College, so I play instruments. I think that’s one of the biggest things that’s got me ready for this show, because I play five instruments in this show. Two of those instruments are instruments I wasn’t comfortable with before this production, but my course allowed me to pick up the instruments and be like “yeah, give me a week. We’ll make it work.” I think that was the main thing. I graduated in 2020, and got this part in September 2021 which is kind of when theatre started opening again. It was my first big job and I got an understudy part for the Original Cast in the West End, which was crazy. Part of me thought “I’ll never go on” but I went on for every single part I was covering. That closed in March 2022, and in September they asked me to be Elizabeth for the first leg of the tour, and then take over as Anne, and I’ve been doing that since January. I was buzzing when I found out I got the role; I did my audition and then went and watched Ian McKellen in Hamlet at Windsor and I couldn’t concentrate. Got a call later on and quit my day job which was great!

É: What instruments do you play?

L: My first instrument was piano, then I learnt saxophone and so I’ve got all different sizes of saxophone. I get to play piano, sax, guitar, accordion and flute in the show.

É: In terms of music, there are some amazing karaoke songs in the play. Which is your favourite to perform?

L: It’s one that I don’t sing in but I do silly stuff in. There’s a scene that involves Etta James, a horse, a mop and a thunder and lightning storm. That’s one of my favourite bits, and also that’s when I get to use the water gun which is always fun. I always know if my family are coming where they’re sitting and where to aim in the audience!

É: You play Mary Bennet and Lydia Bennet, who are very different characters. Do you do anything to switch to the mindset of the different characters?

L: Oh, yeah. It took me ages to figure out where they sat in my body, because for anyone who doesn’t know Austen, Lydia is the young wild child of the Bennet family. She’s fifteen.

Continued on the next page