In 1995 he was starring in a production ofThe Secret Garden,playing Archibald Craven,a man with a tragic past who takes in his recently orphaned niece. Warlow had been diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma a few years earlier and at the time of the production was undergoing treatment.
“I had been in the news because of my cancer,and I was bald,” Warlow recalls,“and this character of Archie Craven was absolutely beautiful to look at – he had long shoulder-length hair,full beard,dark,very Edwardian.” For his first appearance he stepped out on stage fully done up with a wig and sang the role in an English accent. Immediately management began to receive angry letters from people demanding their money back – the crowds thought they weren’t seeing Anthony Warlow as promised.
The seasoned performer has played some of the most coveted and well-known characters in theatre on stages around the world,from the titular roles inThe Phantom of the Opera andSweeney Todd:The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,through to starring in My Fair Lady,Annie andThe Secret Garden. He’s speaking to this masthead ahead of his appearance inTitanic:The Musical in concert,where he will be singing the role of Captain Edward Smith.
Warlow describes the score as complex and moving. “It’s a difficult score to play with – it’s the closest I’ve come to my old opera days.” Alongside relishing the challenge the music offers up,it was the opportunity to play someone real that drew him to the project. “I’ve mainly played fictitious characters in my musical career and that’s wonderful because you can imbue them with certain things that are you. In this case,it’s been about finding more information about Edward Smith,” he reflects.
For Warlow,the preparation phase for any role is long. “I’m a bit spoiled,” he says with a laugh. “I like to have two to three months to ingest the ideas and the script and the music.” He doesn’t spend this time making sure to get things perfect,because as a goal it’s impossible and often inauthentic to who it is he is portraying. “I’m not one of those people that go ‘I’ll do a character and then when I sing,it’s me.’ Thecharacter has to do the singing. And if that means that there are flaws in the voice,that’s part of the character.”
This is a concert production,which means that costumes and set,if any,will be minimal and the focus is solely on the music and the performances. This hasn’t shifted the way he prepares to get into character,however. He started by going to the New York Public Library to watch videos of the original stage production – which,through a twist of fate came out in 1997,the same year as the James Cameron film version – and then read and watched everything he could find about Smith to get a sense of the man.
The extent to which he is inhabiting the role comes through in the way he speaks about the man whose final days he performs on stage;with familiarity,empathy,curiosity and frustration.