London theatre icon Rob Madge: I’ve been drinking with Joanna Lumley (imagine if it was Echo Falls!)
Rob Madge is one of Britain’s biggest grassroots theatre success stories. They tell Adam Bloodworth about their creative process
You might not have heard of Rob Madge, but it’s hard to sum up the massive impact their career has had on the UK theatre industry. Madge, who uses they/them pronouns, has a naturalistic style of acting that hasn’t quite been seen before on London stages.
Their inaugural show, My Son’s A Queer (But What Can You Do?) is one of only a small handful of recent shows to go from the Edinburgh Fringe to the West End. The one-person biographical play celebrates Madge’s early life putting on fashion shows in their living room and is basically a big dress-up show for adults and teenagers. The show, which has a gorgeously handmade feel to its props and performance style, was awarded five-stars by City AM, won a WhatsOnStage award and was nominated for an Olivier.
They are now bringing a new show, Buyer & Cellar, to Plymouth for a limited run. Written by Jonathan Tolins, the piece ran at the newly-reopened King’s Head Theatre in Islington this autumn. But first I ask Madge how it feels to be one of the biggest grassroots success stories of recent years in London theatre? “It feels lovely,” starts the 28-year-old from Coventry. Madge is more serious in-person than you might expect, but laughs awkwardly when I ask, taking a moment to respond. “I’m deeply, deeply proud. It’s amazing and it blows my mind every day, I’m very proud to have done that.”
Madge disarms on stage, looking so comfy under the lights that it can give the impression that they’re not acting at all, instead having a casual conversation with the audience. They don’t resonate with ‘traditional’ acting, or having a fourth wall between themselves and the audience. They’d rather chat and interact with the people watching them, which brings a beautiful intimacy that led My Son’s A Queer to its success. “I really enjoy imagining we’re in a communal space where I’m telling a story and it puts people at ease. I bring that comradery with a crowd.”
Just don’t confuse looking casual with feeling it. They say they’re in a state of “generic panic” before performances, and try to shake that off by doing “a lot of pacing” in the dressing room before going on stage.
I wish casting directors would open their eyes more. Casting in general can be very close-minded. Why can’t a bald person play someone with hair?
When it comes to finding inspiration for theatre shows, as well as skits for their TikTok and Instagram accounts, Madge says it comes from some of the most ordinary places in life. The village pub back home in the Midlands is a great place for story-sourcing. “It’s 10/10 in terms of content,” says Madge, half joking, half deadly serious. “Whenever I go back to visit people they say, ‘you’re writing something new aren’t you’ and I say, ‘yeah, and you will be featured!’ I generally like observing human interaction anywhere, not so much in these sorts of spaces, that is where we exploit that.”
We meet one endlessly rainy afternoon in a rehearsal space in an old Victorian building in Southwark that Madge describes as “giving that school in Matilda. Miss Trunchbull’s going to walk through at any second!” If Madge’s acting style suggests they’re a natural fit for the stage, interviewing them proves that. Every few minutes Madge notices an opportunity to sea- son a sentence with a dramatic flourish. When they do, they sit up straight and their voice turns into something hammed up for the stage. Often the flourish is combined with a pun. “You have to place very firm boundaries in own mind as to what is for the diary, and what is for the story – I mean Instagram story!” they joke when I ask what time away from work looks like.
While Rob Madge is serious about LGBTQ representation, and changing the narrative around bald actors and the jobs they can get (“I think in general casting can be quite closed minded; you write people off based up on stupid, stupid physical attributes”) their main message is that the medium of entertainment is essential as a balm for queer people and their allies.
When we’re done talking about the casting agents Madge “wishes would open their eyes a bit more,” and how minority groups having limited access to roles is “outrageous,” Madge is keen to dish gossipy stories on the famous names they’ve worked with. They had a pinch me moment recently backstage at the London Palladium.
One night after performing in the panto co-star Jennifer Saunders invited them back to her dressing room. “I asked ‘why?’ and she said, ‘don’t ask, just come.’ So I knocked on her door and there was Joanna Lumley. So me, Joanna Lumley and Jennifer Saunders. This is such a clang of a name drop, but please humour my gay excitement. Me and Patsy and Edina from Absolutely Fabulous just shared a bottle.” They laugh a big gleeful laugh. “Just the three of us in Jennifer Saunders’ dressing room! It was just bizarre. The craziest thing.”
What do Lumley and Saunders drink? “Imagine if I said Echo Falls!” laughs Madge. “Patsy having Blossom Hill. God I can’t remember but whatever it was, it tasted lovely! I asked Joanna if she’d be interested in the panto and she said, ‘Oh no I couldn’t possibly.’ Then she saw Jennifer’s outfit, put on the Captain Hook coat and said: ‘you know what, maybe I could one day.’ We spoke about all the camp things in life which was a 60 minutes I’ll cherish forever.”
We might not have been invited, but through their work, particularly in new show Buyer & Cellar set in the basement shopping mall of Barbra Streisand’s house (yes it really exists) Madge hopes to help us escape real life just for a moment.
“Five years down the line and we’ll need the trauma bonding stories back,” Madge says of LGBTQ shows like It’s A Sin on the AIDS epidemic. “They have always been really important and relevant and will never not me. I just wanted to be part of the movement that shows the other side of the coin so we have a fully rounded concept of the queer experience rather than only seeing the factual sad parts. If that’s all we focus on then people who aren’t part of our community will think that it’s horrendous all the time. Of course it can be but it doesn’t have to be.
“We’re playing dress up and I want to remind people of that. We take it seriously because the work matters, but we’re all here to have a good time.”
Rob Madge’s show Buyer & Cellar plays Theatre Royal Plymouth from 29 Oct – 2 Nov; theatreroyal.com
Read more: The best things to do in autumn 2024, from amazing new films to London theatre