Actress Marilyn Cutts Finds This Teenage Dance Romp Just The Ticket, As She Tells Lew Baxter, Daily Post
IN MANY respects, it's a great leap of faith from the irreverence of the cult smash hit Fascinating Aida to playing the spouse of a dour reverend who has banned dancing, even if the show is called Footloose, the fancy free bit emerging in the spirited plot.
But actress, singer, opera buff, dancer and apparently all round good egg Marilyn Cutts declares her delight in the chance to kick up her heels, something she does with a snazzy yet classy aplomb as Vi Moore in the stage version of the 1980s hit movie that starred Kevin Bacon.
Marilyn honed her dancing feet at the hands - so to speak - of the esteemed choreographer Mathew Bourne, fabled for his dazzling Swan Lakes amongst other glorious ballets, in an energetic production of Oliver in Canada. And later she had a spell in Oklahoma, itself a fast shuffle shifter.
So Marilyn agrees that Footloose is a romp by comparison and overall, she adds, a terrific feel-good kind of show. It tells the story of teenager Ren who moves to a small town where dancing is forbidden. But hey ho, the fun-loving young Ren and his pals are soon twirling the light fantastic to the rage of the local minister Shaw Moore.
"It is a lovely show and its heart's in the right place as the kids slowly win over the reverend, a man actually grieving for his own son who died in a car crash," explains Marilyn who says it explores the human cost of imposing such restrictions but ultimately carries a moral message.
The 1984 movie struck an instant chord with teenagers even with its heavy gloop of nostalgia, much along the lines of Grease and Bye Bye Birdie and, as Marilyn says, there are super songs to banish the blues. Hits such as Let's Hear It For The Boy, Holding Out For A Hero and the title song Footloose; all written by Bonnie Tyler and Kenny Loggins.
After the movie, the show wowed Broadway for two years, toured the USA and arrived in Britain like a juggernaut on ice, although "high art" it most definitely ain't merely content to be a crowd pleaser and, insists Marilyn, a whole lot of fun.
It might seem, on reflection, a rather strange vehicle for the woman who founded the anarchic outfit Fascinating Aida with Dillie Keane, and with Lizzie Richardson completing the trio, took by storm festivals, theatres and television audiences across Britain.
"That part of my career came together by accident in a way," she reveals. "We had a little singing act we performed in a wine bar in West Hampstead and Dillie was involved in Start the Week.
"We were rehearsing a few songs for the wine bar sessions when the producer of Start the Week asked her if she could bring some friends along to sing a bit. We didn't have the name at that time but off we went," added Marilyn who sighs - because it's the umpteenth time - as she relates that the unusual tag came from a crack by a friend about a singing diva cum striptease artist he'd seen in Latin America.
The trio became hot-spot regulars on such shows as People Like Us, After Hours, TV-AM and of course their own particular favourite Stop The Week, the off the wall skit programme that first unleashed Fascinating Aida's confection on an unsuspecting world. Marilyn made two albums with her pals and cut loose in 1986 to pursue other avenues. A native of
Dulwich, in south east London - and she still lives only half a mile away - Marilyn read English at Manchester University and followed that up with a diploma in drama before her first break came in Godspell! - the show first promoted by the enthusiastic if youthful Cameron Mackintosh
"After acting and singing, dancing was the third thing I got to grips with and I really picked up a lot of stage craft from Roy Hudd in Oliver. He is my theatrical god-daddy. If I learned anything about timing, it came from him.
"He was a terrific role model and deserved his OBE," said Marilyn who has also won numerous accolades for her West End roles, in particular in What A Performance in which she played David Suchet's mother. Later with the RSC - at the Barbican and Stratford - Marilyn played the Dormouse and the White Queen in their dramatisation of both of the Alice in Wonderland books.
Marilyn reveals, though, that her real love is for opera and two of her happiest experiences came when she played Despina in Cosi Fan Tutte with Music Theatre London and later Anina in La Traviata.
"And I just adored being in Opera North's version of Showboat - a work that high fallutin' opera lovers might deride as cross over but was marvellous," commented Marilyn who actually appeared at Liverpool's Empire in that production, and later also in Cococabana.
"I think Liverpool is a great theatrical city and when I was a student in Manchester it had a lively scene with the old Everyman and I remember a few years later John Doyle's wonderful As You Like It there," she adds.
But the gals in Fascinating Aida hadn't finished with Marilyn, even though she assumed she'd taken part in the farewell concert in Hammersmith in 1989.
"It seems it won't lie down and it went on through until last year when I took part in what we called the One Last Flutter tour," says Marilyn, who finally did take her leave after another nine months, and after the show had picked up a coveted Olivier nomination in the 'best entertainment' category.
"I thought it best to bow out on a high and an Olivier is the best, although I hear that Dillie has been wowing the audiences in New York with the show, and I am delighted," she added, though now pleased to have committed to this Footloose tour, which after a short summer break she expects to carry on through to the end of the year.
