Robert Hewett and Lucy Peacock
The Blonde, The Brunette and the Vengeful Redhead
Do Blondes really have more fun? Brunette Lucy Peacock is having the time of her life playing seven roles in Robert Hewett's Australian hit.
Those who have followed Peacock’s career from the beginning, know that Peacock began to transform her repertoire a few seasons back. The actress often associated with Shakespeare’s classic female roles, or heavy dramatic characters starting strutting her comedic stuff.
Audiences were treated to a Lucy Peacock of a different feather, when she played opposite Seana McKenna in Noel Coward’s Fallen Angels. The laughs were non stop as Stratford leading ladies Mckenna, and Peacock slew Coward’s acerbic insults at one another while dashing about the Avon Theatre stage swathed in satin and sequins, smoking ciggys and slurping martinis galore. T’was divine - rather like a 1920’s version of British sitcom Absolutely Fabulous. Replace Edwina and Patsy with Jane and Julia!
But now what? Peacock was yearning for another big change.
Old friend actor / director Geordie Johnson had the answer the Stratford star was looking for when he called and made Peacock an offer she could not refuse. It was the role of a lifetime – seven unusually diverse characters in a one person show.
Behind a screen in rich silhouette through wig and consecutive simple costume changes, Lucy Peacock prepares.
When you decided to do Robert Hewett's most popular play... what was going through your head – oh My God... or bring it on..
"It was a bit of both. For me, this is the way I work. Ignorance is always absolute bliss as far as I am concerned. So I am a great one for picking up a challenge and being completely oblivious to exactly what I am asking myself to do. Needless to say, Geordie called me from Australia, after seeing Robert's play and there was no doubt in his mind so I trusted that although I had not seen it. I thought, well, Geordie thinks it is worth doing then I am going to give it a shot and also it was so weird because he phoned completely out of the blue. Probably a week before I had turned to my husband and said – You know what I need.? I need a one woman show that I can take around the country or something.
So it was kind of serendipity, you know. It was meant to be and I was also really up for the challenge. I was ..when I had ever considered doing a one person show before of course, I assumed it would be a sort of a classically based something or other. I am kind of thrilled that it isn’t, because it shows a part of my work that I am capable of that no one ever gets to see at Stratford anyway.
This is the first time you have ever done a one woman show. You have narratives but you are also telling a story through the characters. You have such pace and energy – how do you keep it so consistent?
I don’t know how to answer that really except to say it’s what I do – it’s what is required. Certainly over the weeks I have been doing this show, I have learned a lot about that very thing - about pace, about relaxation through pace – about not anticipating any reaction from an audience to any particular character.
