I love it when we speak to people. It happens quite often and they've been on the stage the night before.

I always think it marks them out as sort of proper troopers, you know, because I know I bang on about theatre is tiring and a lot of people may say, no, it's not get a proper job, but it is, it's tiring.

And then when these actors come in the next day,

now, today's was on stage last night in a musical in the hugely well-received Oklahoma,

which is running at the moment. It's only Arthur Darville.

Hello. Hello. How was the show last night?

It was really good last night. We had lots of students in. I actually had my drama teacher from school who came to see it last night. He brought 50 students and they were wild.

He must be very proud of you. Yeah, he was quite proud. Have you kept in touch with him? We have, yeah, yeah, yeah. He was quite a big influence on me when I was growing up. So yeah, we've very much kept in touch. But it was great to have a bunch of kind of squealing 16 to 18 year olds. It's a different energy when there's a lot of young people in the audience. It is a different energy. It's nice. I like it.

As opposed to a Wednesday matinee. Which is different. I went to a matinee yesterday of dancing at Lunasa. Oh yeah? Yeah. Fantastic. Yeah. At the national. It's a great play. I felt young. Oh, good. I felt young. That's why we should all be going to Wednesday matinees. Wow. Well, you were already through young. I mean, I was, yeah, it was one of the first times this occurred to me. And I've done plays and I've looked out at matinees and I've seen grey hair so, da, da, da, but I really noticed it yesterday at the national. I think it's a particular crowd that goes to the national as well. That's maybe a little bit different to West End. It feels like it's got his own vibe. Yeah, it does. I mean, it's been interesting in the West End. I thought it would be much older crowd. But yeah, no, it's been a really interesting. I haven't been in the West End for a while. And we did this show at the Young Vic last year. And it was a very young, diverse, brilliant, excited crowd.

And I thought it would be very different in the West End.

But it's been really great.

Because it's not a traditional production of Oklahoma.

No, by no.

Explain the difference.

Well, it's all the same songs.

It's all the same script. It's all the same script.

Nothing's really been changed.

But we have brought out some of the darker elements in it,

of which there are many.

So it's not, oh, what a beautiful morning.

Oh, what a foreboding. Yeah, I would have foreboding. Yeah, we've just changed the odd line to make it more dark. How can you bring out the darkness in a show where they're going, oh, what a beautiful morning? Well, this is the thing. It's the play, which was written, it was based on a play written in the 30s, which was about the creation of Oklahoma State, written by Lynn Riggs, who was of Native American descent, and was writing about the violence of that period.

And all of that is still in the play. So it kind of presents itself as a love story. But really, it's a love story occurring on land that's been stolen.

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