I Am What I Am (19 page)

To begin with, the Maria who was the favourite of the other judges was not my favourite. I thought she was too vanilla; too bland for the role. The young woman who eventually won, Elicia MacKenzie, was one of my choices because she had energy and passion, and she sang from her heart.

As I did in the BBC version of the
Maria
show, I went to Maria School to work with and to meet the contestants. Many of the hopefuls knew me from my musical-theatre work, but more of them were familiar with me from
Torchwood
and
Doctor Who
.
³

During one of my first days on set, I was working on a theatrical exercise with the contestants, and I said something silly about being gay.
⁴
Thanks to Clare, my niece, who was with me at the time,
⁵
an off-the-cuff expression from that day became the Barrowman phrase of the summer. Clare, I might add here, can spread family gossip or stir up drama faster than Perez Hilton and TMZ combined. There’s some sentiment among my immediate family that she learned this trait from me. Never.

Anyway, I said something like: ‘I’m just as much a gay man in Canadaland as I am in England.’ And that was certainly true – I was on a CBC
How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?
float for the city’s gay-pride parade one week (can’t let a parade pass me by), and I discovered after only a few weekends in the city that Toronto is an open and very gay-friendly city.

Thanks to Clare, whenever anyone asked what John was doing that summer, the response was always, ‘He’s being gay in Canadaland.’

Unlike on the BBC talent shows, at the CBC, the panel of judges watched the Maria hopefuls on DVD in dress rehearsal before the live shows. This was not to pre-judge them, but to help the writers and the other judges – who had very little experience in this area – to craft a broad range of responses to each of the contestants’ performances. It also meant the production team could time out the various sections of the script with more accuracy.

In these script meetings, each of us would suggest the kinds of things we might say if the performance that evening was a strong or a weak one. Given this was now my fourth time on a judging panel, I was never at a loss for something constructive and TV-friendly to say. There was one particular judge, though, who, when it was her turn to comment, would hem and haw and then finally say something like, ‘Oh, I’ll probably just tell her she’s good,’ or ‘I’ll probably say I liked what she did.’

Every time. When the show was down to its last six or so contestants, I couldn’t help myself. On behalf of all talent-show judges everywhere, I gently lost it.

‘Stop being so nice. Stop being so Canadian. This is a contest. If she’s rubbish, then tell her she’s rubbish.’

One night during the live show, she made a comment suggesting a particular contestant, Donna Lajeunesse, had too much of an ‘attitude’. I thought this was wrong of her. It’s one thing to comment on a person’s performance; yet another to comment on their personality.

First of all, if Donna did have some kind of ‘attitude’, if she was causing some discontent among the other contestants, then that conflict should have been worked out when she was at Maria School. The judge didn’t need to humiliate her on live TV and perhaps bias the audience towards her. Donna looked perfect as an Austrian Fräulein, and she belted out her numbers with spirit and style. Anyway, the judge ragged on her attitude, calling her a ‘diva’, and commenting how she was badly behaved and how this kind of behaviour can’t be tolerated in theatre … blah, blah, blah.

Originally, the producers had decided they weren’t going to come back to me for my comments after this judge had shared her opinion, but I planned to cut in quickly at a moment when she took a breath. During Barrowman family dinners, sometimes the only way you can get your say is to leap into the fray of the conversation when someone breathed. So I was ready when I heard this judge inhale.

‘Sometimes when you’re a diva,’ I said, ‘you’re perceived as a bitch, but over the course of my career in theatre, every leading lady I’ve worked with has been a diva in some way and they’ve all been very successful, so … well done, Donna.’

‘Where’s John this summer?’

‘He’s being gay and blunt in Canadaland.’

Despite some of the differences in our judging styles, the show’s producers didn’t have to do much work with me because I knew how to produce myself.
⁶
However, the same couldn’t be said about Simon Lee, a fellow judge and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s proxy during the early stages of the elimination process, when Simon had the final say on who should be saved in the sing-offs. Andrew only joined us later in the series as one of the judges.

For years, Simon has been Andrew’s musical supervisor for shows like
Jesus Christ Superstar
and
The Phantom of the Opera
, and he was also involved in the initial stages of the BBC’s
How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?
However, I believed from the beginning that Simon was not a good choice as a judge, and in this venture he didn’t represent Andrew’s interests well at all. Early on, I mentioned to the series producer that she shouldn’t put too much of the show on Simon’s shoulders because I feared he might let the programme down.

For despite Simon’s many talents, as a judge he was a stuttering, twitching mess most of the time. Unfortunately, his influence with the producers continued right up until his arrest. I don’t claim to be prescient or perfect, but I knew many people who’d worked with Simon in the past, and, from the beginning of the production, I was worried about his professionalism. I was also aware of his personal struggles and how they might interfere with the show.

Sadly, it didn’t take long for Simon’s dramatics to go from petty to outrageous, and on the day after the show’s semi-final, Toronto headlines read: ‘Judge for CBC’s
Maria
arrested after alleged assault, confinement at posh Yorkville hotel’ and ‘
Maria
judge charged with assault’.

I didn’t need anything nearly as histrionic for Simon to wear thin on me. The little things he did were quite enough. For example, I did most of the pre-air publicity for the show, and in return for my work, I was hoping I’d get to sing ‘Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic’ with the contestants, and have the opportunity to plug my album,
Another Side
, to the Canadian market.
⁷
This never happened. Instead, in rehearsals that week, the producers informed me that Simon was going to accompany the remaining Marias on the piano during the upcoming show. This didn’t seem fair. Not only because I’d clearly been bumped, but also because Simon had to read his music during the accompaniment. As I said to the producers: if Simon had to read music while he played, how could he fairly judge the Marias’ performances?

‘Do you think the audience will notice that, John?’ asked one of the producers.

Oh, yeah. Viewers are not stupid. They notice everything.

When I was a contestant on
Dancing on Ice
, I remember one week Phillip Schofield called out the final voting without a note card in front of him. Viewers wrote in and complained because they thought he was being told the answers in his ear. It didn’t look kosher, even though it was, and the following week Phillip had the results on a card. This format has subsequently changed as viewers have become used to earpieces.

As we discussed Simon’s planned performance, he piped up in the meeting – in a voice that sounded as if he was parodying a foppish Englishman – and explained he was a professional and would handle the situation appropriately. I let it go. Ultimately, the TV audience saw a few shots of Simon’s hands that particular episode, and no shots of his music. Only the studio audience saw him for the entire number.

Normally, this kind of stuff wouldn’t rile me, but on this occasion I thought that a great deal of the focus on Simon was at the expense of the Maria hopefuls. When I participate in shows like this, I always remind myself that as a judge I can be funny, sassy, maybe even a little in-your-face, but in the end the show is all about the contestants. I’ll get another chance to perform, but these young men and women may not. Unfortunately, Simon’s star turn was yet to come.

On the day of the penultimate show, Carole was visiting, and when we arrived at the studios for filming, the place was already buzzing madly.
⁸
No one on the team had seen Simon since the night before. Naturally, everyone was frantic. By the time Carole and I had made it to my dressing room, we had most of the story. Simon had been arrested and charged with assault, and would not be appearing on the programme anymore.

Earlier on that Sunday, Simon and his subsequent ‘accuser’ had had a very loud ‘domestic dispute’. Both men were still in the throes of their Saturday-night partying in one of the more prestigious hotels in Yorkville – the Hazelton Hotel, just down the street from where I was living. The hotel had an outdoor patio restaurant at street level, and it was the kind of place where diners went to see and be seen; a place the likes of the Beckhams would frequent.

According to one report, the ‘domestic dispute’ quickly became more outrageous and brunch diners were taken aback by the sight of a young man in his twenties climbing over the balcony of the hotel before shinning down the side and crashing down onto the restaurant patio.

‘Oh, look, David, darling. A man’s foot just landed in my sashimi.’

‘How nice, Vicky, I have his elbow in my oysters.’

One published report then stated, ‘The man stormed off, leaving the brunchers stunned, before returning without a shirt about ten minutes later and yelling at the restaurant patrons that he had forgotten something.’

Carole and I synthesized and filtered all the details we’d gathered since we’d arrived, and then I went off to a script reading with the two other judges and the show’s producers. We were about twenty minutes into the meeting and still no one had asked the question that was looming like a big fat elephant in the room. I gave them a couple more minutes before I said, ‘Um … did you all hear that Simon’s in jail?’

You’d have thought I’d just announced the Pope was gay or I was having Tom Cruise’s baby. Jaws dropped. Coffee spilled. The producers were then forced to explain to the other judges that Simon had been arrested and he would not be available for either the semi-final or the finale of the show.
⁹

I’m a good guy and my parents raised me well, but, honestly, can you blame me for not biting my tongue? I looked at the producers and at my fellow judges, I shrugged, and then I said (all together now), ‘I told you so.’

The remaining Marias felt terribly let down. Simon had not only disappointed them, but he’d also let the programme down. In the end, his ‘accuser’ did not show up in court to press charges and the Canadian court exonerated Simon of all the charges against him.

‘But where’s John?’

‘He’s being gay, blunt, and gloating a teeny tiny bit in Canadaland.’

Oh yes, I did see my life flash before me during an evening performance of
Robin Hood
at the Birmingham Hippodrome in 2008, and all I kept repeating to myself was, ‘Please don’t let me die in tights.’

I’ve heard all the criticism about pantomimes before, and I hear it all over again from friends or colleagues when the announcement is made that, once more, I’ve agreed to perform in pantomime again at Christmas. I hear all about how panto is theatre at its lowest common denominator; about how panto is cheesy and outdated; and about how it’s beneath a performer of my range; blah, blah, blah. This is usually my response: come see one of mine and I dare you not to have a good time. Can’t be done.

Paul Elliot wrote my panto scripts for
Aladdin
and
Robin Hood
. He has a unique gift for appealing to the mums, dads, grans, uncles and aunties in the audience who are nostalgic for the pantos of their youth, but at the same time he’s enough of a student of theatre and a whizz with a one-liner that his scripts also appeal to the wide range of children and young adults sitting next to those mums, dads, grans, uncles and aunties. Let’s not forget that even Shakespeare was not above playing with cross-gender high jinks, mistaken identities and the theatrics of fools and fops.

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve loved to dress up and perform. As you know, that tradition continued when Clare and Turner were children and we would all dress up for our family performances at Christmas and the Barrowman New Year party. I’ve always adored working with children and for children. I enjoy seeing them laugh … and maybe even scaring them a little. On a whim, I did both to a whole crew of
kids and their parents last year, when I stopped by the Doctor Who Up Close exhibition in the Red Dragon Centre at Cardiff Bay.

The exhibit is one of the best of its kind in the country. For a small fee, you can walk through the history of the Doctor and his companions – including yours truly as Captain Jack – checking out a lot of the costumes and props from across the series and from a number of recent episodes. You can also meet many of the Doctor’s most famous enemies. On top of all of this, the exhibition has loads of details about how episodes were produced and images created. For any fan of the show, it’s a treat.
¹

The Red Dragon Centre also houses my local cinema. One evening, when the movie Scott and I planned to see was sold out, we had about an hour to kill before the next showing. Since I didn’t fancy heading home and coming back again, I suggested we take a peek at the
Doctor Who
attraction.
²
Poor Scott. In these situations, he usually rolls his eyes and wanders off to the nearest newspaper stand or bookstore.

As is often the case, a number of families were working their way round the displays when I entered, answering the trivia questions connected to each of the exhibits. No one paid much attention to the man in the baby-blue polo shirt who looked an awful lot like Captain Jack, as he snuck past the display of K9 …