Interview: Actor Bill Ward on new musical ARE YOU AS NERVOUS AS I AM? at Greenwich Theatre

Star of stage and screen Bill Ward has joined the cast of brand new, ambitious musical, Are You As Nervous As I Am?, which makes its world premiere at Greenwich Theatre next month. We spoke to Bill about what is it like to work on a new British stage show and how he kept motivated during the pandemic.

Are You As Nervous As I Am? is a brand new British musical. What is it about and tell us a bit about your character?

Well the first thing to say is that it IS a brand new British musical! They’re a bit of a rarity these days so it’s a hugely exciting project to be working on!

It’s about a young Welsh girl, Peggy Edwards, who goes to London in search of her sister, Janet, and ends up finding an awful lot more than she ever possibly imagined… it’s a beautiful, brave and bold story of love, courage, and the pursuit of happiness… the importance of overcoming adversity, and the courage required to follow your dreams.

I play Peggy’s husband Bob Parr, a well known bandleader and composer, who comes home one day to find Peggy in his sitting room… the rest is, well, come and find out!

Many audience members will know you from your highly acclaimed TV work. Do you prefer working in front of the camera or on stage? How does the process compare for you as an actor?

I’ve been lucky enough to have done a fair bit of both - over 30 different TV shows and films, and over 50 plays over the years. The honest truth is I love both - for different reasons. Film and TV for its immediacy, the instinctive choices, the sheer adrenal hit of bringing your performance into the room, and having to stand and deliver with little or no rehearsal opposite people you’ve often literally only just met. It concentrates the mind and can bring a real intensity to the work. Theatre, I love for the time you have to piece something together, almost like a puzzle, the background, the research, the playfulness, the ensemble work, the happy accidents, the bravery of trying things miles outside your comfort zone, the joy of working together towards a common goal…

You've recently performed in a number of very popular musicals. What has it been like to take on a brand new musical?

Brilliant. I love working on brand new pieces. I’ve been lucky enough to do it a fair few times over the years: loads of work from new playwrights on the Fringe and at BAC when I was starting out, working on new plays in development at the National Theatre Studios, workshops of new musicals bound for the West End, as well as staging brand new pieces for the very first time, both in the West End and out on tour. There is a thrill trying to work out the journey, the world, the peaks and troughs of a new piece, as well as the individual character journeys within.

How would you describe the style of music for this show? Who do you think the show will appeal to?

Ooohhh, that’s a good question! The show itself spans four decades, from the mid 1940’s to the early 70’s, so there’s a taste and feel of a few musical styles: jazz, swing, music hall, ballads, and some big full-on showtunes.  The tunes are brilliant. Big. Eclectic. Catchy. I think the most important thing is that they’re all pretty “organic” - the songs come directly from within the scenes themselves, and they’re often very personal.  

In terms of audience, I think it’ll appeal to pretty much all musical-lovers, as well as the wider theatre-going public.  There’s a lot of music in it, and some absolutely beautiful tunes, but there’s also a really strong through line of a story that really drives the show along.

Is there anything you still want to do in your career that you haven't had the opportunity to do yet?

Oh gosh, yes, how long have you got? Many many things. I think one of the joys of this job is that there’s always something to fire the imagination, always something you haven’t tried yet… 

On the theatre front, I’ve always, ALWAYS wanted to have a go at Shakespeare’s Scottish King… he’s such a compelling presence, deeply flawed, but still utterly admirable somehow… and Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman is a remarkable piece of characterisation - Arthur Miller writes like no one else.

On the TV front, I’ve always wanted to be a part of a massive Netflix style epic action fantasy adventure: I’m thinking horses, swords, mud. Possibly even some snow. Game of Thrones, The Witcher, that kind of a thing… something very physical and very violent…

You took on an important role as a Tesco delivery driver throughout the pandemic. Did you manage to find ways to keep your creative juices flowing throughout the lockdowns alongside this work?

Actually, I’ve been very fortunate to have worked pretty much flat out as an actor over the course of the pandemic.

You’re right though, I did work part time at the start of the pandemic as a delivery driver for Tesco for a few months - I really enjoyed it. I was one of the many thousands of theatre workers, and millions elsewhere round the country, who found themselves with their workplace shut down, a family to feed, and not covered by any kind of government support (no furlough, SEISS or UC).  It was a real window on how the country was coping with the lockdown, and an absolute privilege to be out and about and talking to people on the doorstep during the teeth of the pandemic.

I’d been two weeks into a six month theatre tour of The Glee Club (we’d literally just had our press night), a beautiful piece of work by Out of Joint (now Stockroom - a company I’d been dying to work for for 20 years) when the theatres were shut in March 2020.

As we know, it was a pretty scary six months for everyone, both in our business and elsewhere, but the TV industry started to pick itself back up in August 2020 (considerably earlier than theatre was able to, partly due to the insurance scheme) and I’ve been lucky enough to work continually as an actor since.

The other half of my working life is as a professional landscape photographer. Although this too was impacted hugely by the pandemic (lockdowns meant no going out to take pictures), I used the time at home for the first six months to write a book.  I take photographs of every theatre I work in, and have done for over 10 years.  With so many theatres on the brink of going under at the time, with the help of the photojournalist Matty Graham, we put together a book of my theatre photographs to help raise awareness of the plight of the theatre industry nationwide. 

The book, #TheatresInDanger, sold out it’s first print run in 8 weeks, and has since raised thousands of pounds for the Theatres Trust, the charity which has done such a brilliant job helping theatres all over the country navigate their way through the pandemic. The book (£10) is still available via my website at www.billwardphotography.co.uk/theatresindanger. All proceeds go direct to the Theatres Trust.

You can see more of my work via my website or Instagram @BillWardPhotography

Why should audiences come to see Are You As Nervous As I Am? What do you hope they will take away from the show with them?

It’s got a fabulous story, a bucketload of talent, and some great tunes. It’s always tricky to say what people might take away from any show I think - I’d just like people to come and see it and enjoy it - it’s a brave and very beautiful piece of work!

Are You As Nervous As I Am? plays at Greenwich Theatre from from 1-23 October, with tickets available here.