#essen professional footage where are you where are you!

[derschleierfallt]

need to know where this is from not even lying

[thewidowstanton]

Peter Groom, actor, choreographer and drag artist – Dietrich: Live in London

Peter Groom, who comes from Newcastle upon Tyne, graduated from the Guildford School of Acting in 2013, and has since worked both in the UK and internationally. His dance credits include One Side to the Other for Akram Khan Company, and his theatre work includes Romeo and Juliet and Adventures of Sherlock Holmes at the Aquila Theatre in New York. He was artist in residence at Battersea Arts Centre in London in 2014.

In January 2018 Peter launched his multi award-winning solo show, Dietrich: Natural Duty – co-written with and directed by Oliver Gully – which documents screen icon Marlene Dietrich’s life during the Second World War. It premiered at the Vaults in London before touring internationally, taking the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and Adelaide Fringe by storm. He has followed this with a cabaret, Dietrich: Live in London – accompanied by his MD Jimmy Jewell at the piano – which sold out at London’s Crazy Coqs, Live at Zédel in July and will return to the venue on 1 October 2019. Peter chats to Liz Arratoon.

The Widow Stanton: Did you always want to be onstage? Peter Groom: Yes, yes I did. I joined a youth theatre group in Newcastle when I was nine or ten and did plays and musicals with them until I was 17.

Was there anyone in your family in showbiz who inspired you? Er, no. [Laughs] My mum worked for the NHS and my dad used to work for Coca-Cola, but my grandma was very funny and very musical. She sang a lot but just with us as kids, you know, nothing… nobody performed professionally or anything.

So you don’t know where this urge came from? No, it just always seemed there, really. I remember the first time, it was in nursery, pre-school, I played Santa and I had to come down a chimney and pop out at the bottom. When Santa Got Stuck Up the Chimney, that was the song. I remember really clearly the room, and appearing from the chimney and everybody looking at me. And I remember where the lights were… that’s a really clear thing. I remember them all laughing.

You’ve appeared as a dancer; did your course at Guildford cover dance? We took ballet, jazz and contemporary, but before I went there I was really more interested in dance. I used to dance when I was a kid and then I went to Germany and was part of a show there called Sommertanz. That was with dancers from Pina Bausch Company. I’d never seen her work, I didn’t know who she was, and working with that company blew my mind because the dance I’d done up to then was all technique-based; a lot of ballet, and then her dancers were all about your expression and what you feel and what interests you and what you’re passionate about.

Suddenly that sparked more of an expression side and I thought, ‘Well, maybe dance isn’t right for me, maybe acting is much better’. So that’s why I trained at a drama school. But it’s funny, you know, the minute I left drama school I thought, ‘Oh, I want to dance again’. So I did and I went off and did a show with Akram Khan for a little bit, and then with some other companies, and I still make work that’s very dance based as a choreographer that I don’t perform in. It’s usually quite devised and working with a lot of text; usually half dancers and half actors.

You seem to have got international work very soon after graduating… I’ve been really lucky that I haven’t really been out of work a lot since I graduated, which is a really lovely position to be in. I stayed around In London for a few months after I graduated and then… I really love Germany. I lived there when I was 17 and when I graduated I thought, ‘I really wanna go there again’. I feel very at home there. So I went back to the school where I’d trained with dancers from the Pina Bausch Company – Folkwang Universität der Künste in Essen-Werden. I had a friend there and she said: “Oh well, just come and take class here in the mornings.” So I did, and an audition came up in Berlin. I went and I got the job in the show MEAT at Schaubühne, so I stayed there for about a year. It was wonderful. I loved it.  

Again you were artist in residence at BAC quite soon after that… Yes, I came back from Berlin and it came up… you could live there.

Oh yes, I’ve been on a backstage tour and seen the rooms. It’s marvellous! It’s amazing! They give you this space, and they give you a weekly budget to eat, and then you just make work all the time. Its wonderful; it’s like taking all the pressure off. You have time. I think I was there six months and you have time to let things develop and let you thoughts sit.

I would call your Marlene shows ‘female impersonation’ rather than drag, but how did you get into drag? It had been floating around for a while, I think. A few people had said: “Oh, you should really do it, because we think you’d be adept at it.” And then, I’m trying to remember, the first time was at BAC. A friend of mine had had a really bad year and he had a big Hallowe’en party and said: “Everybody has to come really full-out. Everybody has to get their great costumes on.” And I like Marlene Dietrich anyway, I have for years, and he said: “Oh, you come as Marlene because you’ll like that.” So I did! There were some photos, one got put on Facebook and then a woman called Tanith Lindon, who was the events co-ordinator at BAC saw it and said: “Oh, you look great! Come and host a New Year’s Eve party at BAC.” So I said, ‘Yes’.

And that was the start of it? That was the start of it, yeah, but it was little bits of cabaret. I’d never thought about making a show.

How had Marlene first come to your attention? I first heard her name through Vogue by Madonna; there’s that bit at the end where she raps all the Hollywood stars names, Garbo and Hepburn… and I went and looked them all up [laughs] and it was Marlene’s image that was really fascinating to me because she was cold… and distant… and aloof. This person that really didn’t coo… well, she wasn’t sweet or cute in any way. And as a teenager that really appealed to me.

When you were creating the show, did you study her mannerisms by watching her films? Well, I’ve seen all her films and read about 17… 18 books on her, newspaper articles and things like that, and then I think you have to forget all that and try to embody her without copying her. I never looked at footage and they tried to imitate her. I sort of tried to find where all these mannerisms came from. I mean, she just had the spine of a Prussian soldier. Everything pulled up, everything is tight, taut. Maybe towards the end that’s also because she was pinning her face in place so it looked younger, but it’s all these things that she has in her that are from her life experience. I was interested in that; both the illusion and what was behind it.

I’m really hot on costumes and must compliment you on your gown. Is it based on her famous ‘nude’ dress, designed by Jean Louis? Yes. It was made by a costume designer called Kathleen Nellis. She studied at London College of Fashion and graduated a few years ago. We’ve collaborated for a couple of years now; we have two dresses and a coat. When we first started making the show, before we wrote anything, before we thought what the story would be, the first thing we did was find out if we could make that dress. I feel similar to you, costume’s such a huge thing for me, particularly with that show. In the first two minutes when you see the dress and when you see Marlene, you have to be impressed, you have to go, ‘Oh my gosh, where did you get that?’. Because if you don’t have that you may as well throw the rest out the window. We need to be drawn in and dazzled.

It’s so fabulous! It’s so classy, and, well done, because too many people skimp on costumes. And I like Marlene too much to do that. It is, you know, a lot of beading backstage and a lot of time, but I think, ‘That’s good!’. And in a strange way it really gives you an insight into her. I played Edinburgh for the month last year and by week three, you think, ‘Gosh! Doing drag every day and painting this much and looking after the hair and looking after the dress, it’s a lot of work and it’s not much fun’. You just have to do it; it’s your duty to get it on and deliver the image of illusion every day. And it really took it out of me and I’d get a little bit annoyed sometimes. But then I thought, ‘She did this for 70 years, before she became a recluse’. The amount of perfectionism and will it must have taken to maintain that image is extraordinary. But there’s nothing I do in the dressing room that she didn’t do; probably just as much make-up, just as many support garments.

We haven’t mentioned your wig. Did you have it specially made? Yes, by Jack James Baxter at Wig Chapel. They’re based in Whitechapel.

How long does it take you to put on the make-up and everything? From nothing to everything, about two hours. It’s a long time but it is a lot of layers and stuff because the make-up isn’t exaggerated. It’s not really ‘drag’ make-up. It’s very clean, so it needs to be very clean.

Let’s talk about Dietrich: Live in London… Live in London is based on her Vegas cabaret show, really, and her subsequent cabaret shows around the world. It came about because I really love Zédel; I love that space, it’s so beautiful. They had asked me to come and do Natural Duty there, but Natural Duty, really it’s a play. It has aspects of cabaret in it and there are songs but it’s a story with a narrative that you follow through, and I thought, ‘The space at Zédel is so cabaret, you can get drinks with people serving throughout and that wouldn’t be good for Natural Duty. I don’t think it would work, so I said, ‘I’m not sure’. And they said: “Make something else, maybe make a new cabaret.”

And actually there was loads of things I wanted to do that didn’t fit with Natural Duty, loads of songs… ‘I’d love to do that song but it doesn’t fit’. So I wanted to make an evening that felt glamorous and take that class idea and see if I could make a very… I didn’t know of anyone else who just stands there and sings songs, without any joke, you know, when the drag isn’t a joke. So, yes, I think it’s that. It’s glamorous, it’s fun and it’s the first time I’ve done the tuxedo, which is really exciting.

Have you found any footage of those concerts she gave later in life? There’s only her show at the Queen’s Theatre in London that was recorded for television but that’s more of a recital. She doesn’t do the tails, she doesn’t do any of that stuff. There are a few clips… she used to have a kickline at the end of her cabaret show… the girls would come on and do little tuxedo-Fred Astaire kickline, there are clips of news footage of that.

So the songs you sing are the songs she sang in her concerts? Yes, the only one she didn’t that I sing is Top Hat, White Tie and Tails.

And there’s no patter in this one; it’s song, song, song. Is that what she did? She did do that, yeah. Sometimes there’s a little bit of introduction… ‘A song by Charles Trenet’, there’s a little bit of narrative based on her coming to America.

Will you be touring Live in London? Yes, we’ve been asked to perform it at the Sage in Gateshead, which is great. It’s amazing to be asked to play a concert hall like that. And also it’s home for me. That’s going to round off the year.

Is Marlene taking up most of your time or are you managing to fit in other work? No, it mostly Marlene.

So you’ve got to spend those hours getting ready all the time. I like her and to not have the pressure of the narrative that’s in Natural Duty and to just enjoy and sort of play with the audience in London has been really great. I’ve got to say I was really terrified the day of the first Zédel show. I thought everyone would be bored. There’s no story, they’re just gonna… they’re just gonna leave! So I was so thrilled that it was received so well. It was a great night. It’s such a nice energy in that room.

You’ve won loads of awards with Marlene, which stands out? We won Critics’ Choice at the Adelaide Fringe. Marlene was in Adelaide 50 years before we were there, strangely, and her tour manager, Ron Tremaine, who organised her Australian tours, came to see the show. He’s 80-something. He was incredible and stayed with us afterwards and he talked and told us stories about her, showed us photos of them together. That was really extraordinary and very touching. It’s fascinating when you meet people who knew her as a human person and not just the illusion, people who see behind that. He wanted to know how we made the show, and he really loved it, which was really kind.

Is there anything else you’d like to say about her? I guess, back to the drag thing, it’s funny because a lot of people see the show and then they tell me: “Oh, but it’s not a drag show,” which I really like. That was a real aim with Natural Duty; how do you do a drag show that isn’t a joke and isn’t demeaning to the man playing it or the woman who it’s representing? I have a lot of admiration for her and particularly her work for peace in the world. That’s an incredibly timely message now, you know. Everybody has a platform to promote themselves, to promote how good they look or whatever it is. What she managed to do was link that and a stance for peace. If we all did that the world might be a better place.

Peter performs Dietrich: Live in London at the Crazy Coqs, Live at Zédel in London on 1 October, and Dietrich: Live in Gateshead at the Sage on 18 December 2019. He will be touring Dietrich: Natural Duty again in 2020.

Picture credit: V’s Anchor Studio; vintage Marlene holding papers, with thanks to Andrew Davidhazy For tickets to Dietrich: Live in London, click here

And for Dietrich: Live in Gateshead, click here

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Twitter: @_petergroom

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Read the story behind Andrew Davidhazy’s picture of Marlene, which he took as a schoolboy!