My Top 5 Showtunes: Charlotte Page
Charlotte Page is currently playing the Beggar Woman in Sweeney Todd for Welsh National Opera.
Previously this year she appeared with husband Alistair McGowan in An Audience with Jimmy Savile at the Park Theatre and they are both regular performers on BBC Radio 2’s Friday Night is Music Night with their tribute to Noel Coward Sincerely Noel.
We caught up with Charlotte and asked her: "If you were stranded on a desert island, which five showtunes could you not live without?"
1. "Losing my Mind" from Follies
From the first moment I heard this as a lovestruck, dumped teenager I felt like this song was written for me. It still gets me sobbing with retrospective heartbreak. I've been incredibly lucky to play Sally in the French Premiere of Follies and it was the most amazing moment of my career standing on a huge stage in France with a full orchestra and a spot light. Dreams are made of this. I love hearing every version I can get my hands on as it is such a personal song for everyone it's like you can see directly into their hearts from the first note.
2. "Johanna" from Sweeney Todd
This is such an ethereal moment amid the mayhem of Sweeney and it is sung so beautifully in our production by the marvellous Jamie Muscato. I can't get enough of it. It is a great song out of context too and I love the version Bernadette Peters sings. It has a wonderful dreamlike yet passionate quality of young impetuous love.
3. "I Will Wait For You" from The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
I first heard this song in French and it got me right there even though my French is a little ropey. Then my husband told me it was one of his favourite songs and he took me to see the show in the West End. It was so beautiful and moving in context and afterwards it haunted me and it still does. I shed a lot of tears that night. It felt soooooo good. It always reminds me of my husband too so indispensable on a desert island.
4. "The Party’s Over" from The Bells Are Ringing
As you might have gathered by now I love the sad, poignant songs. The lyrics of this are really moving. It's a song to carry through life. I've never seen the musical but in the original cast recording Judy Holliday sings it with such wisdom and strength you can't help but feel nobility of hidden heartbreak. Wonderfully painful.
5. "Put on Your Sunday Clothes" from Hello Dolly
This always make me think of the lazy Sunday afternoons of childhood on the sofa watching this perfect movie even though the sun is shining outside. Barbra Streisand was utterly brilliant as the sassy Dolly and this song simply makes me happy. Next to all my usual choices of heartbreaking torch songs this is just toe tappingly joyful every time. The energy is infectious.
Sweeney Todd opened in Cardiff on Thursday 8 October and will tour to Southampton, Bristol, Llandudno, Oxford, Liverpool and Birmingham before returning to Cardiff in late November. Click here for more information.
