Carrie Hope Fletcher calls for more ‘genius’ job-share opportunities for parents

Speaking to the WhatsOnStage Podcast, award-winning musical star Carrie Hope Fletcher has called for more role-sharing opportunities for parents.

Discussing her new tour, Love Letters, Fletcher revealed that her status as a parent has altered her perspective of work, and also reiterated the challenges facing parents, particularly mothers, when it comes to the world of performance: “As soon as you have kids, everything changes: every tiny little facet of your being completely shifts. And obviously career is such a massive one.I do think that there is a massive shift now with what I take on.”

Fletcher has said it also changes her ambitions for what projects she takes on: “It has to either be a dream role that I have always longed to play, and you know, will shift things around to make it work – or it has to serve my family. It has to be something that the production and that the team behind the show will help me shift things around to make it work – because obviously my daughter comes first now.”

The award-winning performer, whose credits include Heathers, Les Misérables, Cinderella and The Addams Family, will be embarking on a new solo tour, Love Letters, and next year will be leading a new revival of Calamity Jane across the UK.

She had some thoughts about how the industry is responding to mothers: “Things are changing but very slowly I would say. There are a lot of production companies that are a bit behind. You do hear talk of how things are changing – like the amazing job shares that they’re doing now, where you’ll have two mothers cast as the same role and they will do four shows a week each. I think that is genius and more production companies should be doing [it].

“I mean, first of all, it means that you get two incredible people playing one role. You’ve got more people wanting to come and see the show, to see these two people on different nights. It also means that there is a huge amount of proper work-life balance: you actually get to see your kids grow up.”

“And I remember when we were in Cinderella, my co-star Victoria Hamilton-Barrett, she was like: ‘if we’re working Sundays, that’s my alternate day off. Because otherwise I do not see my kids.’ And they made that work.”

Reflecting on the wider entertainment industry, Fletcher continued: “It’s still not there yet, and I don’t know when it will be there… I feel like there are so many parts of this industry, the entertainment industry, not just theatre, they’re all very behind the times when it comes to parenthood, balancing work and life. You know, there is still this old school mentality of, well, ‘the show must go on’.”