It is rarer than a Dodo in Dagenham that a show comes along and picks up every major theatre award going. But throughout last year’s theatre awards’ season Jerry Springer The Opera was unanimously recognised as Best Musical. Having left the show soon after this success, David Bedella, who plays Satan, has recently returned. Matthew Amer caught up with him to discuss the finer points of his horny character…
Life can be busy for the Devil. All that eternal damnation to dish out and hot pokers to thrust around willy-nilly. Satan’s days can leave him quite hot and bothered. Today though, it is not fire and brimstone causing him trouble: “I’ve got painters coming in and out of my house and cats to round up. It’s a busy morning.”
Satan is known to his friends as David Bedella, star of Holby City and Jerry Springer The Opera. The American-over-here has a voice as deep as a ponderous well; a voice that suggests you could pick it up and wrap yourself in it on a cold winter’s eve; a voice which could convince a monk to sell his soul…
Since their award-fest, most of the original Jerry Springer cast members have left to pursue other projects. On his return to the Cambridge stage, like the prodigal son’s evil twin, Bedella joined a revamped cast of misfits, misfortunates and a few people with just a bit missing. “Everybody’s excited and thrilled about what they’re doing. It’s pretty interesting to look around and do the same bits that you’ve done for a year, but there’s suddenly new people and new reactions.”
"Leaving Jerry Springer behind was one of the things I was happiest about."
Among the many changing faces of Springer’s outrageous cast, the main man himself has undergone a bit of a makeover. Out has gone ex-TV cop Michael Brandon (Dempsey of ‘and Makepeace’ fame) and in has come ex-TV cop David Soul (Starsky of ‘and Hutch’ fame). With the interplay between Jerry and Bedella’s warm-up man/Satan key to the show, the dynamic between the leads has to be as hot as molten sulphur. “As always when you have a relationship as close as mine was with Michael Brandon, you worry that things will not quite measure up. In fact, David Soul has turned out to be a terrific person to work with.”
Things could have been very different for Bedella. Having newly arrived in the UK from his native America two years ago, his first agent-actor chat was about the talk show-turned-musical. “I told him very directly that I had just moved over from the United States and leaving Jerry Springer behind was one of the things I was happiest about.” But, with his ear closer to the ground than that of a dozing grasshopper, Bedella’s agent picked up on the buzz and persuaded the hesitant thesp to audition, which seemed to go well. “I went and did a sing through with composer Richard Thomas and our music director Martin Lowe, and it seemed to be an immediate love-fest.”
Jerry Springer The Opera started life as a scratch piece at the BAC; the seed of a show played to an audience who paid low ticket prices in exchange for their opinion at the end of the piece. The feedback was encouraging enough to suggest that it would be worth taking the show to Edinburgh, where things really took off. “The theatre we played sat about 900 and our first show was fairly empty; I think we played to about 600 in there. All of a sudden, our second performance was standing room only. There were literally lines out of the front door and around the block for people waiting to get tickets to see the show, and that was after one performance. We were all in shock.’”
Bedella believes the show’s success is down to “very intelligent writing. It’s a smart journey that you’re asked to go on; it’s a thinking journey. This is an intelligent show; not one that tells you what to think, but one that asks you to think. When you couple the low subject matter with a score that is as beautiful and as inventive as this one, it is a recipe for success.”
"It seemed to be an immediate love-fest."
An impact like that of Jerry Springer on the theatre community has not been seen in recent years. The idea behind the show was original yet simple: take one of the Nineties’ most notorious and popular television shows – with titles like ‘My Daughter Is A Teen Prostitute’, ‘I’m Pregnant By My Brother’ and ‘Guess What… I’m A Man’ – a show which made a worldwide star out of the ex-major of Cincinnati, and set its story to music. There are a few more twists and turns than that, but I’d be a devil to give them away.
From such an extraordinary idea, melding high-art with low-brow pop culture, a theatrical legend was born. In the 2003/4 awards season Jerry won Best Musical at the Evening Standard, Critics’ Circle and Olivier Awards. Bedella himself picked up an Olivier for Best Actor in a Musical, though his feelings on hearing his name called out are ever so slightly surprising. “Frightening is the first word that comes to mind. All in all it was a frightening but exhilarating experience. It was mind blowing, absolutely mind blowing.”
With every award ceremony come a few memorable acceptance speeches, either for the right or wrong reasons. Show a little emotion and people will think you are touched by your win; show too much and people will remember you as a human fountain of splashing messiness. Thank a few people and you will be respected for remembering ‘the little people’; thank too many and you will never be forgiven for remembering ‘the little people’. It is a minefield ready to blow your career out of the water. So what runs through your mind when you take those momentous steps towards the stage? “The main thing is ‘please don’t let me embarrass myself’; a fear of being less than eloquent in my speaking. You think ‘I’m about to speak publicly in front of the likes of Judi Dench and I don’t want to sound like a stupid American. God knows we’ve got enough of those running around these days! But also enormous pride, because you work hard for so many years and it’s a rare thing when somebody singles you out and says ‘guess what, we’ve noticed what you’ve done. We see that you’ve worked hard and here’s your reward.’”
As a result of his performances in Jerry Springer The Opera, Bedella has been lucky enough to experience a couple of “those moments that you have to pinch yourself and think ‘can this really be happening to me?’” Another took him quite by surprise, when Bedella was enjoying a quiet post-show dinner at Joe Allen’s with his casting agent. As he was sipping a well deserved pre-dinner drink Glenn Close stood and started to applaud, before the entire restaurant joined in… “I’m looking around thinking ‘Oh my God, who just walked in’, knowing that this certainly couldn’t be for me, and she’s looking right at me and just standing there applauding. As the applause dies down she says, in her magnificent Glenn Close voice, ‘I just wanted to tell you, I thought you were magnificent in the show tonight’ in front of 200 people in Joe Allen’s.”
Having as much success as this makes one a little suspicious of Bedella. Since the time that myths and legends were first passed down, in single syllable sentences, from generation to generation, such acclaim and worldly profit have been linked to otherworldly pacts with the devil himself. As Bedella actually is that fire-loving soul (at least on stage), he may have merely made a gentleman’s agreement with himself. “I think everybody is intrigued by the idea of Satan. It is always something that pulls people’s attention. To make him charismatic and a bit naughty, saying the things that none of us really dare to say out loud, makes him really fun. If the guy down there running things is as fun as this Satan, it can’t be too bad.”
"I don’t want to sound like a stupid American. God knows we’ve got enough of those running around these days!"
After an Olivier Award for his first West End performance and a standing ovation from a Hollywood A-lister in a packed restaurant, Bedella also had the honour of having a part written especially for him. Anyone au fait with hospital-based dramas may have noticed his satanic charms popping up in Holby City, where he has been playing plastic surgeon Carlos Fashola. The story goes that one of Holby’s producers saw Bedella in Jerry and was so impressed that she had to have him in Holby. When Bedella turned up to audition he was blissfully unaware that the part had been written for him and even cheekily enquired how many other actors were auditioning. “It was one of those moments that rarely happen in the business, where someone comes to find you and says ‘we’re going to write something for you’. Enormously flattering, of course.”
The discipline of working in television was new to the previously stage-bound Bedella. “You have to dig deep inside and examine your own emotions; find out how to bring them to the surface in a room full of 20 crew people and cameramen and props and make-up. Everybody’s watching you as if to say ‘can he do it?’ It’s a real challenge to see if you actually can.”
What more could Bedella want to make his life complete at the moment? How about three Hollywood A-list films coming out in 2005? He’s got this too. Come next year – which is not far away – Bedella will be seen at cinemas in the films Alexander, Batman – The Intimidation Game and Red Light Runners. These films may signify the beginning of a change in direction for Bedella’s career. “You can only do musical theatre for so long. Dancing is much easier at 20 than it is at 40, and although my voice is better today than it was 20 years ago, eventually it will start to taper off as well. I think I’m in the early stages of my screen and film work; there’s a lot to learn and a lot of crafting still to be done. I’m very lucky that other people think it’s there already and are anxious to use me.”
Of the three blockbusters coming out next year, Bedella is most excited about Alexander – the epic tale of Alexander The Great – starring Colin Farrell as the warmongering world-beater. It is also the film in which he has the smallest part, but his enthusiasm for it comes for different reasons. “It was the opportunity of working everyday with [director] Oliver Stone and co-starring with Anthony Hopkins. I just think that’s about as big as it gets. To be sitting across from Tony Hopkins for five days in a row was a real gift; watching him work, watching how it all comes together, discovering that these people – who are made so much larger than life by media coverage alone – are quite normal and down to earth. Every time we had a break he’d look over and give me a wink and say ‘Dave, let’s go get a cup of tea’ and we’d go sit off to the side and eat sandwiches and talk about life, our families, our careers, aspirations and all of that.”
"If the guy down there running things is as fun as this Satan, it can’t be too bad."
Of course, what sets Bedella apart from Faust and the many others who have sold their soul to the devil in return for earthly success, is that Bedella has made no pact. His success was no overnight dream; he is in his fifth decade, and 20 years of musical theatre graft has got him to the point he is today. It is a triumph for determination, commitment and belief in your own ability. As such, the West End’s hottest property can be rightfully chuffed. “I’m happier now than I’ve been in many, many years. I think being in your forties is an amazing, eye-opening experience. There’s clarity at this age that I’ve never experienced before. There’s a control that I’ve never experienced before that is really calming and settling. I’m really happy right now” Bedella says, before cackling maniacally and disappearing in flames.