Michael Ball

Luck changes everything
Musicals Man
Prince of Punters
Diehard fans are passionate about their musical cause
Power to voice passions

Subject: MB Interview - The West Australian - Arts

Luck changes everything

By Ron Banks

MICHAEL BALL admits having been lucky in the timing of his career in music theatre.
He emerged on to the scene from acting school just as the British stage was about to enjoy a renaissance through the blockbuster musicals such as Les Miserables and The Phantom of the Opera.
His first big break was as Marius, the young revolutionary in Les Miserables, followed by the similar role of the young lover Raoul in The Phantom of the Opera.
These roles were followed by the lead in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Aspects of Love and then as the army captain in Stephen Sondheim's Passion.
Starring roles in such celebrated musicals established Ball as one of Britain's biggest music theatre personalities, with a parallel career as a recording artist and a concert performer.
He recently spent 16 months in the lead role as Caractacus Potts in the London production of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the stage version of the popular film that featured Dick Van Dyke as Caractacus.
It meant being upstaged by a car in this whiz-bang production noted for its special effects, but the production is still running in the West End.
Ball confesses, however, that he has no desire to return to this particular musical, and this year is taking a break from the music theatre stage to concentrate on his concert career - a move which brings him to Australia this month.
"It's my first time here and I'm looking forward to meeting people and seeing the place," says Ball on the phone from Sydney.
His concerts, naturally enough, will mostly feature songs from the musicals in which he established his career. One of them will be Love Changes Everything, the song from Aspects of Love that Ball turned into a hit recording.
He says his hit record was the breakthrough into a wider public arena than just music theatre fans and gave him the confidence to further his recording career. He even came second in the Eurovision song contest in 1992.
His success in Aspects of Love led to an invitation to reprise the role on Broadway and his career broadened even further when on his return to England he began hosting a television variety show.
He has now done two television series, in which he has invited his show business connections to perform with him.
It's a successful musical profile for a performer who says he originally wanted to be an actor. "My mum is Welsh, you see, so I was surrounded by music and even my dad had wanted to be an actor before he went into business," he says.
Ball was born in the West Midlands but spent some of his early childhood in Cape Town when his father was posted overseas.
However, he went to a secondary boarding school in England and enrolled in the Guildford School of Acting to further his ambitions on the stage.
"It wasn't until I was at acting school that I stumbled on the fact that I had a voice," he says. From that point Ball threw himself into music theatre, making his professional debut in a Welsh production of Godspell. A stint in The Pirates of Penzance was followed by his first big break in Les Miserables.
Ball's career has now carved a trajectory through stage shows, recordings and concert appearances that shows no sign of flagging.
He says the age of the blockbuster musical is probably over, though he takes comfort from the fact that there is still room for those smaller, more intimate shows that continue to bring fans into the theatres.
His most intimate show so far has been his solo effort Alone Together, which he created for the Donmar Warehouse in London.
"It was just me, a piano and the story of an actor, whose life was told entirely in songs - none of which I'd ever sung before," he says.
Michael Ball is at the Burswood Theatre on March 23.

Subject: Interview - Sunday Mail 21/3/04

Musicals Man

By Ritchie Yorke

IT'S A tough life being a musical performer in the UK at this damp and muddy time of year. British superstar Michael Ball isn't especially amused when asked about his health and prevailing weather.
``What do you expect? It's grey and miserable and raining in London today. Just winding me up, you are,'' he mutters -- even though he's not really upset.
``But tell me, what's it like down your way? I'm really looking forward to getting back down there, not only for that summer weather, but in order to do my first proper Australian tour.''
The man regarded as Britain's leading musical theatre star has played one previous Sydney concert in 2001, which was well received. Now he wants to go the full Aussie tour itinerary.
``I put my toe in the water and had such a good time that I vowed to get back and see more of the country as soon as possible. I just can't wait.''
The tour brings him to his Queensland debut at the Concert Hall, Brisbane, on March 30.
It will be a show that's not only easy on the ears and eyes, but also with the odd unexpected deviation. Ball, 41, might be the king of musical comedy and drama but he doesn't mind ploughing other furrows and forms.
``I approach a concert as you would construct a musical,'' he said. ``You try to take an audience on a journey. You give them the highs and excitement; you give them the pathos and emotion; and you end up with a big party at the end.
``That's so that people leave at the end feeling better than when they went in. And they'll leave with a desire to come back.''
Ball, whose fame has crossed the Atlantic and now the Pacific -- via his lead roles in a flock of musicals (think The Pirates of Penzance, Les Miserables, Phantom of the Opera, Passion and Aspects of Love), was especially excited about his most recent role in the London West End hit Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
``I've just finished my residence as Caractacus Potts in Chitty at the London Palladium. It's still running there and is reported to be the most expensive stage musical ever.
``I opened in that and did it for 18 months and had the time of my life. I really loved it.''
But he emphatically isn't a fan of the profusion of what he calls the ``compilation shows'', built around pre-existing songs.
``There are some good new shows but I've become a bit tired of the compilation shows. We've got a real glut of them here at the moment.
``I thought that Mamma Mia was brilliant but now we've got the Queen musical We Will Rock You; the Rod Stewart thing (Tonight's The Night), one about Elvis (Jailhouse Rock) and one about Cliff Richard (Born to Rock 'n' Roll: The Cliff Richard Musical).
``I think the abundance of compilations is preventing people from creating new things. And the trouble is that it's so expensive to mount theatrical shows.''
His concerts feature an assortment of show tunes and familiar chestnuts.
He performs with a 12-piece band and has a featured guest singer, Danielle Everitt, who proffers two tunes.
Ball has released 11 albums in the UK, with the most recent release in Australia called A Love Story, which came out in late January.
* Michael Ball plays the Concert Hall, Brisbane, on March 30.
A Love Story is out through EMI Music.

Caption: Michael Ball
Library Heading: MUSIC SINGERS, MUSIC CONCERTS
BIOG: MICHAEL BALL Column: Encore
On Stage
Section: FEATURES Type: Music Review

Subject: interview - Herald Sun 19/3/04

Prince of Punters

By Jill Fraser

MUSIC
MICHAEL BALL'S WORLD OF MUSICALS TOUR

IN BRITAIN, Michael Ball is a superstar. This enviable position, he maintains, is because of a stubborn refusal to simply sit back and watch as his fledgling career was shaped by the narrow constraints of musical theatre.
Though primarily described as ``Britain's No.1 musical star'', in reality Ball juggles dual careers.
Without his recording and TV success, he questions whether he would have the success he does.
Six months after finishing drama school, Ball was plucked from 800 hopefuls to play the lead in a West End production of The Pirates of Penzance.
``I think they gave me the part because I was cheap,'' he jokes, recalling his impressive support cast of ``household names''.
The opening-night audience included producers Cameron Mackintosh and Trevor Nunn who were casting for Les Miserables. Ball landed one of the leads and the rest was history.
With a golden voice and still-boyish good looks, 40-year-old Ball has a legion of devoted female fans.
Being mobbed on street corners is rare for a musical theatre star, but for Ball it is common.
Fans fly all over the world to see his shows, which allays his fear that his first-ever Melbourne performance next Thursday will fail to draw a crowd.
He admits that coming to Melbourne, where he is a relative unknown, is ``taking a punt''.
But Ball's curriculum vitae is dotted with career gambles.
A desire to ``break the mould'' led him to turn his back on musicals for six years at a time when offers were coming in thick and fast.
But with a canny realisation that ``musical theatre's limited roles'' wouldn't sustain him, he set out to build a recording career.
Eleven gold and platinum albums later, he feels his decision has been vindicated.
His latest gamble resulted in him accepting a role in the musical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which entailed dancing on stage for the first time.
``I knew it would be bloody tough,'' he says. ``I have never had lessons in dance or in singing, for that matter.
``I've always managed to get away with using my instinct. Sometimes I wonder what I'm doing in this business.''
He confesses that the choreographer ``worked my butt off'', but that it paid dividends.
As usual, Ball's performance won rave reviews. He describes his concerts as a mix of ``great hits from great musicals'' and favourite tunes; pieces familiar to many.
``I treat my concerts like a theatrical evening. I take my audience on a journey.
``I give them light and shade, surprises, something to think about and something to laugh at.
``And I always end up with a bit of a party,'' he says.
Better bring your dancing shoes.

Caption: Winner: Michael Ball has taken many gambles in showbiz.
Illus: Photo
Section: ENTERTAINMENT

Subject: Interview - Sydney Morning Herald 19/3/04

Diehard fans are passionate about their musical cause

Michael Ball has a close connection to his fans, writes Bernard Zuel.

The middle-aged woman too blonde, tanned and casually dressed on a Thursday morning to be anything other than a tourist could not have ditched her husband faster. They'd been watching Michael Ball have his photo taken and now, seizing her opportunity, she came barrelling towards him. Happy to oblige, he asked if their photo was to include her husband.

``No, no, just me," she said in a Brummie accent, waving a dismissive hand in hubbie's direction before saying, to anyone and everyone, ``Fancy seeing Michael Ball here."

Fancy that indeed. Ball may not earn a second glance in most parts of Sydney but anyone who's attended a West End or Broadway musical in the past decade would know his face, his name and certainly his voice.

While ahead of him lies a radio production of Sunset Boulevard, with Petula Clark for the BBC, behind him are three different productions of Les Miserables and star turns in the likes of The Phantom of the Opera, Pirates Of Penzance and, recently, the extravagant Chitty Chitty Bang Bang which have made his name in musical theatre.

He also successfully revived in London a Stephen Sondheim musical that bombed on Broadway, and created a one-man show for Sam Mendes's Donmar Warehouse Theatre ; which stripped Ball of his usual orchestra, stage patter and songs, and surprised many by becoming a major success.

Altogether it's earned him the kind of enthusiastic, if not fanatic, support that encourages ``a planeload" of British fans to fly to Australia for his five-concert tour, which begins tonight.

``There are certain fans who come to everything I do," he says.

``And fans here will look after them, take them out so they're not afraid or isolated. They're really nice people."

They're also really specific in their nature.

``The majority OK, all of them are women," he says with a smile. ``Well, the diehards are women. They'll drag their old man along sometimes, but it's difficult for women to travel alone and if they can't get their old man to come along, because he's sat in front of the telly watching sport, they want an outlet."

Lonely women who follow him from the UK (``from all around the world, actually".) to Australia, many of them writing letters to him asking for advice. Odd behaviour? An eyebrow could be raised at least.

``None of them are weird," Ball assures. ``None of them follow me home. Nobody's trying to jump me in hotels or anything. It's just a really healthy outlet."

For all the mild mockery from disgruntled media types who don't get anyone stalking them no matter how hard they may try Ball's connection to his audience goes beyond the stage door. But not quite how you imagine.

Twelve years ago his sister-in-law, Angela, died of ovarian cancer, within six months of being diagnosed. The speed of her deterioration the fact that even then it was clear more could have been done if her cancer had been detected earlier galvanised Ball and her family.

``When Angela died we became extremely angry and put all our energies into finding out why there wasn't more research going into this," Ball says, his expressive hands working furiously. ``We discovered there was one tiny research unit in London that was about to close for lack of funding. We said that we would try and make enough money to keep it going. At that point it was testing 150 women nothing, absolutely nothing, for one of the biggest killers of women.

``Ovarian cancer is not very trendy but because of my profile at the time, because I'm a bloke talking about it, going on chat shows talking about ovarian cancer, it got a lot of interest in the UK and we began to make serious money. We eventually got 150,000 women being tested and we've now been given a grant for £22 million from the Government.

``Predominantly my fans are women who are susceptible to this disease and this was a way they found out about this, about the simple blood tests that could catch it in the early stages, and the support groups. It's not all nutty fanaticism."

Michael Ball performs at the Wollongong Entertainment Centre tonight and the Opera House Concert Hall tomorrow.

Subject: Sunday Herald Sun 19/3/04

Power to voice passions

By Bob Crimeen

Michael Ball Melbourne Concert Hall

In short: Britain's musicals king conquers Melbourne.

SILVER-HAIRED grannies gyrating like bare-tummied teenagers in the front rows of Melbourne's Concert Hall?
Such is the power of Welsh-born Michael Ball, Britain's undisputed monarch of musicals, that this scenario happened on Thursday night.
It was not the first time this adoring group, including British women who have attended all of his five Australian concerts, had leaped to its feet.
As Ball made his entry -- upstage centre, through a parted curtain, blue-lit smoke (yes, shades of Phantom of the Opera theatrics) -- masses of the audience jumped spontaneously to their feet.
Innumerable times, as Ball belted out ballads, musical theatre favourites and rock songs, or soothed the senses with poignant songs, adoring fans rose to acclaim his artistry.
They acknowledged a consummately skilled performer, who could not have been more enthusiastic about his work had it been his first concert.
A man prepared to take risks that would daunt most other singers.
With a voice that has some vibrato, but awesome strength, Ball fearlessly executes the genre's most thrilling, climactic crescendos without fault and with a power that had the audience in a controlled frenzy.
True to the World of Musicals Tour title, musical theatre was the focus of Ball's program.
There were excerpts from Funny Girl, Sweeney Todd, The Lion King, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Jesus Christ Superstar, Godspell, Evita, Jekyll and Hyde, Phantom (Phantom/Christine and Raoul/Christine duets with leggy Australian Danielle Everett), Aspects of Love . . . even the Irish dance extravaganza, Riverdance.
But Ball, a handsome heart-throb who has only to arch an eyebrow to make women swoon, was no less convincing in lesser-known songs such as the Elvis tribute, Walking in Memphis, I Was Born to Love You, the self-penned Just When I Needed Somebody to Love, So What's the Future, and rock tinglers such as Dancin' in the Dark and Help Yourself .
Michael Ball promised to return. So will this legion of adoring fans who had a real ball with Michael.

Section: INSIDE ENTERTAINMENT