Her Nibs makes the stars sparkle

Press, 28 January 1988, Page 9

Her Nibs makes the stars sparkle

lAN WOODWARD talks to the director/choreographer behind hit musicals such as “Cats” and “The Phantom, of the Opera.”

The lithe, slender woman taking Michael Crawford and the cast of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical, “The Phantom of the Opera,” through a darkly humorous musical number suddenly brings the proceedings to an abrupt halt by clapping her hands. “No, no,” she protests firmly, “I want to hear more mettle in the singing. Now — once again They call Gillian Lynne variously Her Nibs and The Boss. Until the title was bestowed on another woman not so long ago, she was also known as the Iron Maiden. She is the directorchoreographer top producers in films, television and the stage, on both sides of the Atlantic, tend to think of when they want stars like Sammy Davis Jr., Sophia Loren, Tommy Steele, Perry Como, Peter O’Toole or Twiggy to be seen at their sparkling best. When “The Phantom of the Opera” opened in London, she had three big shows running concurrently in the West End. “Cabaret,” starring Wayne Sleep, and the phenomenal crowd-puller, “Cats,” were the other two. She was also responsible for the musical numbers in “The Muppet

Show,” not to mention films like “Man of La Mancha” and such West End and Broadway shows as “Pickwick” and “Hans Anderson.” “Nobody talks to me because I’m usually a doom and gloom person. I think that nothing is going to work. I’ll be in one corner of the wings on the first night, saying to the cast ‘And don’t forget ...’ “Andrew and I have staged ‘Cats’ all over the world and we’re great mates now and he trusts me to come up with the goods. Even so, he’s quite likely to say: ‘Right, I’m withdrawing my score.’ “He did that with ‘Cats,’ when he thought something wasn’t going right. But we all carried on ... and it eventually came back. He doesn’t tolerate fools,” she observes. Gilly, meantime, has been getting richer (she’s now “Gillian Lynne Ltd”) with every new production of “Cats” that opens around the world. The show has broken boxoffice records in London,

Vienna, New York, Sydney, Tokyo and Los Angeles. Her commitments are phenomenal and legendary. One moment she is choreographing a television series for Nana Mouskouri and Vai Doonican, the next staging dance sequences in opera at Covent Garden or directing a Greek tragedy with the Royal Shakespeare Company. “I’ve been directing theatre, opera, musicals and straight plays since 1966, yet people still think it’s weird that a woman should do so many different things,” she laments during a rehearsal lull, flopping back in her black leotards and black top with “CATS” emblazoned in white. “I’ve come to the conclusion that people don’t like diversity in a woman. They distrust it, though they regard it as perfectly acceptable in a man. You just have to shrug your shoulders and get on with it.” Gilly is fifty-ish and

radiates a charm that leaves her entirely feminine despite her formidable determination. Her characterful face is aiive with vivacity, and she possesses that watchme attraction a good dancer never loses. She had so much restless energy at school that her friends used to call her Gilly the Wriggle. “My mother quite genuinely thought I had St Vitus's dance and took me

to fa specialist." He said, ‘Mrs Pyrke, let her go to dancing lessons.’ ” And eventually Gillian Pyrke, who thought Lynne would be a much more attractive surname, was dancing with what is now the Royal Ballet. But she found life as a soloist too blinkered, and she left to start a new career in the commercial theatre. It was here, in her preWest End production of “My Fair Lady,” that she

met and fell in love with New Zealand actor, Peter Land — a man 22 years her junior whom she married in 1980. He is currently co-starring in "Cabaret.” 1... ■. “I made f him audition four times for that,” says Gilly, still conscious of the accusations of nepotism. “I’d be sitting there with my musical director and other people, and it needed a lot of guts to do what he did.

“When s we were rehearsing ‘Cabareti’_we‘d leave home together but, as we entered the rehearsal room, he’d veer off one way and I’d go the other way. I became the director, he one of the actors. He’d always call me Miss Lynne.” She smiles. “But he absolutely wears the pants at home. We simply never even consider the age thing. “For so long,” she then adds quietly, "I hadn’t found a man who could really understand me. I was terribly lonely, working myself to death and being a sort of fanatic. "At the end of the day, after rehearsing something like “Phantom,” I’m falling apart emotionally and there isn’t much of me left. So it’s wonderfulto be able to sit at Peter’s feet and have him put his arm- round me.’’ , — Copyright Duo