Becoming Mick Jagger on the Chichester Festival Theatre stage
It’s a fabulous way to make your professional stage debut. Jasper Talbot is Mick Jagger, no less, in Charlotte Jones’ Rolling Stones drugs bust play Redlands which is at Chichester Festival Theatre (running until October 18).
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00:00Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers, fantastic
00:06this afternoon to nearly speak to Mick Jagger, to speak to Jasper Talbot who is playing Mick
00:12Jagger in Redlands, the final play in the main house season at Chichester Special Theatre,
00:16the story of the Stones' 1967 drugs bust. Now quite apart from the excitement of being
00:21Mick Jagger, the point Jasper is that this is also your professional stage debut. What
00:27a wonderful way to start, you've come straight from graduation in fact, haven't you? Yeah,
00:33graduated two months ago, it's incredibly exciting. And here you are as Mick Jagger.
00:40Yeah, nearly, nearly there. It's an absolute gift, I feel very fortunate and it almost,
00:48you know, we're getting into tech and previews and it still doesn't quite feel real. But
00:53you know, for it to be that extension of the training that I've just finished and to allow
00:58myself in this job to keep learning, this is a wonderful opportunity in the stage that it is,
01:05you know, the Festival Theatre stage, being so wide and broad and large, and also to fill
01:11the shoes of such a, not physically, but sort of, you know, characteristically. Absolutely,
01:17you were saying about learning, you're learning so much more about Mick, but you were brought up
01:21in a Stones loving household, weren't you? Which is obviously a possible upbringing, isn't it? But
01:27how are you going to find your way into being Mick, do you think? What have you got to get?
01:33Where have I got to get? Well, yeah, just to get Mick across authentically at that point.
01:39I think existing in, you know, it's the classic thing of an actor of existing
01:44within the real want and what the character really wants at all times.
01:49I think being honest with who he was at that moment and not trying to make
01:56too clear or overt that this is Mick Jagger, but really it's just a young man who had the
02:03world at his feet and was in danger of going to prison. I think a lot of it exists in bravery,
02:11you know, the simple choices tend to tend to be the most truthful. And of course, putting in the
02:16work of the vocal stuff, the physicality and growing my hair out a little bit.
02:24And you also have to convey, don't you, the fact that this was enormous for Mick,
02:28wasn't it? The threat of prison was devastating for him in a way it wasn't for Keith, wasn't it?
02:33No, yeah, exactly. And when the verdicts were released and when the jury announced or the
02:41judge announced that he was guilty, he cried and he was very publicly terrified. And I think
02:49that's a perfect example of the fact that these two versions of Mick were existing at this point
02:55in the late 60s. There was, I believe, the more honest version of himself, which was the public
03:02schoolboy who could hold very intellectual conversations. And then there was stage Mick
03:10who could light up a room and sort of broaden out completely. And actually, that Mick was revealed
03:17in that moment in a public space, which wasn't very common at that moment.
03:22And when we were speaking just now, you slightly hinted you've clearly got the voice, haven't you?
03:27Yeah, I am. There's two versions of him, you know, and there's that one,
03:34you know, it's sort of far back in the throat, it's sort of nasal and he elongates his vowels.
03:40And then there's, you know, the version of him that could talk, you know, like this to anyone
03:47at any moment. And it's uncanny, you know, the difference between the two.
03:52Fabulous, you've got it. Well, congratulations on your stage debut. What an exciting way to start
03:57and I can't wait to see the show. Lovely to speak to you, Jasper.
04:01Lovely to speak to you. Thank you.
04:03Thank you. Thank you so much.