Super Troupers
Alice Cairns talks to Mark Gatiss and Ian Hallard about marriage, music and the future of theatre.
There are few people who do fandom better than Mark Gatiss and Ian Hallard.
Mark is an actor and screenwriter who is best known for turning his niche, somewhat nerdy passions into fast-paced, cult-favourite adaptations like Sherlock, The League of Gentlemen and Doctor Who. His husband, Ian, is an actor who has recently channelled a lifelong devotion to ABBA into a new play, The Way Old Friends Do (directed by Mark) which is coming to Guildford’s Yvonne Arnaud on April 17.
Mark and Ian’s marriage seems like a match made in heaven. In fact, it’s a product of the world wide web, where the pair met in 1999 as early adopters of online dating.
“The internet had just about been invented back then” Mark explains.
“There were no dating apps and barely any websites - you practically had to peddle to get the power to go. We met on a site called gay.com, and it did what it said on the tin. We met in person shortly afterwards, and I asked him to marry me that day.”
“I don’t think he was being completely serious!” Ian adds. “But in a very 19th-century way, I held him to his promise.”
Mark made good on that promise in 2018, and married life has been a blissful affair (“we count our lucky stars on a daily basis” Ian says). Today, the pair’s only quibble is that their busy careers often keep them apart, which is why it’s a rare pleasure for them to collaborate on The Way Old Friends Do.
“People often ask ‘what’s it like working together? Is it difficult?’’” Mark says.
“But no, of course not, it’s lovely! We actually do like being in each other’s company, you know! And I like to think that I’m able to respect the boundaries between director, writer, performer and husband!”
Mark is well-known for his work as a writer on beloved TV shows like Sherlock, Doctor Who and Dracula - which makes it all the more surprising that it is Ian, not Mark, who penned the script for The Way Old Friends Do.
“For years, people have been asking me if I’d consider writing something, but I always said that was Mark’s thing – I’m more of an editor than a writer” Ian explains.
“But then I sort of got the urge. They say to write what you know, and I thought to myself, there’s not very much I don’t know about ABBA.”
ABBA is a lifelong love for Ian, who claims to have first heard Waterloo in the womb when his pregnant mum tuned in for the final of Eurovision.
“She bought all the records and I listened to them growing up. Then my teenage years coincided with the mid-to-late eighties when ABBA was deeply unfashionable and nobody would admit to liking them. I carried the flame regardless. I think their music is brilliant: deceptively simple in some respects, but then incredibly complex when you break down the component parts – the intricacies and flourishes and harmonies.”
Inspired by his love of ABBA, Ian had an idea for a play about two old school friends who are reunited after decades apart, and who decide to form an ABBA tribute band in drag.
“Once I’d had that idea, it took off very quickly. I was getting up at six in the morning, skipping lunch and taking my laptop with me into the dressing room and writing when I wasn’t on stage – fortunately, I didn’t miss any entrances as a result!”
Ian kept his efforts secret from Mark, who was away on holiday until he had a complete draft.
“Then I took the leap and emailed it to him. I knew that if it was no good, he’d say ‘listen, I love you dearly, but throw it away and never do it again’. And if he’d said that, that would have been fine. I’d have accepted it.”
Thankfully, Mark said no such thing. Although he’s no hardcore ABBA fan (“I like them, but Ian loves them to distraction”) he was drawn to the universal themes contained within Ian’s deeply personal story of beards, brotherhood and platform boots.
“It’s about friends meeting up again, and the meaning of friendship more generally, and the many ways in which things don’t always go smoothly,” Mark says.
“It has that quality of brightness and darkness about it, that strain of melancholy, which I think is what people respond to in the music of ABBA.”
Mark will be directing Ian in The Way Old Friends Do, and he’s enthusiastic about returning to the theatre after a pandemic-induced break. Although he’s best known for his work on TV, the theatre will always have a special place in his heart:
“I always love the moment when you walk around a theatre just after everyone’s left – it has this charge about it, because it’s just been full of people. I love doing both theatre and TV, but I think theatre would have to be my preference. The buzz of live performance is amazing.”
Ian agrees. “There's a sort of spell in a theatre for the couple of hours that show is on - that show is everything, you know, and if something goes wrong, it's like the end of the world. And yet, as soon as the lights have gone down, it's gone. And then you move on to the next one. And sometimes, if you're doing two shows in a day, they can be completely different, and the audience can react in totally different ways.”
It’s an exciting, dynamic, consuming world, and one in which Ian and Mark both thrive. They experienced a period of mourning when the pandemic caused theatres across the country to close, compounded by their distrust of the current government as stewards of Britain’s once-thriving theatre scene.
“The problem, of course, particularly with the current government, is that you know how far down the list of priorities culture is,” Mark says.
“Theatre actually makes more money than football, but that real economic argument doesn’t matter, because the government is ideologically opposed to supporting it. It’s astonishing, the sneery, snide attitude they have to the arts.”
Nonetheless, Mark is cautiously optimistic about the industry’s ability to adapt to changing times.
“I would say, to put a positive spin on the situation, that there has been a sort of forest fire which has cleared out some old stuff which probably should have gone a long time ago. I think that’s quite exciting. If the Phantom of the Opera finishes after however many thousands of years, freeing up His Majesty’s Theatre, then that’s not a bad thing. Theatres are not museums – they should be allowed to breathe.”
Mark believes that now more than ever, it is the duty of creatives to reflect the public mood and to create the kind of theatre that audiences want to see.
“If people have to make a decision between heating their house or going to the theatre, of course, they’re going to heat their house,” Mark says.
“We understand that. So it’s all about making sure that when people do come into the theatres, it’s fun, crowd-pleasing stuff – not stupid stuff, but enjoyable material that helps people to get back into the habit of theatregoing, and to remember what makes it worth their time.”
And it’s in that spirit that the pair have worked on The Way Old Friends Do, which they hope will capture some of the infectious fun of ABBA.
“Most of all, this play is about being a fan,” Ian says. “I think anyone can relate to that, whether you’re a fan of a TV show, a sports group or a celebrity.
“When you’re a fan of something it can be hard to explain just why you love it, just as it’s hard for me to say why I love ABBA so much, or for Mark to explain why he loves Doctor Who. You can’t over-examine these things, because then the magic goes out of them. But that’s what’s brilliant about art – it can create that devotion, that magic. Hopefully, we’ve captured some of that!”
Don't miss The Way Old Friends Do at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford on April 17th 2023.
