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West End wizardry
Impresario Sir Cameron Mackintosh is the man behind countless hit shows — and now he’s staging a new Oliver! David Gritten meets a theatre legend
Portrait by Harry Borden
All over London’s theatreland, eyebrows shot up earlier this year when Cameron Mackintosh appeared on Saturday night TV, joining the judges for the final stages of the BBC’s I’d Do Anything — the show designed to find a new actress–singer to play Nancy in his forthcoming production of Oliver!, which opens on December 12 with Rowan Atkinson playing Fagin.
It wasn’t that Mackintosh lacked the credentials to join the judging. Quite the opposite: along with Andrew Lloyd Webber, he is the world’s foremost producer of theatre musicals. He is wildly successful and wealthy: after all, he pioneered the international mega–musical, with stellar hits including Les Misérables, Cats, The Phantom of the Opera and Miss Saigon. He owns seven West End theatres, and properties in Scotland, Provence and New York. With an estimated £400 million fortune, he is a permanent feature on “rich lists”.
Nor is he exactly a shrinking violet: the words “shy” and “impresario” do not belong in the same sentence. But he has never sought celebrity status or public recognition. He could stroll down Shaftesbury Avenue, the heart of London’s theatre district, without being besieged by a single autograph hunter.
Indeed, Mackintosh spends most of his time outside the capital these days. His main base is his country home, a converted Somerset rectory. Warm and expansive, it feels welcoming and comfortable rather than conspicuously extravagant. He lives here with his long–time partner Michael, an Australian photographer. But it is also his office: “I have faxes, emails and a staff here, so I don’t need to be in London,” he said when we met there recently.
So what lured him to the nation’s TV screens? Lionel Bart’s musical Oliver! is the clue. It played a key part in his earliest days in the theatre more than 40 years ago.
After growing up in Hertfordshire (his Scottish father ran a timber business) he began his career at 18 as a lowly assistant stage manager at the Manchester Opera House, where Oliver! was being staged in 1965. Apart from such duties as sweeping the stage, he had to take part in all the musical numbers — and understudied Phil Collins, who was playing Noah Claypole.
“It was my first ever audition,” he recalls. “They made the two assistant stage managers perform Consider Yourself.” He laughs at the memory: “I was show–stopping and legendary — in all the wrong ways. It took me three months to learn the steps.”
This was his first meeting with Bart. “One day, he arrived at the stage door and I greeted him. His musical Twang! had just opened and got mauled by the critics. “He said: ‘What are you going to do when you grow up?’ I said: ‘I want to put on musicals like this, Mr Bart.’ He gave me a sideways look and said: ‘Good luck!’”
It has taken rather more than luck for Mackintosh to reach the heights he occupies today; a deeply ingrained work ethic has played a bigger part. Only Lloyd Webber has done as much to shape London theatre as we know it today: Mackintosh, you might say, has invented the modern West End.
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