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Summer Strallen is currently starring as Dale Tremont alongside Tom Chambers as Jerry Travers in the world exclusive of Top Hat the musical at the Aldwych Theatre, booking until January 2013.

Coming from a family that has performing arts at its heart, Summer has continued to carry on this love of musical theatre. Since making her professional stage debut in Cats, she has gone on to perform in Guys and Dolls, Meg Giry in Love Never Dies, Maria in The Sound of Music and now Dale Tremont in Top Hat.

Summer recently took some time out from her busy schedule to answer a few questions about herself and her career, I hope you enjoy what she had to say.

You were born in London. What was it like growing up in the capital?
Growing up in London has been an asset when working in this profession. As a child, my mother would drive us around London, and so I soon became familiar with the roads and public transport routes which is really important when travelling to and from auditions, rehearsals etc.

Your parents Sandy Strallen and Cherida Langford, and three sisters are all stage performers, what is it like being in such a ‘drama-influenced’ family?
It is a really good thing as it has kept me grounded. In an industry like this it is important to be down to earth. We get swept up in the same dramas as any family experience. It is also great being able to call my family for advice.

You trained at The Arts Educational Schools London with your three sisters and also for one year at Laine Theatre Arts. How did your training prepare you for the professional world on stage?
They were fantastic drama schools and taught me wonderful skills and discipline, but the best training for me was working in the profession. You only truly understand the realities of working in the industry when you get working.

Can you share some memories from your professional stage debut?
Pure joy! At the age of 16 I was cast in Cats, which was an amazing opportunity as I always wanted to be in the business. I don’t have any specific memories of the show.  You never remember, but you never forget!

You have performed in numerous West End shows, which roles have you enjoyed the most?
Top Hat is wonderful, as I get to sing the songs of Irving Berlin every night. However I think my favourite was Guys and Dolls, in which I played the Havana Girl and performed with Ewan McGregor. It was incredible to work with the Donmar Warehouse and with director Michael Grandage.

You played the role of Meg Giry in Love Never Dies, the sequel to Phantom of the Opera, for which you received your third Olivier Award Nomination. Can you describe your time in Love Never Dies?
The word I would use is challenging. To perform such a mixed up character like Meg, pushed me very far as an actress. The production experienced lots of changes and we were constantly rehearsing. Despite this if the production was to return I would love to be a part of it again.

You joined the cast of television’s Hollyoaks as the character Summer Shaw who auditioned for the role of Maria in The Sound of Music, a role which you subsequently gained in reality with Andrew Lloyd Webber’s London production. What was it like appearing in a national TV soap like Hollyoaks?
It was so much fun being based in Liverpool. I met my good friend Loui Batley on the show. I learnt a lot about working with a camera which stood me in good stead for Land Girls.

You are currently appearing as Dale Tremont in Top Hat at the Aldwych Theatre. Can you tell us about your character and how you have worked to put your ‘stamp’ on the role?
I am loving it! The show has a combination of brilliant music and a funny script. Dale is a deep character who goes through a very confusing time. She is deeply upset when it is revealed the love of her life Jerry Travers is married to her friend.  I chose to approach the part of Dale as an actor rather than imitating Ginger Rogers. I wanted to explore who Dale was. Ginger Rogers has always been my idol, but I wanted to use Ginger as inspiration rather than imitation.

Which is your favourite Irving Berlin song in the show?
‘Let’s Face the Music’ and ‘Cheek to cheek’ are classics. ‘Better luck next time’ is a beautiful song, but it has not received the same recognition as it was not released like the other songs were. It’s great that it’s been brought back by this production.

Based on the 1935 film of the same name, why do you think Top Hat has stood the test of time and is still a fabulous show to watch?
The brilliant combination of the music score and the love story. People always associate with love, whether it be love for a person, a job, or a pet! Everybody loves a comedy too. Laughter is the best medicine. As a result the show has the perfect ingredients for a hit. When the film was released in 1935 there was a depression and people needed a lift like this. I think the same rings true for today.

As a family, how do you feel when you get the chance to watch each other perform on stage?
Very proud!! We give each other a lot of support. We have such different personalities and casting. It is particularly exciting when we watch each other shows we enjoyed growing up such as Mary Poppins and Top Hat. I remember the first time I saw Scarlett fly in Mary Poppins!

Was there ever a second career choice if you hadn’t become an actress?
When I was four I wanted to be a vet. Now if I changed career I would do something with animals, but I would not find it as fulfilling. Unless perhaps I could sing to the animals!

Away from the stage what do you like to do to chill out?
Dinner with friends or my partner. I particularly enjoy spending Sunday evenings watching a film, enjoying  banoffee pie with my partner.

Many thanks Summer for the interview and best wishes for continued success with Top Hat!

Interviewed by Neil who you can follow on Twitter @LondonTheatre1 and Facebook

Top Hat Tickets

www.tophatonstage.com

Thursday 7th June, 2012

After taking Top Hat around the country on a regional tour, Summer Strallen and Tom Chambers are starring in the West End transfer. They talk to Matthew Hemley about the show’s appeal and how their differing career paths have led them to become dance partners

Tom Chambers (Jerry Travers) and Summer Strallen (Dale Tremont) in Top Hat at the Aldwych Theatre. Photo: Tristram Kenton

It’s raining hard outside the Aldwych Theatre, but inside Summer has arrived - Summer Strallen that is, and she’s brought cup cakes with her. One of these baked treats is handed to the stage door manager, who beams with delight before gushing about “how lovely” Strallen is. Strallen, meanwhile, has disappeared into the depths of the backstage area of the theatre, where a few moments later I join her in her dressing room.

Here I witness another of the Primrose Hill-purchased cupcakes being dished out - this time to the company manager of Top Hat, the show currently running at the Aldwych in which Strallen stars alongside Tom Chambers. Chambers, incidentally, is meant to be with us, but he’s running late, I learn from the now cup cake-wielding company manager, because he’s parking his car.

This leaves me time to acquaint myself with Strallen, who is looking extremely casual prior to her matinee performance - she’s make-up free, and wearing a black hoodie, with her hair tied back. She seems very relaxed and happy to chat away until Chambers comes.

We talk about last month’s Oliviers, which saw her sister, Scarlett - who is appearing down the road in Singin’ in the Rain - lose out in the best actress in a musical category, and about Strallen’s own role in Love Never Dies and what her experience of being in this was.

Then, just as things get juicy, Chambers bursts in, a bundle of energy, who greets me with a shake of the hand before asking if he can wet his hair down. It is looking rather fluffy and bouncy, like he’s just got out of bed, though of course I don’t say so. Strallen, however, does - telling him that he really should get it cut, because it’s looking too long.

It seems quite personal on Strallen’s part, until you remember that the two have been touring together for five months in Top Hat prior to its West End run, and so do know each other fairly well. They are happy to poke fun at each other, and give the impression of being good friends.

Which is just as well, because in the show, for anyone who does not know the RKO film on which it is based, the pair play lovers Jerry Travers and Dale Tremont, the duo played on screen by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

“It’s a love story and it’s not complicated,” Chambers says. “It’s boy meets girl, but it has misconstrued identity. Dale, played by Summer, thinks my character is someone else, and so he gets physically and metaphorically slapped.”

Strallen adds: “We meet when Jerry is dancing in a hotel room and I am trying to sleep in the room below. I try to find out who this idiot is and see this wonderfully handsome man dancing around with a hat stand and it’s love at first sight.”

The mistaken identity of which Chambers refers to is based on the fact Dale believes Jerry is a married man. In fact, she thinks he’s the producer-husband of her own friend, Madge Hardwick, which is why, Strallen says, “she gets so upset”.

As well as the farcical nature of the story, the musical features 15 Irving Berlin songs, including Cheek to Cheek and Isn’t It a Lovely Day to be Caught in the Rain. The original film only used five, but Strallen says the extra ten chosen are “absolutely perfect and fit beautifully”.

“The whole reason why Kenny Wax, the producer, wanted to put this show on is so we don’t lose Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers and that era,” Strallen says. “And it’s what people want at the moment - a bit of escapism.”

She reveals, too, that the show uses around 50% of the film’s script, with Chambers interjecting that the stage production has been “tweaked for a modern audience”. In fact, during its time on the road, the show has undergone several changes. Chambers says the cast and crew were “constantly cutting their teeth” on the road, and that audiences in the West End will now get to see the best production possible. Strallen, meanwhile, thinks this is the norm for theatre now - meaning shows begin life playing regional theatres, get fine tuned, and then come into the West End.

“We have had a lot of script changes and song changes,” Strallen says. “Songs have been added, songs have been taken away and it’s been a real whirlwind. But it seems this is the way the West End is going - with Ghost opening first in Manchester, and even as far back as Mary Poppins, when Cameron Mackintosh had the idea to take it away and work it out. It doesn’t mean the audience is getting any worse a show. It’s just they get slightly different songs or different scripts, but the basic shape of the show is pretty much the same.”

She adds: “They [Top Hat audiences] did get a West End standard show on tour. And in fact the set was much bigger and more lavish on the road than the one we have here. So they got quite a good deal.”

In fact, Chambers says, the tour required nine articulated lorries to transport the set and costumes around from venue to venue. He also adds that, as well as being good for regional theatre audiences, the tour allowed him and Strallen to get to know each other better.

“We had not worked together before,” he says. “So you have to learn your bodies and how they want to move together, so it was great having the chance to discover that.”

On a personal level, Chambers also used the tour to experiment with how he should be playing Jerry.

“I started out being told to go down this heightened Fred Astaire pastiche-route,” he reveals. “And we soon discovered that was wrong, so we reined it in and pulled it back.”

As Chambers is telling me this, Strallen starts to giggle, as she recalls his early performances as Jerry: “My lips are sealed,” she laughs. “I am saying nothing.”

What she does say, however, is that neither are “trying to be Fred and Ginger playing Jerry and Dale”.

“We are playing Jerry and Dale, and that is it,” she says. “They are just roles, but we are lucky we have a prototype of Fred and Ginger, who were so perfect and wonderful, to inspire us. Everyone asks us if they are big shoes to fill? Well, of course they are - Fred and Ginger are absolutely perfect. We endeavour to make it as good as them and to have the chemistry they do.”

And here she looks to Tom, before saying: “And I think we’re doing alright.”

For Strallen, who was only recently seen playing Meg Giry in Love Never Dies at the nearby Adelphi Theatre, appearing on the West End stage is nothing new, but for Chambers, his appearance in Top Hat marks his West End debut. He is best known as a TV actor, who went on to win Strictly Come Dancing in 2008. As he takes to the West End stage, he knows all too well the pressure he is under.

“There is no doubt that this was initially immensely terrifying,” he admits. “I wished for this kind of material to arrive on the scene for so many years, and now it’s finally arrived it’s like, ‘What have I done?’. Now I have to go through with it and do it. Be careful what you wish for has never been truer in my case.

“This is the first of everything for me - the first time I have pretty much been on stage, apart from doing one musical at the Sunderland Empire - White Christmas - which could have been my warm up lap. Thank God we had five months on tour, as I think I would be six feet under now. And Summer would have been the one with the spade.”

They both laugh at this, but it’s quite clear, when it comes to experience, Strallen is the one who, as well as doing most of the talking, knows musical theatre like the back of her hand. As well as Love Never Dies, she has appeared in shows such as The Sound of Music, The Drowsy Chaperone and The Boy Friend, and has been nominated three times for an Olivier Award.

“I have been doing musicals a long time,” she says. “So I have had to learn dance routines for auditions and things like that, whereas Tom has been doing the telly route. I do have a brain of lightning speed.”

Chambers, meanwhile, studied at Guildford School of Acting, where he says he had one compulsory class in ballet, tap and jazz a week, which he compares to learning enough French to “get by”. And so for him, his stint on Strictly Come Dancing was definitely where he learned what he now knows about dance. “It was five months of one to one tuition,” he recalls. “And from that you really get a sense of the stamina required.”

Strallen joins in here, adding: “And picking up the steps every week to a different routine is no mean feat. The routines on Strictly are only a minute and a half, so less than those in a musical, but it’s the same premise of having to pick things up quickly.”

As our interview comes to a close, I ask both of them how long the show is planned to run for. Strallen says the show will run “as long as people keep coming”, and Chambers agrees that they are there “as long as the audience is here”.

“The moment they start dwindling, is the moment the producer starts tightening his belt and starts saying, ‘I think we need to jump ship’,” he says. But Strallen thinks they are helped by the fact it’s based on an old film, which many people will know, as they do with Singin’ in the Rain at the Palace Theatre.

“Ticket prices are so expensive, people have to know what they are going to see,” she says. “Jukebox musicals served a purpose at a time when people needed those sort of things, and now we are doing the same, in a slightly more classy way, I think. I love the jukebox shows - they have a sense of fun and everyone knows the songs and has a good time, which is what going to the theatre is about.

“If we can do that in a way which brings really classy things to the stage, then so be it.”

• Top Hat is currently booking until January 26, 2012, at the Aldwych Theatre, London. To read our review go to www.thestage.co.uk/reviews

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Summer’s feet feel a little Ginger

Statuesque showgirl Summer Strallen, starring in the Ginger Rogers role in hit West End musical Top Hat, tells me all that dancing may look effortless from the stalls but she had to work so hard at the choreography it made her feet bleed.

‘It’s probably because I’m a bit of a perfectionist,’ says Summer, who has adored getting to wear so many fabulous Thirties-style gowns.

‘It’s a joy — but I’m worried about standing on them. And doing eight shows a week, Tom [Chambers in the Fred Astaire role] is bound to stand on my feathers every now and again. I only wish people would dress the same now as then.’

Summer, 26, says a good deal of the show’s success is thanks to Strictly Come Dancing because it has generated so much interest in dance.

Now she hopes to appear as a celebrity dancer on the show, which Chambers won.

‘If I had anything to do with it I’d do excerpts from Fred and Ginger movies.’