From a TV soap to Mr Darcy

From starring in one of Britain’s most popular soap operas to playing the male lead in a theatre adaptation of one of literature’s most enduring love stories, Neil McDermott’s acting career is varied.

The 32-year-old London-based actor, who has Irish ancestry, is playing Mr Darcy in Belfast’s Lyric Theatre Company’s ‘Pride and Prejudice – The Musical’ at Cork’s Everyman Theatre. McDermott played Ryan Malloy in the BBC’s EastEnders for two years, until 2011.

McDermott left EastEnders because he wanted variety. “People who aren’t in the acting business or the arts think it’s very risky to leave a really well-paid job and go freelance. But I’m not driven by money and certainly not by fame and celebrity. I left EastEnders to play other parts and to work with people in theatre, as well as TV, and to try and improve as an actor. That’s what drives me.”

McDermott played Lord Farquuad in Shrek – The Musical at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, in London’s West End, for 12 months, until February. “I played the villain of the piece, who’s a dwarf. I had to play the character on my knees, with a contraption attached to me that had little legs. So I had a year of running around on my knees. It was a very funny comedy role.”

The role of Mr Darcy, the arrogant aristocrat who falls in love with Elizabeth Bennett, is challenging, says McDermott. “After Romeo and Juliet, Pride and Prejudice is probably one of English literature’s best-loved romantic stories.” The Jane Austen novel was published 200 years ago and has spawned stage, film and television adaptations.

“The TV version with Colin Firth is probably the one that is most in people’s minds. (It was first screened in 1995.) I’m a bit younger, so the version I know is the film, starring Matthew McFadyen and Keira Knightley.”

The challenge of a stage version of Pride and Prejudice is that “it has to be more immediate. In a TV series, you have a long time to play the slow-burning relationship of Darcy and Elizabeth. You have less time in a film. But, on the stage, you have to tell the story quite concisely and precisely, so I have to move my character on very quickly.”

McDermott describes Darcy as “majorly repressed. He’s a product of the time in which the novel is set. He has to change his ways and his manners and lose some of his pride when he falls in love.”

The actor says the novel lends itself to the musical treatment. “It’s a story about two people who go on a journey of falling in love. Love is the biggest emotion of all. Musicals are generally about emotions. Using songs, we are telling the story of what is going on, what the characters are feeling,” he says.

McDermott hasn’t trained as a singer, but he says that once he “gets the character right, I find singing quite easy.”

When he was working in television, McDermott missed being in the rehearsal room and working on a character for the stage. “On television, you might only get to see the script half an hour before shooting begins. In the theatre, you get four weeks of rehearsals to work out how you want to play your character.”

*Pride and Prejudice — The Musical continues at the Everyman until Aug 31.