Culture That Made Me: Rebecca Storm on Willy Russell, Karen Carpenter and Jimmy McCarthy
Rebecca Storm at a photocall at Dublin's Bord Gáis Energy Theatre for a production of Blood Brothers. Picture: Brian McEvoy
Rebecca Storm grew up in Shipley, a market town in Yorkshire, but has been living in Naas, Co Kildare, for the past 20 years. In 1984, she auditioned for – and secured – the part of Mrs Johnstone in Willy Russell’s Blood Brothers, a role she has reprised in more than a dozen productions. During her career, she has performed in some of the biggest roles in musical theatre, including Evita, Les Misérables and Annie. She performs at Cork Opera House, Saturday, March 5. See: www.corkoperahouse.ie
I have the spectacular memory of my mum and dad taking me to see Mary Poppins. It’s my first memory of being blown away. I was seven years old. I insisted they took me three times to the cinema to see it. I'm told I was singing along with the songs by the third visit. It was an early start in musical theatre. I came from – what was then – a tiny little village in the Dales in Yorkshire. We had a small little cinema. I didn't come from a showbiz family. So the film was eye-opening for me. I still love the film. I love the new Mary Poppins. We watched it this Christmas.
Because I'd been singing at school, my music teacher encouraged me to write songs. I’d taken an interest in protest songs, but it was all listening to the likes of Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell on records. Nobody really came anywhere near where I lived, but I went to The Odeon in Leeds to see A Star is Born when I was 16 with Barbara Streisand and Kris Kristofferson. I went every day that week.
The song in that musical that stays with me – and I'll be singing it in the Cork Opera House – is The Woman in the Moon. I'd never seen anybody standing and singing like with Barbara Streisand’s power and intensity. Until then, I sat behind a guitar and sang songs like the Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel. All of a sudden I saw this powerful woman. That had an enormous effect upon the upon the direction I took. Also the lyrics resonated with me. I'm not a women’s libber. I don't particularly go on marches, but I was eight when my father died. My mother had three daughters and she had to bring us up single-handedly so I was proud that she coped without us having a dad.
Carole King’s Tapestry would be a standout album for me. I'm not particularly proficient on the piano, but growing up I could manage the chords [laughs]. I used to play the album every morning before I went to school. I always liked a folky melody. Carole King wasn't exactly folky, but she wasn't far away, which was interesting because when I came to audition for Blood Brothers, the songs that I got to sing as Mrs Johnston were very folk. Willy Russell was first and foremost a folk singer around the folk clubs of England. I think when he heard my voice, he probably thought it had a folky sound to it.
Willy Russell was a massive influence. When I auditioned at the Palace Theatre in Manchester in 1984 for Blood Brothers, the director David Pugh went, “She might be able to sing, but can she act?” As Mrs Johnstone, I'm a cleaner. During rehearsals, I was brushing and Willy Russell came up to me and said, “Have you ever cleaned a kitchen floor?” I said, “Of course I have.” He said: “Is that how you do it you?” I said, “Probably not.” So he got hold of the brush and said, “This is how you do it you. Be real.” It was the best acting lesson anybody could ever have. Just be real. Don't pretend to clean a kitchen floor. Clean it for real.
I supported Bob Monkhouse for about five months. He was a genius, so clever, so funny. He was a dote to me, such a gentleman. One night, he took us all out to dinner. There was another act on the bill and the band. He said to me, “Rebecca, you've done a fantastic job. I love you dearly, but you won’t get anywhere if you don't get your teeth fixed. If you don't, you will never get on television. If you don't get on television, you'll never get anywhere.” The dentist in my hometown said, “Your teeth are lovely. We're not doing anything with them because there's nothing wrong with them,” but they were crooked. Bob Monkhouse gave me the telephone number of his dentist and this dentist fixed them. I suddenly had a great smile. It was thanks to Bob Monkhouse.
I adored Karen Carpenter's voicem her songs. Her breathing technique was like a singing lesson. It was a completely different voice to, say, Barbra Streisand’s. Karen Carpenter’s breathing, that low texture in her amazing voice, I wanted to try and find it. So I sang and sang all the time and practiced her breathing so that I could do the phrases the same way. I was devastated when she died.
When I first saw Les Misérables I thought it was way too long. I remember thinking to myself at the end of Act One, if anybody else dies, I'm going to start giggling, but I never got tired of the music. It’s exceptional. There's so many brilliant songs in it, and the orchestrations, everything. It's very uplifting in a very miserable kind of a way.
I remember the first time I heard Julie Covington’s voice in Don't Cry for Me Argentina. I immediately wanted to be in that show. I went out and bought the album. I learned it back to front. Thankfully, I played that show for four-and-a-half years. I always think creative visualisation is good for us all. If you see something that you think, I'm sure I could do that, I want to do that, then you find a path to it. Don't Cry for Me Argentina is one of the classics of the of the 20th century. When the band start playing, “Du, du, du…”, it's still gets to me. I still love singing it.
I met Jimmy McCarthy in the Cork Opera House in the summer of 1986. He came to see Blood Brothers. He came around to the dressing room. He gave me a cassette of his songs. I remember going back to England after that and listening to them. I absolutely fell in love with them. Now one of my favourite songs to sing is Bright Blue Rose.
