Like every mum with a new baby, Suffolk-born West End star Kerry Ellis, had to deal with the big question: when’s the right time to go back to work? Ahead of her gig at The Apex in Bury this autumn, she spoke to Arts Editor Andrew Clarke about how she is managing to balance the demands of her career with her homelife.
In October West-End star Kerry Ellis returns to Suffolk to kick-off her autumn tour armed with a new album – and a new baby.
Stowmarket girl, Kerry, will be bringing her new show to The Apex in Bury St Edmunds where she launched her last tour, Acoustic by Candlelight, with Queen guitarist Brian May in November 2012.
Between visits, a lot has changed however. She now travels with an entourage but it’s not her entourage, it belongs to her six month old son Alfie who accompanies her on tour. Earlier this year Alfie was with her when she and Brian took their Born Free tour to Russia and then came back via Malta. And mother and son then went on tour around Britain with the musical Rent, which celebrated its 20th anniversary last year and was so popular that extra dates were added this year.
“Alfie’s more travelled and got more stamps in his passport than I did at his age. But, I am so grateful that I work in a business where he can be with me,” Kerry says. “I get to have the best of both worlds – I get to continue doing my job, which I love, and I get to spend time with my son.
“The only difficult thing is taking him away from my husband, James, who misses him dreadfully. We make up for that when we come home. We find ways to make it work. We’re very lucky that we have a great support system thanks to both of our families and that’s working fine – touch wood – we just work on a little less sleep.”
Much of their lives are pre-planned – Kerry’s diary is booked up months in advance, sometimes a year, and husband James Townsend is a football coach for Luton Town and so his life follows the football season. However, there are still times when they have to be places at the last minute.
“I don’t know where we would be without both of our parents,” Kerry says. “We can pick up the phone and say, can you pop over for a couple of hours or can you take Alfie for the weekend? They have been phenomenal because even though I can take Alfie with me and look after him during the day, he can’t come with me on stage – not yet at least.”
She counts herself really lucky that she works in a profession where taking your child to work is not a huge obstacle. “When I’m in the studio, he’s happy watching me and being taken care of in the control room. I’m lucky because I probably get to spend more time with him than most people who go back to work.
“So when we went to Moscow to do the candlelight concerts there with Brian, Alfie had more people with him than either Brian or I did. There, he was surrounded by grandparents – he had his own entourage.
“It was great for him and me. It’s great that he has been able to experience different places and different cultures so early and hopefully that will continue. The world is shrinking all the time and he loves being on the tour bus and you can see him looking around and taking it all in.”
For Kerry, who shot to fame in We Will Rock You in 2002, where she first met Brian May, performing is in her soul. She played Elphaba, the green-faced witch in Wicked both in the West End and on Broadway from 2007-2009, before taking over the role of Nancy in the revival of Lionel Bart’s Oliver at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in 2010.
In between she and Brian went into the studio to record her debut album Anthems which they launched with two sell-out concerts at The Royal Albert Hall followed by a national tour in 2011. This was followed by a UK and European tour with Jason Donovan and the Kaiser Chiefs’ Ricky Wilson in the revival of Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds in 2011 which then fed into a second tour with Brian May, the Acoustic by Candlelight tour, in 2012-13.
Last year she also cast in the 20th anniversary production of Rent and realised a personal ambition by staging a sold-out solo show at the London Palladium.
The show was such a success that she has decided to capture the spirit of it on her new album which she has financed through crowd-funding – getting fans to pre-buy it and offering them exclusive backstage access at gigs, visits to rehearsals and trips to the studio during the recording process.
“The record industry is in such a crazy place at the moment that you have to be Katy Perry or Justin Bieber to register with them.
“Fortunately, the internet gives you the opportunity to do it yourself and in the way that you want to do it. You can create your album and be yourself without having to fit into their preconceived idea of what you should be like. Even with my first album with Brian, I found it difficult to understand exactly who I was and a record label wants to know exactly what they are selling.
“When you are a cross-over artist when you have done musical theatre, concerts and musical tours it’s hard for them to pinpoint exactly what you are. So if you do it yourself you can choose the material that reflects the breadth of your musical interests.
“You don’t want to pigeonhole yourself as an artist and I have been very fortunate that I have been given the freedom to do lots of different things.”
The new album takes its lead from the material Kerry used for her one woman show at the London Palladium last year.
The show was essentially an autobiography on stage – revisiting past successes, some of her favourite songs by other artists and some songs from musicals she would love to do in the future – along with some collaborations with friends like Brian May, fellow Wicked performers Louise Dearman and Rachel Tucker and Rent co-star Rory Taylor.
“The response was so great that I wished I had recorded it but there was so much going in my life at the time – I had only just found out I was pregnant – that I didn’t think to record or video the show. So when I had loads of people coming up to me for weeks afterwards asking if there was going to be a live album I thought why not record a studio version of it?
“The great thing about it is that this has been entirely driven by the fans. The money was raised through crowd-funding so it is very much a collaborative project with my lovely, passionate fans.
“The whole Palladium experience was terrific because it had a real family feel to the evening. Loads of people in the audience knew each other, everyone on stage knew each other and it was just a joyous evening and that’s what we hope people will hear on the album.”
There will be a number of duets and collaborations on the album but she doesn’t want to name names and tempt fate because no-one has signed on the dotted line yet.
But surely, Brian May will be adding some of his distinctive guitar to a couple of tracks?
“He might be,” Kerry laughs, “But, he’s very busy with his own stuff at the moment. He’s touring and working on a new Queen album over the summer but I spoke to him yesterday and, yeah, we’ll see.”
She did say that long-time musical partner Craig Adams would be involved adding his elegant arrangements to the songs.
“We are planning to be in the studio at the end of June and into the beginning of July. Because we only have a set amount of money we have to be very disciplined and go into the studio, get it down and get out.
“When I have worked with Brian in the past, he has the luxury of having his own recording studio, so time was never an issue. But I think we will be all right because we know the material, the arrangements have all been worked out, so it should be fine.”
The plan is to have the album out by the end of the summer so it’s ready for Kerry’s autumn tour.
“The tour will be a similar show to the one I did at the Palladium and will allow everyone who couldn’t get tickets for that one-off show to hear these amazing songs.
“Also not everyone can or wants to make a long trip to London, so it’s great that we can bring the show to them. That’s one of the reasons I enjoy coming back to Bury. It’s an opportunity for my grandparents and my family to see the show close to home.
“Also I love playing The Apex. I really do think it’s a fabulous venue. It’s intimate, the response from the audience is great, everyone can see you and the acoustics are superb. What more can you ask for?”
What of the future?
“Well more of the same I guess. I love doing concerts so I want to do some more of those and I’d love to do another show in the West End – so yeah, just keeping myself busy.”
A busy life which now also includes keeping Alfie entertained and making sure that not only she is on time for her next gig on time but also that Alfie is there with his entourage of grandparents.
“It’s a wonderful experience and everyone makes such a fuss of him. He’s a lucky boy.
Kerry Ellis will be performing at The Apex, Bury St Edmunds on October 16.
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