Are Mad Men All the Rage in the West End?

There are some very exciting performances from male actors taking place in London at the moment. Among them are: Joseph Fiennes who played England football manager Gareth Southgate in the rousing soccer drama Dear England, at the National Theatre through August 11; Tom Hollander as a precise Boris Berezovsky and Will Keen as a steely Vladimir Putin in Peter Morgan’s must-see Patriots, through August 19, at the Noel Coward; Mark Rylance (naturally) as a beleaguered and ignored Hungarian doctor in Dr. Semmelweis, and Charlie Stemp as the scion of a New York real estate family who just wants to tap dance in a sparkling revival of Crazy for You.

But no performance is quite as over the top as Daniel Rigby’s in an updated revival of Dario Fo’s Italian political comedy Accidental Death of an Anarchist, currently at Theatre Royal Haymarket in the West End. It should clue you in that the character Rigby plays is called “The Maniac” in the program.

Rigby has a busy year. As soon as Anarchist ends in September, he will go straight into rehearsals for an eagerly-awaited new musical adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The Witches, set to begin performances at the National in November.

On a recent Zoom call from his home in London, Rigby, a one-time stand-up comic who also notably narrated a 2015 BBC reboot of Teletubbies, spoke about the high-octane performance he’s giving eight times a week.

How did this production of Anarchist come about?

I’d seen the show about about 20 years ago at the Donmar Warehouse, with Rhys Ifans playing the main character. I don’t remember it as being quite as political, but I remember that it was an absolute dream role for a comic actor, a role that I would love to do. About three years ago, I got an email from the producers that they were going to do it with a new adaptation, and would I be interested. It was just good fortune.

You starred in a recent production of Noises Off. How do the farcical elements compare here?

The physical demands are comparable. In Noises Off, I played Gary, who runs up and down the stairs and slams into doors again and again. When you do that 50 or 60 times over, you feel it in your body. In both shows, everything is heightened. It all happens at a whirlwind pace. It’s an exercise in stamina. I guess there’s something quite liberating and cathartic in it all.

How do you recover?

I try to have a lie down in between shows. It’s very much a horizontal approach. After an evening show there’s a weird feeling of being incredibly wired and exhausted at the same time. You go to sleep in a slightly frazzled state. I tend to watch a lot of true crime documentaries before bed.

How do you get ready for a performance?

I tend to do a lot of stretching and limbering up, and then I do a vocal warm up and a warm-up with my diction. I don’t hype myself up with manic music and bashing my head in the wall.

What will your role be like in The Witches?

You know, it’s also a highly strung comic part of a fellow who loses his mind over the course of the show, so I’m not going in an opposite direction.

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