A Conversation with Ellie Nunn
On solo Sondheim, Truly Scrumptious, and so much more
It was such a pleasure to speak to Ellie Nunn, currently starring as Truly Scrumptious in the UK tour of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. We talked about her solo show, Ellie Nunn Sings Sondheim At People, her own route into Sondheim’s work, teaching as a sacred profession, and much more. I loved this conversation, which begins below:
It’s so great to meet you. In your solo Sondheim show, Ellie Nunn Sings Sondheim At People, you talk about a particular person who introduced you to his work. In the spirit of teaching being (in Sondheim’s words) a sacred profession, perhaps we could start there?
I was quite a strange, lonely child. A lot of people will know that my parents are both in the profession and were very successful at that time. As a result, I had a lot of exposure to Andrew Lloyd Webber and to Les Mis and to more classical musicals, but not a huge amount of exposure to my parents. I felt quite out of place in the school that I was in. I was doing all sorts of after-school activities, as a kind of throw-it-at-the-wall approach—and it turned out quite quickly that what I really wanted to do was to sing. I’d gone to see so many musicals and I clearly was quite excited by them.
One of our neighbours was a totally eccentric woman called Sally Mates. She had the vibe of a drunk aunt at Christmas, and she basically offered to come on Saturday mornings and to do singing lessons with me. I must have been about seven or eight. And totally unbeknownst to my parents, she turned up with this huge trunk full of Sondheim librettos and books, and I remember them all so clearly. I remember being so fascinated by the cover of the Sweeney Todd book with that little illustration of the two of them. The shows themselves were all on cassettes. I think I started with Into the Woods, and I remember being obsessed with the opening number of Company. A lot of people assume that my route into Sondheim was through my parents, but it actually had nothing to do with them. They were nowhere near this. It felt like quite a private experience, almost like tutelage in Sondheim.
I feel like a lot of people discovered Sondheim in quite a private way. I did write to him when I was a child. I don’t think I had any sense of how famous he was. In my head, I was like, oh, I’ve discovered this secret thing I like, and I’m going to write to him. And when he passed, there was a sense of ownership that everyone had, of no one understands him like I understand him. Because everyone felt that they had found something in his work that spoke to them specifically. Isn’t that extraordinary?
Yes! And as kids, we don’t just identify with the younger characters, do we? You get an extraordinary window into adulthood through these shows…
When I was 10 years old, I sang “With One Look” at a talent show. That still makes me laugh to this day. And yes, I was obsessed with the Witch in Into the Woods when I was younger. It’s so funny to think of me at nine years old singing, “Don’t you know what’s out there in the world?” But as you get older, they only hit more and more. And by the time that you get into your sixties and you listen to Follies, it must just be the most devastating thing. When I was in Merrily We Roll Along at university, we had such a special time, and we knew it was a really special production—but I will always remember the visceral response of the adults and the parents coming to see it. And I now realize that watching a load of university students singing “Our Time” at the right age that they’re supposed to be at the end of the show, knowing how hard life is, must have been so devastating.
Like Shakespeare, the extraordinary thing with Sondheim is that there’s a universality that means that it’s ageless. It means different things to you at different times across your life, and that’s why I think so many people go back to Sondheim as a sort of manual or Bible. I can’t tell you how many times in my life I’ve listened to his lyrics as a sort of guide for where I am. I had an extraordinary one a few years ago when I was struggling with something, and one of my best friends printed for me a framed print of, “Better take the moment present as a present for the moment.”
One of my favorite things about Sondheim is how much he seemed to be self-conscious whenever he wrote a clever lyric—as if he was showing off. Because then you have these simpler lines like, “Sometimes people leave you halfway through the woods.” I struggle to even say that without getting a lump in my throat because it so simply states a truth.
As I was talking about Sally Mates the first time I did that Sondheim solo show, I thought, God, I’ve never really reached out to Sally and said just what a huge impact she’d had on my life. I thought, Oh, I must do that. And the next day, I found out that she had passed away that evening.
In that context then, I’d love to know more about how you went about putting your solo show together. I imagine you could have filled 10 completely different shows with his music… Is it mainly a question of balance?
I’ve been doing solo shows for quite a long time, and it’s an interesting process of discovering what works and what doesn’t. What I discovered a long time ago is that it doesn’t work to just sing songs you want to sing, because some songs do not work as standalone numbers. Nearly every song from Into the Woods doesn’t seem to work as a standalone number, because it just doesn’t have the weight that, within the context of the show, is so devastating. Away from Sondheim, I remember being desperate to sing “Carrie” from Carrie because it’s so fun to sing. We rehearsed it, and my MD just went, “It’s quite intense...” It was like I was screaming at the audience. So you have to kill your darlings on that front, and you don’t always get to sing all of your favourites.
There’s a real art, I think, to piecing together a solo show and the balancing act of which numbers go near each other. You can’t have too many of a certain style in a row. You don’t want it all to get too heavy. It’s always difficult when people say, “Can you just do half the show? Can you cut six?” It’s quite a particular journey that you go on with it. And as wanky as this sounds, even taking one number out can really upset the equilibrium of the show, and mean that we don’t get quite to where we need to by the end.
Something that Phil Quast said to me years ago was that if you’re doing a solo show, you have to be bringing something different to the table. You have to be bringing something new. There’s no point in getting up and just showing off yourself singing for 14 songs or whatever. It’s about your connection to those songs, but also, what are you bringing that’s particular to a solo show? So for instance, I always do “Everybody Loves Louis” as a drunk phone call. And I don’t believe that’s how it should be done in the show—so it only exists in that context. And that’s the privilege of doing a solo show is that you get to do whatever interpretation. You’re not contending with a director’s vision, or another actor or whatever. It’s entirely selfish. You have to ask yourself what it is you’re saying with it, and what it is you’re bringing.
Do your shows evolve over the course of repeat performances?
The Sondheim show came at a point where I’d already done quite a lot of solo shows, so I was quite used to putting them together. I knew the narrative of the show had hit something very honest—if anything, the only problem is that the more I do it, the more dishonest it might begin to feel. I used to do solo shows where I did a different show each time. When you’re replicating it, it’s a bit like stand-up. You have to replicate vulnerability in a way that can start to feel almost a bit dishonest, and that was interesting when discovering the chat within the show.
When I first wrote the show, I was at a really vulnerable point, and I remember there was a real honesty about being single. And now, four years later, I’m in a relationship, and I knew I’d have to rewrite that whole section. It’d be dishonest to do it as I used to. And with the running order, when I moved it to Crazy Coqs, I altered it to 1 hour 15 instead of two acts. But otherwise, I think the only things that got cut were “Everybody Says Don’t,” which used to give me a heart attack every time I read it. Those lyrics just never go in.
I did the show at 54 Below last year, and it was two days after the first anniversary of Sondheim passing. A few nights before, I’d been to see Ann Morrison’s show there. I met her, and it just felt like the most amazing pilgrimage.
And I’d love to know more about your experience of taking the show across the pond to 54 Below. Did you come away with any particular sense of how Sondheim’s work is received in the US versus the UK?
It was such a different pressure doing it in New York. And I do think that there’s a difference in our sensibilities as performers. I often think musical theatre in the UK has a less polished feel, partly because I think there’s a different structure with training and approach to continuation of training and things like that. There’s something a bit grittier in British musical theatre, and as a result, there’s often a realism or a cynicism that has produced some of our best work. And it’s why, with Sondheim in particular, I’ve particularly loved a lot of UK productions—because of the lack of polish. I think so often what’s amazing about Sondheim is the human, flawed quality to the work.
There was quite a fear of bringing that kind of stand-up quality and slightly grittier thing to 54 Below, where in the nights before my show people were singing Sondheim songs but in very big Broadway belts, or very tearfully singing. And I thought, oh my god, I’m going to be here in two days doing “Getting Married Today” with puppets. And it’s like anything in musical theatre. When you’re in the mood to hear someone do a massive, belting, riffing, huge number, it can be the most electric thing ever. But when I’ve taught Sondheim, the thing I berate everyone over the most is speech quality, and not to sing as much.
Knowing how strongly the arts flow through your family, I can’t resist asking about your earliest musical theatre memories…
When I was really little, my mum was in Saint Joan, and something happened where no one could look after me backstage, so Phil Quast just took me on stage under his cloak… so that was my stage debut. I adored watching my mum perform. I thought she was phenomenal. She’s not a singer, so that was more as an actress. She’s so brave, and I’m so fascinated by unexpected choices. I was reading in one of your essays about Sondheim saying that he’d been a critics’ darling and their target too—and I think what that’s indicative of is that he wasn’t writing to please people. He wasn’t writing to be liked. And I feel similarly as a performer, that if your aim is to be universally praised or to go down well with everyone, what you will probably end up with is quite a vanilla performer. And I think what’s always fascinated me watching other performers, or when I was growing up, was moments that really catch you off-guard or take you out of yourself.
Do you remember, in the film of Oliver, there’s a scene where Nancy gets slapped by Bill Sykes? And I remember so clearly that afterwards, the actress holds her cheek with her hand backwards. And as a kid, I just thought, how fascinating. That’s such an odd way to hold your cheek. I think little moments like that are what probably have inspired me the most.
The biggest phase I had with any Sondheim show was when I was eight years old and I was so obsessed with Mrs. Lovett that I used to get up in the morning, dress up as her, make dough, take it up to my room, and wait for my parents to come in so I could sing “The Worst Pies in London.” That was my most hardcore phase. That was the closest I’ve ever got to cosplaying a character.
When I was younger, I dared to dream that I would get to play certain parts. And when you’re older, you have this horrible knowledge that you probably won’t get to. And it’s devastating, because the truth is, Dot in Sunday in the Park with George is my dream role. And the reality is that there isn’t going to be a revival with a lesser-known musical theatre performer anytime soon. So it’s a weird one, because you let yourself love these shows, but it can almost be a bit painful to let yourself have too many dream roles.
We began this conversation with that notion of teaching as a sacred profession, and we’ve talked about your own early theatre experiences. You’re currently starring as Truly Scrumptious in the national tour of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which will be so many kids’ first experience of live theatre. Has that felt particularly special?
Yeah, I think that’s why it’s been a bit of a dream show for me, because I’m a big believer in that responsibility. And you also have the added responsibility that you have a lot of grandparents who grew up with the film, and parents who might have seen the show at the Palladium when they were younger. Everyone who comes to see this show says they’ve never seen such a range of ages in an audience. It really is for everyone—and I know that’s a clichéd sentence, but it’s not like, oh, it’s a show for kids, but there’s something in it for the adults. It means something to everyone—just like Mary Poppins does. It’s that Sherman Brothers magic. There’s something in that music, in the nostalgia of it. When we were in the rehearsal room, the first time they played the sound effect of the car, the one that makes them come up with its name, I burst into tears.
So we have this responsibility to the audience, but then you add on top this responsibility to the kids in the show. And particularly for Adam [Garcia, playing Caractacus Potts] and I, our whole show is with the kids. We do everything with them. We’re in the middle of a 20-week stint at the moment, and it’s those responsibilities that help if there are ever moments when you’re struggling. And it’s actually why I want to be a performer. I think that that teaching element and that passing down element makes it feel like what you’re doing means something.
Years ago, I did a show called Soldier On, where half the company were veterans and half the company were actors. Every night, all these veterans and military wives would come and see the show, and they were so devastated by feeling so seen. When I went back to doing a play that was just a play, it almost felt like, oh, is this it? You have to find your purpose, always.