STAGEY CHAT WITH MARK TUNSTALL


The next interview in our stagey chat series is with Mark Tunstall: writer, director and actor in heartwarming comedic show, KIDULTS! The Musical. KIDULTS! The Musical opens at the Bridewell Theatre in London from October 21st.

Get yourself comfy and join us for the next segment of Stagey Chat!

Hi Mark, how are you? Thanks so much for chatting to Stage to Page today! Would you mind introducing yourself and telling our readers how you first got into the theatre industry?

I started acting when I was eleven in school plays and musicals. I got my first agent, Sylvia Young at 19. I started jobbing it as an actor and started to get professional roles in theatre, film, tv and commercials. My next agent, Jackie Michael, got me an audition for Hollyoaks, but the producer Phil Redmond decided he liked me for the role of Adam Leigh in Brookside.

Your show KIDULTS! The Musical is opening this month at the Bridewell Theatre in London. Can you tell us about the story?

The character I play, Narrata, takes the audience on a journey into his past, to his school days and introduces us to the various standout characters from his youth.

We meet a variety of individuals, all with their own personal story and journey of development to take. From class clown to social pariah, the popular kids and the subversive elements of the playground. This show is a musical and so the characters ‘stories’ are often told in song and cross a variety of musical styles and touch on many themes that are topical today, neurodiversity, LGBTQ+, gender identity, mental health and acceptance. This culminates in a showstopping climax of conclusions to every body’s tale.

As well as being the writer and the director, you're also portraying the "Narrata" in the show. Can you tell us about the character you play?

Narrata manipulates the characters and events in the show to change their lives for the better, whilst on his own personal journey to salvation.

What inspired you to write a show about the time period between childhood and adulthood?

The actors in the show are all adults playing characters between the ages of 12 and 16, as Narrata says “That beautiful/awful time between childhood to adulthood…Kidulthood”. I wanted to explore ideas in a musical that would be fun for actors to perform with adult hindsight and an audience to enjoy the nostalgia of. Anybody who ever went to school will see something in this musical that is personal to themselves. The inspiration to make a show about this time stemmed from a book I wrote called ‘Cautionary Tales for Kidults’, I developed this book of short stories and tall tales of rhyme into a two-hour musical that explores and celebrates individuality in these difficult years.

A question I ask everyone we chat to - my blog is called Stage to Page. But if you could turn any book, from page to stage, what would it be and why?

Flashman by George MacDonald Fraser, based on the school bully character in Tom Brown’s School Days by Thomas Hughes. This book continues the adventures of this diabolical character and a series of books following this sees Flashman plough his way through many significant historical times and places. I would have this made and I would play him.

And finally, why should anyone reading this book tickets to KIDULTS! The Musical?

If you want to have a night of nostalgia and feelgood music, mashed in with sentiment and real pathos, you have to see this. If you are young, you will see yourself in these characters, if you consider yourself old, this will make you young again. This show is the nearest thing that you will find to an elixir of life or a philosopher’s stone. I swear, watching this will take years off your life.

You can book tickets to see KIDULTS! The Musical, here.

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