Rehearsals for Hello Again at the Bridewell commenced two weeks after the closure of Napoleon and it was partly as antidote to the enormity of the pressures of a West End show that I accepted the offer. After the huge set pieces, the lush orchestra and the large cast of the French epic, I returned ‘home’ to the Bridewell and back into my favourite form of musical theatre: the chamber piece, Actor’s theatre, not Director’s theatre.

Based on Schnitzler’s La Ronde, it details the relationships of different couples in the form of a sexual circle. Unlike the original, which is usually played by the same two actors (as in David Hare’s version, The Blue Room), LaChiusa’s piece is written for 10 actors.

My role of the Senator comes at the end of the piece and is loosely based on JFK. Quickly ditching the difficult Boston accent which I found impenetrable I had two wonderful scenes with Anita Louise Coombe as the actress and Ellen O’Grady as the whore. On the initial reading of my scene with Ellen, I hadn’t realised that my character was supposed to break down. Having bared my heart every night in Napoleon, I arrived at Hello Again completely wrung dry and so found the whole experience (like Michael John’s music) difficult, frustrating and exhausting.

It wasn’t until later in the year that I returned to Michael John’s work in LaLaLachiusa that I realised that he was a genius and what I had originally perceived in his music as emotionally barren was in fact a projection of my own state of mind!