TARA BRADYtalks to soap legend Jason Donovan
‘MUM AND DAD are a bit more relaxed,” Jason Donovan assures us. “But there’s still an element of chaos in the house. I’d forgotten all that strangeness.”
There is no escape. No matter where he turns Jason Donovan is playing daddy. Last month he and wife Angela Malloch welcomed baby Molly, a sister for Jemma, 10, and nine-year-old Zach, into the Donovan homestead. Meanwhile, back at the coalface, there are a gaggle of von Trapp children to attend to. Being around Jason Donovan right now is starting to feel like a John Wyndham novel. Was it really the best time to sign on for a lavish touring production of The Sound of Music, we wonder?
"No. I love having the big family on stage," he says. "Having done 18 months in Priscilla: Queen of the Desertyou couldn't get a bigger contrast. And I'm getting off easy. Ange tells me she's a good baby. But now I'm on tour I'm sleeping very well. I tend to sleep well anyway as I've never been any good at breastfeeding."
Backstage Pass is busy running the numbers. As permanent residents of a dappled suburb that is forever Ramsay Street, 1989, we had imagined that Donovan was either playing Ralph or getting into lederhosen. Instead, he’s playing the Captain, a role we think of as Christopher Plummer’s. Say it ain’t so . . .
“The maths add up I’m afraid,” says Donovan. “You summed it up. People tend to associate me with 1989. I’m now 42 and with the birth of my daughter I’m the father of three children. It’s plausible that I could have seven kids even before they put the make-up on.”
This is a discombobulating development for thirtysomethings or, indeed, for anyone old enough to recall the stretch in the early 1990s when Jason Donovan was the most famous pin-up in the world. It is, he admits, something of a mixed blessing when even your given name triggers a Proustian rush of Neighbours,Kylie Minogue and a Stock, Aitken and Waterman soundtrack.
"My life has been a constant referral back to Neighbours," says Donovan. "There's a lot of luck in this business. With Neighbours I was in the right place at the right time. I can't say it's never happened to me. I've been the guy who can't walk down the street. I try to look forward. I'm doing what I love doing. It's good to be performing. It's like anything else. You need to make art if you want to be the next Damien Hirst."
It's a strange business being Jason Donovan. The iconic Australian no longer shifts the kind of units that once landed him in the Guinness Book of Recordsas "the most successful teen idol of the 1980s" but his subsequent career has plenty to recommend it.
A massive draw on the West End, Donovan has scored successes with The Rocky Horror Picture Show, The War of the Worldsand Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. An album of 1980s anthems released late last year made number 28 in the UK charts. Between campaigns for Iceland, a stint on I'm a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here!and tabloid headlines, the star has rarely been out of public consciousness since he first followed dad Terence Donovan into acting back in 1986.
But here comes that Proustian rush again. It’s impossible to think Jason without thinking Kylie. What does one do when your former colleague, girlfriend and duet partner is now a €40 million empire?
“I can’t say I don’t look at my contemporaries and wonder how things might have been different, and think I’d love to be doing that,” he says. “Would I love to have an album out there that inspires people that allows me to play huge venues? Yeah, sure that might be nice. But it’s not something that worries me. I’m human. Of course I’ve thought about what might have been. There are things I could have done or should have done. What if I had said yes to this? What if I hadn’t done that? We all want to be something we are not. But I am being absolutely honest. At 42, I look at myself in the mirror and say ‘You’ve got three healthy kids. You’re earning a good wage. You have a professional currency. You’ve got it pretty f**king good.’ ”
It's kind of fitting that he has ended up essaying musical theatre's busiest patriarch. Fatherhood has been good to Jason Donovan. His 2007 autobiography Between The Lines: My Story Uncutprovides commendably frank testimony on how domesticity saved him from the blandishments and excesses of show business.
“My wife is an incredible balance for me,” he says. “We are a great team. She’s my best friend. She’s not an actress. She’s not involved in the business any more. She’s just a lovely person. Look, I just wanted to create a base for myself that I didn’t have when I was growing up. That wasn’t anything to do with my dad doing anything wrong. That’s just how it was. We’re lucky to have found a lifestyle and currency that works for us.”
Months into the touring production, we're happy to report that Donovan is still most excited about The Sound of Music.
“It has a hard time because it has been sent up by all these comedy shows,” says the star. “The tunes are quite sweet and have that Rodgers and Hammerstein glossy feel. It’s a Cinderella story. But it’s more complex than that. It’s about overcoming evil and defying the odds.”
Backstage, however, it’s all about overcoming the catering. “This is theatre,” says Donovan. “There are no trailers with plasma-screen TVs. I eat salads whenever I get my hands on them and the microwave is my friend. There are no muffins coming around.”
Muffin deficit aside, he’s loving the variety of UK pit stops and is particularly excited about his forthcoming dates in Ireland. Still, he must occasionally pine for the sunlight of his formative years? “F**king hell, yeah,” he laughs. “Do I miss the sunshine? I am the biggest vitamin D junkie. And I’ve been sucked dry over the last three months. I miss that salt-water spray. I miss that lovely feeling when you come out of the water. Here I’m reduced to a salt-water inhaler. The northern hemisphere has a lot to offer but sunshine is not one of them.”
The Sound of Musicis at the Grand Canal Theatre, Dublin April 5th-30th
