BACKSTAGE PASS:It's panto season once more, and TARA BRADYtalks to singer Mikey Graham as he prepares to tread the boards in ' Aladdin'
NOT FOR THE FIRST time, the stairwells of Dublin's historic Gaiety Theatre are ringing with the pleasingly discordant sounds of competing vocal tune-ups. Footsteps emanate from all directions as assorted Billie Barry charges, stagehands and chorus girls dash between last-minute checks. It's show time for Aladdin,the latest in a series of Christmas pantomimes for a venue that has hosted various Widow Twankeys and Buttons every year since the 1850s.
At the front of the house, it’s a tale of two demographics. The original Boyzone diehards are out in force for visiting panto star Mikey Graham (who is playing Abanazar), not to mention his manager Louis Walsh, who voices the “Master of the universe” in this production. Nowadays, of course, it’s the Boyzone fans’ offspring who are providing the excited squeals and ponytails. Can it really be so long since the fab five were first riding high in the charts?
“How do you think I feel?” laughs Graham, “One of the Billie Barry kids came up to me and said: ‘You used to go out with my ma.’ We were only kids at the time, but still.”
This is not the singer’s first time treading these particular boards. As a former Billie Barry kid himself, he has plenty of fond recollections of youthful stints at South King Street.
"I knew what I was getting into," he says. "Or I thought I did. I was used to coming in here as a Billie Barry kid and doing a couple of music numbers. When I look at the posters for old shows in the green room, I think: 'Oh, I was in that.' This was still a big step up. I had gone back to the Gaiety School and done three years of acting training but you get rusty. It was only when I started doing the heavy-duty rehearsals for Aladdinthat I realised how much work was involved. I had to really knuckle down."
A reluctant child star, Graham was enrolled in stage school alongside his sisters and has been dabbling in show business ever since.
“Maybe my ma was going through the change or something at the time,” he says. “But she just wanted an hour to herself. So one day, when she was leaving my sisters off, I was dropped off too. I didn’t get on well. I was a total brat. It was only after my best friend – who’s still my best friend – was enrolled that I started to enjoy it. His ma wanted an hour to herself too.”
For all his prior experience, Graham admits that, without Keith Duffy, Ronan Keating, and Shane Lynch to back him up, getting back on the stage – even one so familiar – was tricky.
“I had lost a lot of confidence as a performer,” he says. “This is a big deal for me in terms of getting that confidence back. When you’re used to being in a group, you keep looking around to see where the others are before realising it’s just you. It’s scary. So being here is sort of like coming home.”
Known as the quiet, grounded one in the Boyzone crew, Graham has, in the past, struggled with depression. Work, he says, is a refuge and “a way to keep going”.
“It was a tough time after Stephen (Gately) died,” he says. “I think we’re all still coming to terms with it. But I’ve kept myself busy. For the last week of this run, I’m back in rehearsals with Boyzone, then off to London to put the live show together.”
As a reward for his endeavours, he has landed the star dressing room. In a career blessed with sales of some 15 million records, pan-European platinum discs, sell-out tours and hysterical fans, occupying this particular chamber is still a very big deal.
“When I was a kid, Maureen Potter was in this dressing room,” he says, smiling. “I keep expecting to see her every time I turn the corner. I still can’t believe I’m in here.”
Oh yes you are.
Aladdinis at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin until January 30th
