Evening Standard 31-03-2023

James Norton reveals he was more nervous about singing than stripping off in West End play 

By Robert Dex, Arts Correspondent 

Happy Valley star James Norton said he was more nervous about singing on stage in his new West End play than getting naked.

The actor plays a troubled child abuse survivor in A Little Life and found himself at the centre of controversy after naked photos of him were published in a newspaper and online prompting calls for theatres to ban mobile phones for certain productions.

The demanding role, in the almost four-hour-long drama, sees his character attacked and abused on stage, regularly self-harm as well as sing a few verses of Mahler’s Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen.

He said: “I was nervous about the singing.
“With the nudity I just believe in it. I believe it’s so central and it’s required to really tell the story.
“I don’t feel in any way nervous about that because I believe in it and it feels justified. The singing is nerve wracking because I’m not really a trained singer and in its German and I don’t speak German.
“It took a lot of time learning that, but it’s also lovely because it’s such a departure for me.”

Norton, who was joined at the post show party in Soho by his fiancée Imogen Poots, said he was on “a bit of a high” after the gruelling performance which was watched by a star-studded audience including Dua Lipa and Russell Tovey.

He told the Standard: “To be honest weirdly after every show I’m very up. I come off and everyone asks me ‘You must find it really hard? You must be sitting at home crying?’.
“But I don’t know if its the nature of the material, that ending and the sort of consistency of the experience but it’s like a dream. Someone presses play and I go into this weird process and someone presses stop at the end and it’s kind of magical.”

The 37-year-old said the audience reaction had been “remarkable” with very few people walking out despite the show’s length and traumatic subject matter.

He said: “It’s a really special journey to go on and the moment we all gather together in that theatre and everyone is aware of some vague idea of what’s going to happen and how long it is and all those trigger warnings so by being there they are agreeing to come on this journey with us.
“It’s like complicity and it’s a sort of a pact that we are all in it together. It is dark but it’s a story about love and friendship and heroic acts of friendship.
“I’ve never had a reaction like it in a theatre and I hope it doesn’t sound in any way kind of conceited but it happens every night. Every night the curtain comes up and I’ve never had a full standing ovation in my life and literally it gets one every night.”

A Little Life is set to run at the Pinter Theatre from Saturday March 25 to Sunday June 18.