The first time Dublin comic and actor Ian Coppinger visits a West End show will be when he takes to the stage in one. He talks to Brian Boyd at the Edinburgh Festival
At some stage you've probably wondered what would happen if, say, at 4 p.m. one afternoon you began drinking champagne and then moved on to whiskey and kept drinking until 1.30 a.m. the following morning and then, 12 hours later you had to appear on stage opposite a Hollywood star in a sold-out show at the Edinburgh Festival. Wonder no more. Dublin comic and actor, Ian Coppinger, did just that after the first performance of this year's Fringe box-office hit, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
"After doing that the night before, at our second show I really, really thought I was going to faint on stage in front of Christian Slater [the show's lead actor\]" he says. "I was sweating like crazy and really had to concentrate on not passing out. I got through it all right, but since then I haven't been drinking. You just can't do those late Edinburgh nights when you have to be up for an early afternoon show. I'm at home now most nights at 11 or 12 at night - which is extraordinarily early by Edinburgh standards".
Coppinger, along with two other Irish comics - Owen O'Neill and Brendan Dempsey - is part of the 15-strong cast of the stage adaptation of Ken Kesey's cult novel about a rebellion in a US mental hospital in the early 1960s. The show's three lead roles are taken by Slater, Frances Barber - an acclaimed British stage actress - and MacKenzie Crook, well known for his role as Gareth in the TV comedy The Office.
The show has sold out its month-long run at the festival and after just a three-day break it transfers to London's West End for a three-month run. Although beset by problems - the original director, Guy Masterson, pulled out just weeks before it opened in Edinburgh and Slater came down with chickenpox meaning four shows had to be cancelled - the show has wildly impressed the critics.
"It hasn't been easy," says Coppinger of the show's problems. "First Guy Masterson pulled out for personal reasons - ill-health in his family - during the rehearsal period, then we got a new director Terry Johnson, but only for a week because he had other commitments, and now we have a woman called Tamara Harvey directing, and everything has settled down. I think a lot of the problem was that there was so much hype about the show in the run-up to the festival and that a big name star in Christian Slater would be appearing in it. Also the fact that every single ticket was sold out in near-record time. Everything seemed back on track until Christian Slater came down with chickenpox and we had to cancel the first four performances.
"When we finally got it up and running, we had to exclude the press from the first week of the show because priority had to be given to those who had paid for tickets for the cancelled shows. So I think there was some rumblings here and there about the show not being ready, but that really wasn't the case. The chickenpox floored Christian and the rest of us in the cast had to run around checking if we had had chickenpox as children or if we needed to be inoculated."
The show features the same core cast that performed in last year's similar box-office hit, Twelve Angry Men - also directed by Guy Masterson. "This whole thing began when Owen O'Neill decided to round up a bunch of comics and get them to act," explains Coppinger. "The reasoning was that all the comics are in Edinburgh anyway doing their shows, so why not try and get them up at a reasonable hour in the morning to do some drama. Out of the 12-strong cast last year, nine were comics. We had a go and we really succeeded. We would have brought Twelve Angry Men to the West End, but there was a problem acquiring the touring rights but we did tour it in Australia and New Zealand.
"I think the reason it worked so well for us last year is that we had comics such as Bill Bailey, Phil Nichol, Jeff Green and Owen O'Neill in the show - all four of them are past Perrier nominees and have a real draw factor on the Fringe. Also, I think people were curious as to how a bunch of stand-ups would fare doing "real" drama. Once the comics realised they couldn't stay out until six in the morning drinking - as everyone tends to do here - it went fantastically well for us."
It was on a flight from Perth to Wellington earlier this year as they toured Twelve Angry Men that someone passed around the script for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. "We wanted to stay together as a group and work on another show," he says. "We knew it had to be an ensemble piece and this play just seemed to fit. For various reasons of availability and casting only five of the comics from last year's show are in this one, but it does still seem like a continuation."
The anticipated backlash from "real" actors to these comedians suddenly turning into actors never materialised. "Comedians have natural timing - it's an essential part of their job," he says. "Also, we're well used to performing five or six times a week and a good few of us do comedy improv as well in which you have to go through a huge amount of characters. The only thing we did find a bit funny was having to do these vocal exercises with a voice coach - breathing and projecting and all of that."
Coppinger freely admits he had been to only "about four plays" in his life before appearing in last year's show. "Theatre just didn't appeal to me. And with this show the funny thing is that I've still never been to a West End show, so the first time I will be in a West End theatre will be when I'm appearing in a show in one. I do find now, though, that I do go to a bit more theatre and I have a bit more of an understanding of it."
For a comparative novice, Coppinger had no sense of apprehension working beside Christian Slater (who plays McMurphy) and Frances Barber (Nurse Ratched).
"The funny thing about Frances Barber is that I had no idea of her work, simply because I never went to the theatre. With Christian Slater, we all find him to be totally down to earth - there's no Hollywood-style bullshit there at all. What was strange though was during the four-week rehearsal period in London during July, when you went out for a drink with him, you saw the level of attention he has to put up with - people coming over to him etc. He does handle the attention very well though - but then again you have to remember that he's had that sort of life since he was 17 when he starred in The Name of the Rose. He's 35 now, so he's had plenty of time to get used to it." For his part, Slater says he decided to appear in the Fringe because "it is the best festival on the planet".
Coppinger has found the skills he has picked up as an actor are feeding back into his stand-up work. "I think it was bound to cross over," he says. "I find that I'm now doing more story-based comedy. I have a different sense of delivery and a more heightened approach to how I perform as a comic. I sort of live the story more if that doesn't sound too 'actory'."
During the London run, Coppinger will be able to act and do stand-up at the same time.
"Because the cast is full of stand-ups we've come up with this idea of having a 'Cuckoo Cabaret' every now and again. It will start just after the show has finished and it will have the cast doing comedy routines and some improv - and we have persuaded Christian to sing a few songs as well."
When the run finishes in December, it seems likely the original cast of Twelve Angry Men will begin a London run of the show (the rights have been freed up) and there's already talk of the same core cast putting on another ensemble show in Edinburgh next year. "I wouldn't mind giving The Great Escape a go," he says. At this rate, he'll soon have appeared in more plays then he's ever seen.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest runs at The Assembly Rooms until August 30th. It opens in the Gielgud Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, London on September 3rd (until December 4th). Ian Coppinger is in the comedy show, Small, Medium and Large at 9 p.m. nightly at the Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh until August 30th
