David Thaxton Discusses His Return To LES MISERABLES

Hi guys this is Jamie from Broadway World UK and we're here at the Queen's Theatre for an exclusive chat with David Faxton

My name is David Faxton and I play Chappelle in Lameers and Rob

So obviously you are no stranger to Lameers, can you tell us a bit more about your journey with the show

My journey with the show, my god. So basically I first, I mean I saw the show when I was young and you know before I got into Radiohead and things like that

It was mad musical theatre geek when I was like 12 and I wanted to see it loads and I

just remember thinking it was just awesome and wonderful and then I was many years later

having been thrown out of Hull University and all sorts of stuff, I was at the Royal

Walsh College of Music and Drama doing vocal studies, proper opera and I got a job doing

the opening of the Wales Millennium Centre. So I got two weeks off college and the guy that directed that was Ken Caswell, who was

the original Bishop of Dean, originally in the Barbanham, he went on to direct the show

in town and all over the world and I got a bit drunk at the after party and I said to

him, oh Ken, I want to do something else in my life. He got me an audition for Miss Saigon, there was a tour of Miss Saigon happening at the time

He said, oh you're pretty great G.I., and I went along for that heater funnily enough

And they said, you're not right for Miss Saigon but you are right for Les Mis giving you a ring

and I thought I'll never hear from them again but they did and six or something, seven auditions later I got in

and so I left college and came to London to be in Les Mis. I played Cawthrack and Bromant de Bois

and I understudied on Durasana this show. You've got away from the show, come back and play a different role. Yeah

How has that experience been Has it been quite weird because obviously you have a perception of the show you done it with a particular cast in a certain way and then to come in and play someone else Yeah you make an interesting point though it a great show for that because as you age as a person and as an actor then there something else in the show that suddenly you come into contact with and that you right for

it's fantastic from that point of view. But you make a very interesting point about different

casts and you learn...it's weird because everyone...I was talking to Sam Hiller, the

director, the resident director about this, and everyone who's been in the show has their

own sort of ownership of Les Mis and what they think Les Mis is and what it should be

and how it should be done and that's nearly always informed by the people who you've been

So everyone, I just know this is true, everyone will have their own, this is the person who's

best at this and this is the person who's best at that. So it's quite difficult

It can be quite difficult if you have a really strong vision and you have these amazing experiences

and you learn so much. And I've learned so much every single time I've been here. So when you come back, it's weird and you have to learn how to embrace new approaches

and different things. I mean it helps that every time I've come back there's been someone here that I've done it with before

So, and this time around with Killian Dunley as Valjean, it's very cool because we were in it 10 years ago

When it was his, yeah, Killian first came over from Ireland. It was his first job, he was a swing here when I was on drugs

So we made friends, so it's very cool. Love Never Dies, I did six months and it was fun

They were a great cast it was very cool working with Ramin Karimlu he a lovely guy and it was nice really good getting to play opposite him It was great I had a very nice time It was fun

And also in 2011 you won your Olivier award. Yes, it was very cool, it was very surreal, very odd thing

Nobody goes into acting for awards or any of that kind of stuff

of stuff so it was it was very real honor it was just an honor such a cliche

as it was just an honor to be dominated but it really was it was such a lot I couldn't really get my head around it and then you're winning it was it was

really surreal it was that it was it was the coolest part about that whole

experience was getting to work with Steve Sontag that was you know he's a little

hero of my instillism that was he yeah he's great he's really nice

WM Workshops is a performance training company that my wife Nancy Sullivan and I set up in 2011 I think

And it snowballed from, we did a performance class, one of Nancy's private students went to a song class with a couple of West End performers

and she said she paid a fortune, she was up there for like two minutes and she said it was just a really rubbish train

So she said you and David should do it. So we tried it. So we charged half the money for half the people and twice the time

And it's evolved and snowballed into this. It's something I'm just so incredibly proud of

It's unbelievable. It's basically our whole remit is about making top-level acting and performance training affordable

Because it just isn't. It simply isn't. It's naked profiteering left, right and centre

and I just think that's not right. We do acting for camera we do music vid stuff we do straight acting stuff We starting a years course 40 week three days a week part time years course which we currently accepting auditions for

But yeah, I would, if anyone has an interest in performance training

in honing their craft, in getting on in the industry, come and see us because it's become something really, really, really cool

It's a nice thing. WMworkshops.com We're called Divisions. we are five of us who

we all went to school together so we've all known each other since we were either 12

or 8 or 4 or in the case of Adam and Matt 0

because they're brothers so and it all started Matt and I were

we were really we were really close at school and and we were always sat next to each other

in music classes just do all our stuff together and then we went away to uni

and bought guitars in that hard to cliche way and started writing songs

and so we started writing songs when we were 18 and we've sort of been at it ever since

on and off it has a sort of sporadic nature to it because

it would be different if we were all 17 years old and all lived on the same

street but you know we're not we're all 35 and all five of us

live all over the country so it's a bit like trying to get Monty Python in the same room and the five of us meet up but when we do

it's totally worth it so we released an album a couple of years ago

called Distance Over Time our second album we've written all the songs for it we're going to record it soon

and hopefully get that out this year so it's very very very fulfilling

very rewarding and I just love it and it's made all the more special

because it's for people that I've known for so long and I think it's very rare

that you have friends that you've known since you were 8 or 4

or whatever So I think that's a really cool thing