Realising true wealth is not in money - Local Hero on the Chichester stage

It’s 1983 and hotshot Texan oil executive Mac MacIntyre (Gabriel) is dispatched to the tiny Scottish fishing village of Ferness with $30 million in his pocket. The bay may have views to die for but it’s the only place that can take the tankers from an offshore oil field, so it’s up to Mac to seal a deal on the locals’ homes and put a refinery in their place. The villagers aren’t averse to cashing in on the black gold and Gordon, the local hotelier-lawyer-accountant-ceilidh organiser, proves a surprisingly tough negotiator. But they’ve all overlooked one very important person. And as the northern lights dance in the skies, Mac comes to realise that not everything of value is for sale.

“I've rehearsed in the UK before and I've done lots of things that have transferred from the UK to the States but I've never performed in a show over here,” Gabriel said. Whether working in the UK or the US is actually different, Gabriel will find out: “At the end of the day the play is the thing. If you've got good practitioners, it's all about delivering the best production possible which Daniel Evans has. We've had six weeks including tech and basically in the States you probably get three weeks or three and a half weeks, maybe a bit more for a bigger musical but it's been great to have the extra time. I think it means that you can build a foundation more slowly and more diligently. You don't have to throw the raw meat to the lions quite so quickly. You can simmer it and you can put more flavour into it but actually in the States we have a longer preview period in front of an audience than you would have over here and actually that's the thing because you don't really know until you have an audience in front of you.

“But one of the beautiful things about Daniel (who is directing) is that he is such a talented actor. He loves the word. The word is everything to him. The words are deeply important and we're both zealots in that respect. Every comma, every semi-colon really matters. He also has a deep love of actors and he is really generous in the process. I feel very blessed and I feel very blessed with the character I'm playing. He has a huge arc to go through. I am playing the American who comes and wants to buy the town. Which doesn't mean to say he's a baddie. There are no baddies in this. It's called Local Hero and that's very intriguing because if you ask different audience members who actually is the local hero at the end of it there are probably three or four different characters that they might say. But my character is called Mac. He is a Texas oilman dressed in Armani and Gucci and loves to drive fast cars and he is the true Reagan capitalist. We have to keep it of its time. That's very important in the storytelling. But I think the beauty of the piece is that effectively he operates on autopilot. He is head of acquisitions buying real estate and putting oil refineries in. But he does it without really thinking about it. But when he comes here, through meeting the locals and through experiencing the beauty of the landscape, his soul cracks open. He realises he does have a soul for the first time and that's a lovely thing to play. He wakes up to the fact that true wealth is not necessarily in money, and I feel that's a real blessing to be playing this character at this time in my career. Sometimes in a life in show business it is very easy to concentrate on the glitter rather than true worth. You feel you're always trying to earn money and book jobs but to have this character now it's just really interesting to realise what it is really all about.”