Is it all in his head? Chichester students take to the stage

It is being staged by the University of Chichester’s musical theatre triple threat students in the Assembly Theatre on the university’s Bognor Regis campus with performances from November 21-24, with tickets are available online via Ticket Source at https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/universityofchichesterconservatoire/nine/e-rlbqlr

Tom Fage and Stan Kaleniuk have been double cast as Guido and will the sharing the roles of both Guido in later life and the younger Guido.

As Tom explains: “It is basically his experiences writing a new production which he doesn't know anything about but wants to do and trying to make something work, but it is his experiences with the women from his past and his present. In different ways they get into his head and manipulate him and seduce him and try to push his career forward but actually you never know whether what you're seeing on the stage is happening in real life or is just in his head. Stan and I are doing three shows each and then three shows each as his younger self.”

And for Stan, part of the fun and the challenge is that they are certainly making different choices along the way: “How Guido is interpreted can be wildly different. For me Guido is a character who is surrounded by all his women but they don't manipulate him. They build him up. They want to make him. But there are so many different choices that you can make with the character.”

Stan is from Hertfordshire, from Hemel Hempstead: “Which means that I have had a year and a half of telling people where I'm from and it really sounds like I just made the name up! I auditioned for a few places but when I came to audition here it just really felt that it resonated with me. Everyone was really friendly and it just felt right. And it has been great. It has allowed me to work on the things that I wanted to work on. I came here not being the strongest dancer but feeling the improvement in that area that I have been able to make has been really great.”

Tom, originally from Birmingham, is also loving the course: “Like Stan I auditioned for various different places but when I came here it just felt really homely. They gave us a clear meaning to the course and what they wanted us to achieve from the get go. A lot of the courses you are just there to sing and act and dance but here they wanted you to feel comfortable and to improve. I'm not the most confident dancer but I feel that I can really show the progress to get to the level that I'm at now. Singing is my forte and that's what I love most but it's just so freeing when you are on stage surrounded by an incredible cast. We are one big unit. There is nobody that's better than anybody else. We are all really properly working together.”

The production is brought to the stage by the creative team of director Emma Kilbey (credits include the UK tours of Zog and Zog and The Flying Doctors, The Caretaker, Fame, The Fastest Clock in the Universe, as well as Cry Baby – The Musical), musical director Bianca Fung, (an MA graduate from Mountview, with musical directing credits including A Jaffa Cake Musical, SCHOLL and assistant musical director on Cable Street) and choreographer Pamela Fleming.