Bringing to life Vincent van Gogh in Eastbourne musical

The show is the culmination of a journey going back more than 50 years for Tony Norman who has created it with Mark Edwards.

For Richard, who will be our Van Gogh, it goes back six or seven years: “My agent got in touch with me saying that there was this project that was in an advanced stage of moving forward but was still basically just a nucleus. There was some recording that needed doing and I met with Tony at that point. I paint and I have a passion for artists of that period. Speaking to Tony, something just sparked between us, and then I did the songs and now coming back to it six or seven years later it's great.”

Obviously part of the excitement is to originate the role: “I don't want to say ownership but there is a sense of putting the first vibe down on the boards which is a great honour.

"It is always very nice to be working on something that is a biopic as an actor. It helps you understand the character.”

And the research is fascinating: “We have got what the writer Tony decided to encapsulate. We have got his window and I can get tones and colours from that but you've got source material about what people have said about him as a human being and you can mix all that together. You can bring all that into the moment. To build the character you've got what the script says but 100 per cent you put the skin on the character from other sources so that you can then properly emote the words that Tony has written.”

And it is a challenge: “The thing I found on people's lips is that the moment you mentioned Van Gogh people say ‘Oh! Don't cut your ear off!’ I would say that 95-96 per cent of people initially mention that and you can see that that is the general understanding for the general public but what Tony is really trying to show is what made him do that and what happened on his artistic journey but also to show that the man was sad and yet very skilled and yet also very spiritual and also very, very artistic. What happens in the end is a tragedy for him. Let's not beat around the bush. You're not going to come away from the show saying ‘Oh, I feel great!’ You will come away thinking ‘Poor man and what he went through…’

“I would like to show him as an honest and intellectual person, always deeply thoughtful of others but also absolutely evangelistic in his artistic pursuit, somebody that was so driven by his craft that other things just didn't matter as long as he could do it and I want to show that energy. It's something that words can't necessarily encapsulate but I think that energy is a big part of it all.”

For Tony, research trips to Amsterdam, Paris and Provence were all vital in forming a clear picture of Vincent’s troubled life.