This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Holly Morgan: Hello Friends of Carrie! We're back again! What is this? Is it our 15th episode? Never let anyone tell you that something is too niche for a 15 episode podcast series. Never. But this is a short one. We're just popping into your feed with a quick plug. Sorry, this is my fault. Because your book is finally out. Oh my God, this is terrifying. The World According to Chris. That should have been the title actually. Why was it not? I've got an idea. Oh God, is this going to be like that time we got kicked out of the London Dungeons? Yes, similar. Although I will maintain to this day that our recreations of ancient torture scenes were more realistic. And those people shouldn't have had their kids there anyway. So, right, we've interviewed all these people for Carrie over the last two years. How many do you reckon we interviewed?

[0:33] Chris Adams: I think the last count it was about 120.

[0:37] Holly Morgan: That's insane. That's absolutely insane. What's wrong with us? Anyway, I am going to interview you. Oh my God, I'm nervous. This is terrifying. So I want to start at the very beginning.

[0:48] Chris Adams: Yeah, very good place to start. How did the book come about?

[0:52] Holly Morgan: Wow.

[0:53] Chris Adams: Well, firstly, I can't believe it's actually happened. It's a bit incredible. It's called Out for Blood. Out for Blood. But we've tagged on a cultural history of Carrie the musical to make it sound intelligent. No, I mean, as I said previously in the last episode, I think we talked about Carrie for hours and hours and hours and hours. And it seemed even then that there was still kind of more stories to tell about the show. You know, it was such a fascinating story. And the more people we talked to, the more introductions were made. And we kind of met more and more different people from all different aspects of the show's creation and history. So it felt kind of like a bit of a domino effect.

And to be honest, it was quite surprising that, you know, there weren't more books about this story out there. There's obviously Not Since Carrie, which the Bible, which but, you know, that's that book's been around a long time. It came out in 1991, which, you know, is only just two or three years after the show.

[1:51] Holly Morgan: I thought you say after the after the original Bible, after the original musical.

[1:54] Chris Adams: You know, that was sort of very contemporary. And I think there was a sort of gap in the market, I suppose, for something that looks back after all of these years, after 35 years, and more in the case of the sort of early days of the musicals creation as to how a musical is made, what kind of cultural factors affect what that show becomes. And then looking at the show itself, you know, going through it scene by scene, song by song, as we did, but kind of talking to people who were actually there on stage and watching it and backstage to kind of get a sense of what the show was like itself. And then talking about, you know, the sudden closure. And then the legacy of the show, which we sort of touched upon in a few episodes, but it was great to spend more time talking about the new version of the show and talking to the people who were involved in creating that.

Yeah, so, you know, it was an amazing process. I was very lucky in that the lovely Dom O'Hanlon from my publisher Matthew in Drama, he'd listened to the podcast, and Dom is just this sort of vault of musical theatre knowledge and enthusiasm. And he could see the potential for this book. And, you know, I love the publisher. Anyone who's done any kind of theatre studies in their life will probably be familiar with Matthew and they produce such brilliant sort of theatre studies books and plays. So it was suddenly happening. And basically, I sort of worked through the book in over the last year in my spare time, every waking hour of the day, alongside directing the musical, as I've talked about having a full time job, all that kind of stuff.

I hope that the book sort of feels like the sort of natural successor to the podcast. So if people enjoyed the podcast, hopefully it's a nice kind of add on with more people, more stories in it. And, you know, hopefully a bit of a spiritual successor to books like Not Since Carrie and things like that. Hopefully it's, if you're a fan of Carrie, or if you're even vaguely interested in the story, hopefully it's an interesting read about how the show kind of came together and undid itself and came back together in the end.

[4:29] Holly Morgan: Amazing. So you saw a gap and you thought you'd plug it up.

[4:33] Chris Adams: Oh, I see what you did there. You've been waiting to say that for about five minutes.

[4:38] Holly Morgan: Five minutes. Yeah.

[4:39] Chris Adams: Okay, good. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Saw the gap, plugged it up. So who did you enjoy talking to the most? Was there anyone new that you hadn't spoken to?

[4:47] Chris Adams: Yeah. I mean, I was really lucky in that, you know, the podcast had been listened to by a lot of people and more and more people involved in the show had kind of become aware of it. And, you know, if we could go back in time, we'd love to be able to put all those people into the story of the show in the podcast. But this was a great opportunity to kind of fill in the gaps, I suppose. It was great to speak to lots of extra cast members, loads of people, kind of a bit of a treasure hunt, you know, trying to track down all of these people because this was a long time ago. This was, you know, 35 years ago. And some people weren't on social media. So it became this kind of treasure hunt to try and track down people who may not even work in the industry anymore, but had these fantastic stories to tell.

It was great to talk again to Dean Pitchford, the lyricist on the show, who's just been a fantastic help in putting the book together and has this great memory and all of these fantastic stories. And also great to talk to the other two writers of the show, Michael and Larry, who, you know, we weren't able to include in the podcast the first time round, but it was great to hear their side of the story too. Loads of people involved in the musical side of the show, which was really interesting. You know, the original orchestrators, the original music director, and also fantastic to kind of speak to more audience members, which is one of the things, you know, we love talking to the audience members, I remember, from the original production.

But tracking down people who had these, like, amazing stories to tell about seeing the show, either here in the UK or on Broadway, and how they responded to it was just, it just kind of fills that gap and sort of really takes you there, I suppose, and gives you sort of this sense of what it was like to see this unusual show. And it was also, I loved talking to people involved in the revival, which again, you know, we didn't have that much time in the podcast to talk to many cast members. It was great to talk to the cast who were involved in kind of reinventing the show, because it was a very kind of a sort of communal experience for them, you know, that the writers really opened themselves up to kind of adjusting the show and looking at new ways of approaching the characters.

So it was great to hear about how all of that came about. And, you know, I think another thing I was surprised about when we did the podcast, we sort of had to rely on the internet, because we were still in and out of lockdowns. But it was a great chance to kind of go to physical archives and libraries and to see the sheer amount of press coverage that the show kind of garnered in the 80s. And the kind of reaction it provoked amongst people, especially when it was sort of announced that the RSC was producing the show. You know, there are just books and books and books full of this kind of vitriol from the press, this insane reaction. And then, you know, the sort of other end of that is when the show closed.

Almost sort of articles about the reviews, you know, just scrapbooks and scrapbooks full of these sort of summaries of the response to the musical, which I think is really unusual. So to actually see, you know, from another time when the internet didn't exist, to actually see how the news and the media responded to the show was really interesting too.

[7:52] Holly Morgan: Yeah, that's fascinating. Have you ever thought about using your powers for good?

[7:58] Chris Adams: You mean writing about something serious and important?

[8:00] Holly Morgan: Like curing climate change or something like that? If you put your mind to it, you get shit done. It is honestly, it's amazing. Like, these people weren't in touch with each other and you, you know, reaching out, finding ways to contact people beyond social media, like it is. And I was a passenger. There we go, that's Freudian. I was alongside you for the podcast, watching how you got these people back together and back in touch. But it's like, it is a tremendous achievement how you found them all.

[8:28] Chris Adams: I'd love to, you know, the interesting thing about the show, as we've talked about many times, is that it was a cast made up from people all over the world as well. And that meant, you know, there are lots of people here in the UK, but loads of people spread all over America too, and all around the world as well. I'd love it if someone with more money and time than me could somehow get all of these people together in one place, because it would be the best night ever, I think. Because I think one thing that doing this podcast and writing this book has told me is that memory is really weird. Because, you know, this thing happened, but people see it and people remember it in so many different ways.

People's memories of these key events are so different, but there's sort of this underlying kind of truth to it all. And to kind of hear how people remember things and how they saw it at the time was a really interesting aspect of it. And I think kind of when it goes to show, it sort of makes you think, you know, we all live through these big things, but, you know, people have these different perspectives on it. And it was almost kind of like, you know, when you listen to sort of true crime podcasts, they're trying to kind of unpick these clues to try and work out what actually happened. You kind of had to do that with this story. You know, it was kind of like trying to figure out actually what happened, because there have been so many sort of fables and things told about the show over the years. And it's sort of blown into this slightly apocryphal version of the story.

[9:47] Holly Morgan: So to actually pare it back and kind of talk to people who were there and sort of sift through all of that information and kind of get the real story was really interesting, I think.

[9:55] Chris Adams: Yeah, really interesting. I think that's, I mean, I remember occasionally we'd have interviews or comments from people who had seen the show, and they tell you about it. And you'd be like, that's factually incorrect. That didn't happen. But it's so entrenched in their memory that there was this moment or whatever. And you're like, maybe it did. And the way that it lives in your imagination that happened, and that's what you've taken away from it.

[10:18] Chris Adams: Yeah, there's a bit of myth busting in the book as well. You know, a lot has been made about the make it like Greece story, which, you know, we in the podcast, we love talking about and we sort of made light of it. But you know, when you actually think about it, you know, no one, you know, no one turned up to that dress rehearsal to find that everyone was wearing togas unexpectedly. You know, it was, there's a lot more to that sort of story that that then there is the meets the eye, I suppose. So digging into those kind of tales and hearing about that, that sort of thing from the perspective of different people was fascinating to, you know, unpicking that kind of urban legend. And I think an interesting thing that you always have to remember is that despite this musical, becoming I guess what most people would consider a flop in the 80s, huge amounts of hours were put into it.

You know, this was hundreds of people's jobs for a few years, even though it was sort of condensed into this story about the show closing. There were so many kind of stories about people's lives in the build up to those few days on Broadway that, you know, just kind of speaking to people and getting a sense of what they were doing at the time, what was happening in British theatre, what was happening on Broadway to kind of influence this, this kind of cataclysmic event in their lives was really interesting too. So I think that's where the sort of cultural context of it came into play. And I kind of, I think adding that layer of what was happening in the world and what was happening to people as they approached this, the show was, was really fascinating.

[11:45] Holly Morgan: Yeah, I think it was really fascinating. And also what you were talking about with that reaction culturally to people just being not the Royal Shakespeare Company, like the sort of the how dare people try and make something joyful and yeah, American, it was very strange. I think we sort of touched on this in the early episodes of the podcast, but you know, the RSC was really short of cash because it's Arts Council grant was being pulled back. It was being encouraged by the government to find ways of being self sufficient by doing commercial theatre and things like that. And then it did. And then everyone kind of attacked it for doing it. And you know, it was, it was unusual choice for them to be doing it, but you can kind of see where they were coming from.

They just come off the back of Les Mis, which had been, which eventually became hugely successful. So you can see the kind of approach they were taking, but yeah, the response in the press. Wow. I mean, some diligent RSC press officer from the 80s has compiled these ginormous books of press cuttings in Stratford where they just have every single mention in the press. So there's just reams and reams of everything that mentioned Carrie is just, yeah, I sat there for hours reading it. It was just fascinating to me, probably not to anyone else, but there were people around me writing very important theses about Othello and things. I was reading the daily express review of Carrie, because someone has to. Amazing.

[13:10] Chris Adams: As part of your research, did you come across any books or any other sources of inspiration that Friends of Carrie might be interested in? There are so many great books about musicals, not only about musical flops in quotation marks, but just about how musicals are made. Not Since Carrie is the obvious one if you want to get an immediate reaction to what people were doing at the musical in the 80s, and then Ken Mandelbaum sort of sandwiches his review of Carrie with loads of other Broadway flops leading up to that point, and sort of makes the point that he thinks nothing else will compare to poor Carrie in terms of musical disasters in the future. But there are updates to things like that. Stephen Purdy, who wrote a fantastic book called Flop Music 20th Century, goes into quite a lot of detail about some very modern musicals that closed early.

There's a very kind of lighthearted, quite camp book called Must Close Saturday, by Adrian Wright, which is specifically about British flops. So I'm sure there are a few in there which you'll recognise from our theatre-going days.

[14:14] Holly Morgan: Oh, incredible. Has Too Close to the Sun made it in?

[14:17] Chris Adams: I don't know if Too Close to the Sun was in there, I'll have to have a look. But it's a very entertaining read. And then just in terms of making musicals, the art that were more successful than that, it was great to kind of look at the different formats and how people had approached this. And I think, you know, I was very lucky in that we had already kind of defined the format of the book in the way that we'd interviewed people involved in the show. And I've kind of taken extracts from those interviews, from the podcast and from new interviews that I've done to kind of do a sort of oral history of the making of the show, if that makes sense. But some great books about the making of musicals that I looked at.

There's a book called, which came out recently, called Magic to Do, which is about Pippin. If you're a Pippin fan, it's a great read about a very interesting, kind of twisting making of a musical tale. There's a making of Cabaret book by an author called Keith Garabian. I hope I've pronounced his name right. Which, you know, again, Cabaret has so many different versions and variations. So if you're interested in kind of the complicated history of musicals, those two are great. And some really kind of useful resources were books written by people who were involved in the show. Now, Barbara Cook's book, Barbara Cook's memoir is scathing about not just her experience in Carrie, but about a lot of the things that she did in her career.

It is a fabulous read. It's extremely arch. If you get a chance to read Barbara Cook's memoir, Darlene Love's book is really interesting because, you know, her career was, she did all sorts of stuff. She had worked with so many different people. And again, her experience in Carrie, as reported in her memoir, is not hugely positive. She doesn't dwell on it.

[15:53] Chris Adams: It is literally a couple of paragraphs. But it's great to kind of read it from, you know, from directly from the people involved. There's a great book also that I'd recommend about Ralph Coltie, the scenic designer from the 80s called Designer for the Stage, which is, you know, it's full of these beautiful pictures of all of his. There isn't sadly anything in there from Carrie itself, but he is well known for other things, let's say. And he worked very closely with Terry Hans and other RSC directors through the 70s and 80s. And there were some beautiful, gorgeous photos of all of his set designs. You really get a sense, I think, of where that slightly odd set design for Carrie came from. When you think about that set in isolation, it's kind of a strange concept. But when you see how he approaches design generally, it's a really interesting kind of bit of context, I think, to look at that.

[16:43] Holly Morgan: Yeah. And of course, you know, as well as books, there's just a billion YouTube videos to watch. You can watch, you know, the news reports. You can watch the reviewers.

[16:51] Chris Adams: Yeah. There are all sorts of bootlegs up there. You know, I think I say this in the book, it's impossible to kind of write about the show and read about it without having watched it first. I think it's almost like you need to watch along with what you're reading. I sort of encourage people just to dive into YouTube and go for your life and watch clips because there's so many of them.

[17:12] Holly Morgan: Amazing. And how's the book structured?

[17:16] Chris Adams: Kind of similar to the podcast, really. It sort of expands each section. I've divided it into three. So the first section is kind of about the creation of the show. And that goes back to the very early days of the writers coming up with the concept for it and those kind of early workshops that they did. And then all the way up to rehearsals. Then the middle section is kind of a description of the production in 1988, as we spent a good couple of episodes doing ourselves. And then the last section, I guess, is about the legacy of it. So it kind of talks about those strange years after it closed, where people were discovering it for the first time through bootleg videos and audio tapes and things like that.

And it's sort of got this groundswell of support. And I love that part of the story. I've always found it really interesting as to why this musical just didn't fade away. You know, why did this particular show kind of capture the imagination of people, I suppose? And then, you know, the sort of groundswell of support and some really interesting new stories from the writers about being approached by different people to do different new productions through the 90s and the early 2000s. And always never quite getting to the point where they felt they could do that. Still kind of slightly haunted by their experience, I suppose. And then sort of rounding off with, as we know, the show being rewritten and kind of reassessed, I suppose.

And that 2012 revival coming back and everything that's come since then, including my own experience of doing the show. So yeah, a rough kind of roughly similar arc to the podcast, but hopefully with a lot more material and kind of going off on all sorts of tangents around it.

[18:57] Holly Morgan: Amazing. I think that's also that. Yeah, I can't wait to read it in general. But I think the emphasising the redemption arc of the story is so interesting, considering how any modern drama school student, when they interact with Carrie, like recently, I think we're doing a production of it. And those students just have no don't really know of it as a flop.

[19:18] Chris Adams: Yeah, exactly. Part of the musical theatre canon. Exactly. I think, you know, I took that away from directing myself is that, you know, very little time was spent talking about that 80s production and how much of a, you know, supposed disaster it was. But, you know, our company just felt like they're in a sort of new contemporary feeling, challenging musical, you know, and it's really kind of, it's a unique story, I think, in musical theatre, and there are these two very different versions of it. And it's a huge success. And I think, you know, that that kind of redemption story, as you say, is so important to the writers. And it's so nice to hear them being able to talk about the show in a way that they're now proud of it, and that they're pleased that people can perform it and that there's an opportunity for people to kind of get a sense of what they were trying to create in the first place without it being laced with this kind of flop narrative, I suppose.

But I think, you know, you can never escape from that flop narrative. And I don't think anyone's trying to rewrite history with that. You know, it's, it's, they're very humble and very honest and very open about their experiences, and what happened to them in the 80s, as is everyone involved in the show, you know, people are really willing to talk about it. Now, it's taken a long time for some of them to be able to kind of talk about it in detail. But I think you can't have this new show without everything that came before it. And I think that's been a really interesting exercise to kind of, to trace that, that flow of the story and, and see how it's affected people over the decades.

[20:48] Holly Morgan: Yeah. Does it have pictures?

[20:53] Chris Adams: Getting to the important? Yeah, it does have pictures. It does have pictures. You know, I was very lucky. Lots of cast members have dug out from their attics in their basements, these amazing behind the scenes photos, pictures and rehearsals, pictures of them like hanging out. And I was, they gave me so many pictures, and I wish we could have got all of them in. But I was just sitting there absolutely thrilled. You can imagine my face just going through these photo albums, because you know, they were these young kids, you know, suddenly sent to Broadway from Britain and the other way around. And they must have all had their little disposable cameras and things. This is before phone cameras and things, you know, and they're all pasted into these, these albums, like they've been on holiday, and they're just like hanging out, you know, in the same way that we all take photos, if you if you're ever involved in rehearsing stuff, you know, you end up with hundreds of photos of people posing in rehearsals and doing stuff.

So it's just like that. And it's, you know, how could they have known that some weirdo in 35 years would want them to dig it out of their cupboards and look through it. And so yeah, we've managed to include some of them. Again, I wish you know, we had endless pages to put them all in. But there's a good smattering in there and lots of stuff that hopefully people haven't seen before.

[22:01] Holly Morgan: Oh, I can't wait. So I will obviously be getting a free copy.

[22:07] Chris Adams: Well, we'll discuss this. We'll talk about it later.

[22:14] Holly Morgan: Okay, awkward. And people who won't be getting a free copy. How will they get this?

[22:19] Chris Adams: Well, as I say, we'll talk about your access to copies later. But it's called Out for Blood: A Cultural History of Carrie the Musical. We have to give it its full title. And you can get it anywhere you buy books, really, you can order it from your local bookshop, they should be able to get it. But you can also get it on, you know, Amazon and those big type of, you know, that's quite terrifying. But also, you can order it directly from the publisher Bloomsbury, who run the Methuen Drama imprint.

[22:46] Holly Morgan: Exactly. And I just want to say before we go a huge thanks to everyone who, you know, has helped and supported this project as it's gone along. It's, it's something I never thought I'd be able to do. So huge thanks to, as I say, Dom, and Sam at Methuen who've been hugely supportive and helpful, because I don't know how to write a book, you know, they've had to help me along. And I wanted to say thank you to John Putnam, who's a great big fan of Carrie and was a huge help in research and translation. We had a bit of stuff to translate in the book. I wanted to thank all of our friends, because they've had to put up with me talking about it on a WhatsApp group the whole time. But everyone else who helped, you know, sent material to me, and suggested new people to talk to.

And especially I wanted to thank, of course, our little Out for Blood family, not only our listeners who have been so wonderful, but you Holly and Tom, for, you know, I couldn't have done this without all of the hours we spent putting together the podcast and all of the, the hours we shared recording this, this amazing story and all of the laughter we had as well, because it's been fun. So thank you.

[23:58] Holly Morgan: Oh, thank you for helping me. It's been an absolute bloody blast. It's amazing. I hope you enjoy it.

[24:04] Chris Adams: Oh my god, I can't wait. I honestly cannot wait to read it. And yeah, I'm just I'm just so incredibly proud of you. And I'm so so proud to have been involved in the podcast, but the book is something else. It's something else.

[24:14] Chris Adams: Thank you. I hope I mean, it's absolutely terrifying. Don't get me wrong. I'm fully expecting there to be something horribly wrong with it. But let's see. It's happening.

[24:24] Holly Morgan: Well, you know, it's been, I think in years to come, people will look back on this interview, and they'll be like, Frost Nixon, Bashir, Diana, Morgz and Nobbs talking about Carrie, it's that culturally relevant. I think this conversation.

[24:36] Chris Adams: Yeah, I think so. And so I think we should probably terminate this interview here at the time I was trying to do a riff where I was like in line of duty or something.

[24:49] Holly Morgan: Yeah, I get what you're doing. Arguably I've been at home maybe too long.

[24:53] Chris Adams: Yeah, yeah. It's nice to see you out of the house. How you doing?

[24:59] Holly Morgan: Fine. Do you need a book to read?

[25:06] Chris Adams: I'd love a book. What's a book? I was reading.

[25:11] Holly Morgan: Fantastic. Well, that is it for now. That's I mean, surely now after all this time, we've said everything there is to say about Carrie the musical.

[25:16] Chris Adams: Never.

[25:17] Holly Morgan: Are you sure?

[25:18] Chris Adams: Well, in that case, stay tuned because maybe we'll be back soon. Who knows? There is always something new in the Carrieverse.

[25:26] Holly Morgan: There is. I'm sure we'll dig something up to chat about at some point in the future. Bye.

[25:32] Chris Adams: Goodbye. If you enjoyed this mini episode of Out for Blood, why not head back and listen from the start. You can also find some great pics and videos from our previous episodes on our socials at Out for Blood podcast on Instagram and Facebook and Out for Blood pod on Twitter, if that still exists by the time this episode goes out. Because why listen to one episode about Carrie the musical when you can listen to roughly 217?

[25:52] Holly Morgan: Yeah. Out for Blood was hosted and produced by me, Holly Morgan.

[25:57] Chris Adams: And me, Chris Adams. Sound engineering and editing by Tom Moores. Patti Jervis is our audio consultant. Original music by Odin Orn-Hilmarsson. Artwork by Rebecca Pitt and childcare by Richard Hawkins. Buy Chris's book.

[26:09] Chris Adams: Oh, it's got pictures.

[26:14] Holly Morgan: Guys, where's my actual child?

[26:16] Chris Adams: He's over here wearing that skin tight cat suit thing you bought for him.

[26:20] Holly Morgan: It's a unitard.