A stage production of The Shawshank Redemption arrives in Dublin this April. We spoke to leading man Joe McFadden about taking on the lead role of Andy Dufresne
"It's funny," says Joe McFadden. "I was coming out of the theatre last night and I heard a woman say 'I didn’t know how they were going to do it. It’s such a hard thing to do but they pulled it off’. That’s the best compliment ever."
McFadden can allow himself a moment of pride. The Scottish actor, who has previously starred in TV shows such as Sex, Chips & Rock’n’roll, Heartbeat and Holby City, is in the middle of a ten-month tour of a stage production of Stephen King’s famous 1982 novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption and the even more famous 1994 movie version starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman.
50-year-old McFadden, who can add winning the 2017 season of Strictly Come Dancing to his achievements, plays the lead role of Andy Dufresne, the "long drink of water" who is wrongfully imprisoned in the foreboding Shawshank prison and has to rely on his wits and talents to survive.
The movie itself has as an interesting back story. It was a relative flop on its release in 1994 but went on to secure seven Oscar nominations. It was only when it became available on VHS and for TV broadcast that its popularity exploded.
It stands up to repeated viewings, largely on the basis of Robbins and Freeman’s performances, the story of human endurance and faith, and the huge emotional pay-off at the end. It is still a much-loved movie that pops up on TV all the time.
There is, it seems, no escaping The Shawshank Redemption.
But just like that woman emerging from that theatre, you have to wonder just how do you turn an epic film with a sprawling cast, set in a gothic pile of a prison about a bloke plotting an audacious escape into a stage show.
McFadden insists that the story lends itself to theatre really well.
"It’s just in one set," he says, speaking backstage in Billingham in the north east of England, where the show is coming to the end of a five-night run. "We have this brilliant simple set that we push thing on to and things fly in and it’s really, really ingenious. There’s great lighting effects that create cells and the laundry room.
"It’s really inventive and creative. People are willing to suspend their disbelief. People really get the story and I think Dublin is going to be one of those audiences."
He says the stage production is "an amalgamation" of King’s original 130-page page novella and Frank Darabont’s two-and-a-half hour film. "It’s different from the film in all the right ways.
"People who have seen the film fifty times, like me, come along and enjoy it in a different way."
In preparation for the show, McFadden watched the movie one more time. "It stands up so well," he says. "When I saw it first, I was like ‘why is this film so popular?’ I think it’s because it really resonates with people and it’s the story of this man, Andy Dufresne, in these awful circumstances.
"He’s in this very brutal, very corrupt atmosphere and he manages to hold on to his integrity and his honesty and who he is and he triumphs in this very dark place."
He adds, "What the film and this play do very well is humanise these characters. They’re in this prison for these awful things and you get to know them over the course of the evening and you think, ‘there but for the grace of god’.
"It’s why the play works really well - you see these complex characters and maybe you’re not so quick to judge them at the end of the evening."
McFadden studied Tim Robbins portrayal in preparation for the role.
"Tim Robbins playing Andy has a real sense of stillness," he says. "He’s waiting and he’s really methodical. For the first ten months he’s in Shawshank, he’s just watching everyone, weighting everyone up and planning and then he chooses his moment."
His co-star is stage veteran Ben Onwukwe, who has had leading roles with the RSC and the Royal Court, as well as 11 years on TV as Recall McKenzie in London’s Burning and, more recently, the role of Jackson Donckers in Professor T.
He reprises his performance as Ellis "Red" Redding, whom he first played in the production’s 2016 tour.
In King’s novella, the character is a tall, red-headed and very white; in the movie he is played by Freeman, who tells Andy when asked why people call him Red - "Maybe because I’m Irish"
McFadden, whose family roots are in Donegal, laughs and says, "Morgan Freeman was wonderful in the role but Ben doesn’t do an approximation - he’s very much his own character but he has the same wonderful gravelly, bassy voice.
"Sorry the part was taken away from an Irishman but you have an Irishman playing Andy so we have redressed the balance somewhat."
Bill Ward, best known for his long-running performances as Charlie Stubbs in Coronation Street and James Barton in Emmerdale, plays the morally - and every other way - corrupt warden, who rules Shawshank with an iron first clutching a bible, while turning the place into a money laundering operation.
"Bill is very three-dimensional in the role," says McFadden. "He’s this religious zealot but he has reasoned away what’s really going on so that he thinks he deserves to make all this money because he’s serving the lord and showing the prisoners the light.
"Bill gives a terrifying performance and it’s great working with him because he changes every night - some nights he’s more evil than others and some nights he’s more manipulative. That’s the great thing about this story - we are still finding stuff in it."
It is a very emotional tale with a slam dunk of a third act and McFadden says that he has seen tears in the audience when he looks out every night from the stage.
"Oh yeah! The scenes with Brooksy, who runs the library with Andy, are very moving. He’s this older, very gentle man, he leaves the prison but he can’t survive when he gets out, and it’s just heartbreaking what happens to him. I look out into the audience and people are just weeping.
"This show humanises these characters who you may have written off as monsters. This play makes you think in a different way."
The Shawshank Redemption is at Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, Dublin from 21 to 25 April
