INTERVIEW | Mal Hall - Musical Director, The English Theatre Frankfurt

Musical Director Mal Hall (top right) and the band of Something Rotten! At the English Theatre Frankfurt. Photo credit: Martin Kaufhold / The English Theatre Frankfurt

During my recent visit to The English Theatre Frankfurt to see their production of Something Rotten! I had the opportunity to chat with Musical Director Mal Hall to find out more about his role but also this brilliant production.

Firstly, would you be able to please tell me a bit about your history of working in the English Theatre Frankfurt? I know you've been here for quite a few seasons of musicals.

So this is my fifth. I started in 2018 with Cabaret when I was still currently the Associate MD of the Summer Holiday tour. I got a call asking me to meet with a musical supervisor for Cabaret, so I met with him and got the job. And I was really thrilled. I’d heard a lot about the English Theatre, and Cabaret is one of my favourite ever shows and a dream job of mine to be MD for it. So I jumped at the chance, and to go to a different city and experience something different. I couldn't wait and then I got on very well with everyone here and loved Frankfurt. So, five times later, and back again. It's been great, and the variety of shows that I've done as well. I did Cabaret and then Sweeney Todd, then Young Frankenstein, Sister Act, and now this. It’s fantastic to work with such a diverse group of shows.

Do you have a favourite of those five, or are they all special in their own way?

All are special in their own way for very different reasons. Cabaret was a dream job to be able to MD that every night. Sweeney was just such a mammoth piece of theatre. It was incredible. Yeah, just very different. Young Frankenstein was brilliant, coming back after COVID and so that was really special to actually get back to work and do an incredibly funny piece. So yeah, they're all different for their own reasons. But I must say, Something Rotten is up there. It really is. I'm very proud of what we've all achieved with it.

Do you find that working on productions here is very different from working on UK based productions?

They try and set it up and run it as much as a regional theatre in the UK as they can. That’s sort of what the actors are expecting when they come across to work here. And obviously, having the UK creative team is part of that as well. We describe it as a very good regional theatre that just happens to be in Frankfurt. We do four weeks of rehearsals in the UK before we all fly out together. Obviously, we do all the casting and everything from the UK, so it's not too dissimilar at all, really.

You mentioned earlier that you didn’t know much about Something Rotten! before you started working on it, so what drew you to it?

I knew parts of it- when you’re teaching rep in drama school people bring in ‘Right Hand Man’ or something like that. So I did know bits, not a huge amount. I know there’s a video of the Broadway one on YouTube, but I’ve never watched that. And I did listen to the soundtrack a couple of times just to get into it, and get a feel for it. But I also don't like doing that too much because we're doing our production, not the Broadway production. So I don't like to get too stuck on how something should be. I think it's such a mix of genres of songs, as you'd expect from this sort of style of musical theatre. You have things like ‘A Musical’, which is just musical theatre throughout. And then you have the lovely, almost folk-like ballad, ‘I Love the Way’. And then the rock, so ‘Will Power’ and stuff like that, and the rock sections in Welcome to the Renaissance. It's such a mix. And also, it's so funny, and they really link it in very well with all of the songs. They really lend themselves to comedy a lot.

In terms of the creative team for the show, how many of the company have you worked with on previous shows? I know there’s a few who are returning.

Actually, the core team are all the same. So Ewan Jones who’s the director and choreographer, he did Sister Act last year. I knew him previously before we worked together. So they were looking for a director and I recommended him so we worked together last year on Sister Act, as well as Jamie Platt lighting design and Stewart J. Charlesworth, who's the set and costume designer. To know the house is really great to work with them and know what to expect and know the team here and what restraints there might be. It just puts everyone on the front foot compared to if everyone's here for the first time. It's always beneficial to have returners and it's been great fun again. Then we had David Sidnev, who works in-house at the theatre for sound design as well, which has been very beneficial to work with him.

So, since you work on each of the musicals at the English Theatre each year, do you return to the UK between those productions?

Yes, for a time, I return to the UK and pick up other work, or just have a bit of time off. We start prepping for the next show as soon as we can. As soon as we find out what it is, it we find out what it is. It’s, you know, ‘let’s get started, let’s get some ideas, let’s think about concepts of what the director wants and how we can help that’. So yeah, it is pretty nonstop.

Read: Our review of Something Rotten!, The English Theatre Frankfurt

And is the next season of shows usually announced around springtime?

Yeah, or tends to be. We can make contributions of our thoughts of what we want to do and then it’s usually announced in May or June, for the following season. We always tend to open with a play and then do the musical for the big run over Christmas, then two plays, usually to finish off the season. So usually, by the time I leave, I pretty much know what the next year will be, whether it's been announced or not.

Are there any shows that you would really like to see performed here that haven't been done before?

I'm not entirely sure, actually, I rack my brains every year trying to think of different suggestions for musical theatre. They have such a great ability at this theatre to take something and change it up a little bit and do something a bit different with it because we have restraints. As for cast size, you don't have so many in the cast and so that limits certain things. But, something like Young Frankenstein was really incredible, and we changed that quite a lot, especially the music. We adapted that quite a lot to fit our production of it. So it's sort of finding things that could work, and then adapting them to make it work for us. Similar with Sweeney Todd, when we did that we had two pianos and two percussion in the band, so that was really different to the big orchestrations. So there's not necessarily something that I go, ‘God I'm desperate to do that’ because I think whatever we choose, we manage to make it work for this production.

And finally, what kind of advice would you have for somebody who was considering moving abroad to work in theatre?

I count myself very lucky that I get to work here on the jobs that I get to do. I've got so many wonderful friends who live and work in the West End and that's their life and that's brilliant. I had this opportunity to come to Frankfurt and I only came for one show initially, and I've ended up staying for five but it's provided me with great opportunities to do the shows I've done but to live in Frankfurt. I love Frankfurt, I absolutely adore the place and culture. And the team here, I get on very well with so it is fantastic to take myself out of the UK, and come back each time each year. It was nervy at first, I'd obviously never been to the theatre- I'd actually never been to Germany before I moved here for for Cabaret for six months. So it can be overwhelming to people, but it's part of that theatre life of contracts. Like, “I’m off on a UK tour” for eight months, or a cruise ship or an international tour, or just sat in a theatre in the West End. They're all very different. So I'm very grateful to have to have this opportunity.

Something Rotten! is performing at The English Theatre Frankfurt until 31 March 2024.