COMING HOME: Kelly Agbowu, soon to go back to Les Misérables at the Sondheim Theatre

Pocket Size Theatre and Liza Heinrichs (Captured by Liz) have teamed up again and created our new series 'Coming Home'. In this new piece, we look at the reopening of Theatres in London and around the country and celebrate our industry coming back. We got together some performers who will be some of the first to return to theatres and created this piece to bring some positivity to the theatre industry which has been through one of the toughest years in our lifetime. Whilst it is important to acknowledge the hardships we've all gone through, it's important we pull together as a community and celebrate our beloved industry finally coming back!

A visit to the Sondheim Theatre with the incredibly talented and infectiously smiley Kelly Agbowu was just what we needed on this busy Saturday in London. Having joined the cast of Les Miserables in 2019 fresh from her run in the West End premiere of Waitress, she is one of the few people to say she has appeared in the full production at the Sondheim and in the concert version! Whilst she appears in the ensemble of the show, she also covers Madame Thenardier. Having only performed the role for one day, she can’t wait to get back and give the character another stab. 

Before being a part of Les Miserables, Kelly played Nurse Norma and was covering the role of Becky in the original West End production of Waitress at the Adelphi Theatre. Prior to that she had also appeared in The Wizard of Oz at the Birmingham Rep, in the West End production of The Book of Mormon, on the international tour of The Lion King and RENT at the Greenwich Theatre. 

The Corona Diaries: Kelly Agbowu

These recent times have been some of the hardest challenges we've faced and as a community, it hit us pretty hard. However during these difficult times, here at Pocket Size Theatre, we wanted to spread a little positivity and share some peoples experiences because we are all in this together. Each day we'll be speaking to our friends in the industry to share their experiences with you all so take a read and see how people are getting through these hard times.

Let's stick together, share the love and get through this as a community!

*Some information mentioned in this article may be out of date due to the progress of the current situation. Please keep that in mind when reading* 

Kelly Agbowu is currently in the London cast of Les Miserables at the Sondheim Theatre. Her other credits include Nurse Norma/cover Becky in Waitress: The Musical (Adelphi); Lion in The Wizard of Oz (Birmingham Rep); swing in The Book of Mormon (Prince of Wales); May in Baddies: The Musical (Unicorn); swing and cover Shenzi in The Lion King (UK/international tour); Sue, Caroller and soloist in Rent (Greenwich); Essie in Parade (Southwark Playhouse) and Townsperson in The Human Comedy (Young Vic).

On Monday 16th March 2020, The Society of London Theatre announced the closure of all Theatres in London. This followed suit with regional venues. Where were you when you found out and what was your initial reaction? 

For some strange reason, I got to the theatre really early and was just chilling in the dressing room. My other dressing room ladies also seemed to come in slightly earlier than usual and so we were all just discussing what had happened on Broadway and speculating what would happen with us when we were told that Warm-up was cancelled and to come on stage for a meeting. We knew in that second that was it. Once we were told we all gathered in the boys dressing room for a farewell drink and then I packed up some of my stuff from my room and went home. At that point like everyone, I didn’t know how long this would be for and so have left a lot of stuff at work including my contact lens! Hopefully I can get them at some point.

Can you tell us anything productive you’ve been doing? 

I have been learning sign language via an online course. It’s something I’ve always wanted to learn but never had the time and now I’ve got bags of free time so it’s been great. I just wanted to be able to have gained something out of this lockdown period so I didn’t feel like I had personally wasted it. I’ve also reconnected with my love of knitting.