INTERVIEW: Rob Houchen, currently starring in SOUTH PACIFIC on tour and at Sadler's Wells

Rob Houchen is a true modern-day Musical Theatre leading man, his CV is one to impress anyone out there with a huge range of work under his belt. He is currently playing the role of Lieutenant Cable in the UK tour of South Pacific after appearing in the production at the Chichester Festival Theatre, the show will also make a stop in the West End when it comes to Sadler's Wells from the 27th of July to the 28th of August. 

His theatre credits include South Pacific (Chichester Festival Theatre); Marry Me A Little (The Barn Theatre); City of Angels (Garrick Theatre); The Light in the Piazza (Royal Festival Hall), (Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles) & (Lyric Opera, Chicago); Les Miserables All-Star Concert(Gielgud Theatre); Eugenius! (The Other Palace); Broken Wings (Theatre Royal Haymarket); Les Miserables 30th Anniversary (Japan); Titanic (Charing Cross Theatre); Les Miserables (Queen’s Theatre); The 12 Tenors (World Wide Events); Godspell in Concert (The Lyric Theatre); Candide in Concert (Cadogan Hall) and Peter Pan (Harlow Playhouse).

Television/Film credits include: ‘Tony’ West Side Stories: The Making of a Classic (BBC) and Les Miserables The All-Star Concert (Universal).

South Pacific has just opened at the Manchester Opera House, but we managed to speak to Rob during the rehearsal process. 

REVIEW: South Pacific at the Chichester Festival Theatre

The one thing I have missed most during Lockdown is full-scale Musical Theatre with a large cast, strong band and wonderful tunes and the Chichester Festival Theatre opens its new season with the 1949 Rogers and Hammerstein South Pacific which was delayed from last year. The delay has given this classic musical a very modern and telling context not just with the Black Lives Matter campaign but also just days before the racist abuse of three England footballers.

Lyrist Hammerstein campaigned throughout his life for racial tolerance and equality and puts his political position at the heart of this Second World War story set on an island in the South Pacific. Every storyline has this theme from the overarching US Navy versus the Japanese, through the role of women in the story, the Western attitudes compared to the local islanders and the love stories that develop. Nurse Nellie Forbush (played until 25th August by Gina Beck before she is replaced by Alex Young) falls for Emile de Becque (Julian Ovenden) but rejects his marriage proposal when she discovers, not that he has killed a bully back in France but has two children by his dead Polynesian wife. Young Lieutenant Cable (Rob Houchen) falls for a local girl Liat (Sera Maehara) but he rejects marriage too, for fear of how his folks back home would react.