Blonde Ambition

Niamh O’Reilly chats to musical theatre star Charlotte Gooch about her love of acting, singing and dancing, sometimes even in the rain.

West End leading lady Charlotte Gooch loves a challenge and getting drenched on stage every night in a role made famous by Hollywood icon Debbie Reynolds, is like water off a duck's back. The actress, singer and dancer takes on the role of Kathy Selden in Singin’ in the Rain, which pulls into Dublin’s Bord Gáis Energy Theatre this month and as it turns out, the ambitious performer had the role in her sights for at least ten years.

“I remember going to see it (Singin’ in the Rain) on the West End and the role instantly went on my to-do list. I thought that would be a dream come true, but fast forward a few years and here I am. As a performer it’s one of those roles that’s a real gift because it challenges you with both the singing and the dancing.”

While the original film centres around the dawn of the ‘talkies’ in cinema, Charlotte managed to find plenty of contemporary nuggets in Kathy’s character to relate to. “She really is a modern woman, and her first scene is very much about someone saying, ‘oh you couldn’t possibly be an actress, you couldn’t possibly be a professional’, and you think, hang on, I’ve heard this before.”

“Kathy is a wannabe actress. She’s currently doing, as all actresses do and I can relate, every job under the sun. At one point she’s dancing at birthday parties, jumping out of the cakes and she’s running for the bus to make it between every job, to get by and make it as an actress.”

Charlotte made a name for herself straight out of college diving into the ensemble for Dirty Dancing, but she is acutely aware of just how cut-throat the industry can be.

“It’s so competitive, you have to be made of strong stuff ,” she muses. “For every time you get a ‘yes’, you get a multitude of ‘no's’ in the process and you have to find that inner strength to keep going, but what’s always tricky is making the transition into playing the leading role. If you’re in the ensemble or playing the understudy, to be given that opportunity to make that step up is difficult.”

But what makes a performer stand out from the chorus? Luck, talent, graft? All three are usually required to make it to the top, but a pinch of serendipity helps too and while lady luck has played a role in Charlotte’s career, her willingness to grab opportunities with both hands, is , perhaps, her greatest asset.

Well, that and being completely fearless.

After her role in Dirty Dancing, Charlotte went off to Germany with a production of CATS and couldn’t have imagined the turn her career would take next. “Whilst I was there, Dirty Dancing called to say they were opening a big new production of the show in Berlin. They knew I was in Germany already and said, ‘we’d love you to play the role of Penny’, not the understudy, but the main role!” she recalls. “And that was it, suddenly I became a leading lady.”

There was just one small problem, she didn’t speak any German.

“I was over the moon, but I was thinking ‘I don’t speak German so that’s going to be fun’, because the show was in German,” she laughs, “but we figured that out.” Whilst many would be put off by having to learn dialogue in a foreign language they didn’t speak and perform it every night, Charlotte dived in.

“I had a phonetics coach who taught me how to say everything the way a German would say it. So, I wouldn’t necessarily know what I was saying, but I knew I’d be saying it similar to how a German would.”

Genuinely sanguine with how much of a hurdle she had to climb over to nab that role, she looks back on it with a humble sense of pride.

“I like challenges. I knew that I knew the show. I knew I could do the role. I just had to make sure I was saying everything properly” she laughs. “I ended up doing it for two years and I learned the language and got to live in a whole new country. ‑ at was lovely and I never would have expected it. I feel you have to say, ‘yes’ to every opportunity, because if I had let fear come in, I would have said ‘no’ to the job and I would have missed out on a whole life experience.”

Berlin was a turning point in Charlotte’s career, and saw her go back to Britain as a leading lady. Perceptions are everything in this business and now she had the visibility to progress.

“I started to be seen in a different light and off the back of that came the leading lady role in Top Hat on the West End. It can be a crazy tough, horribly competitive industry, but the payoff can be super worth it.”

Charlotte started dancing at the age of three, but she was not the stereotypical stage-parented, child performer whose life was only dancing. In fact, she remembers it being more of a committed hobby, rather than a round-the-clock lifestyle.

“My auntie was my dance teacher for my early years, she opened a dance school and she saw a little something in me. She thought ‘oh this could be more than a hobby’ and that’s sort of where it all began,” she recalls.

“It was my thing, but it was never all-consuming. My parents were very aware of me having a chance to explore other options, having a childhood and not missing out on things. It was a nice balance and I thank them for that. They weren’t pushy with it at all.”

Things got serious however, as Charlotte got into her late teens and set her sights on dance college. She trained professionally at Laine Theatre Arts, graduating in 2007 and has worked consistently ever since.

Although lockdown was tough on the non-stop performer, who spent her days alone in her apartment, teaching dance classes virtually. “I was dancing around the kitchen, shouting at my computer screen telling people to point their feet,” she laughs.

So what’s next for the leading lady? She had a brief turn on BBC’s superstar show Strictly Come Dancing in 2015, where she continues to work on and off as a choreographer. At the last minute she was thrust into the group dance as a pro to fill in and loving a challenge she fully embraced it.

“I was very nervous, when those credits started to play and I was stood here, on top of these washing machines for the group number, and I thought ‘oh my goodness I’m dancing on Strictly what on earth is going on?’ It was fun.”

Despite her brush with TV fame, it’s clear the stage is where Charlotte’s passion lies. “I’d love to play Mary Poppins. I don’t know what it is about her, I just love that show. Cathy in a Chorus Line is another one and I feel like I’d need to do that one sooner, rather than later while I can still kick my legs about.”

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