So how do you become Keith Richards, the task facing Brenock O’Connor in the Rolling Stones drugs bust play Redlands at Chichester Festival Theatre?
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00:00Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers and I'm fantastic
00:07this afternoon to speak to Keith Richards, or as close as I will probably ever get to
00:11Keith Richards. Brennan, you are playing Keith in Redlands at Chester Festival Theatre, the
00:15last play on the main stage, and what a fantastic character to play. What have you got to capture
00:22about this great man?
00:24I mean, there's so much to capture, and that's sort of the great tragedy of having two and
00:29a half hours to capture it in, and a wider story to tell.
00:32Yeah, whereas he's an 81 years old.
00:35Yeah, absolutely, he's had a lifetime of being Keith, I've got two hours a night to try and
00:39get his energy across, and to capture...
00:41But it's the energy, isn't it, isn't that the key thing?
00:44That is the thing, is the energy and the intention and the drive being to try and get the music
00:51across and to make something, and make people feel something. It's a real joy, and it's
01:00a massive privilege to be trusted with someone as iconic as Keith, and I can only hope we
01:05do it justice.
01:06Oh, absolutely, and what happens, I was asking you, if you look up and there is Keith sitting
01:11in the audience watching you as Keith?
01:14I either crumble or I flourish. I weep or I wail. Either way, it's going to be something
01:24if he does come through. But if he doesn't, he's been a local boy for a long time now,
01:30there's enough people in the audience that know him or have met him in the street or
01:33had parties with him or bought him a pint, you know, it feels like a definition.
01:38It's an association, isn't it?
01:39Yeah, it's a hometown tale. I've had three people this past week tell me three separate
01:43stories about him.
01:44Fantastic.
01:45It's so beautiful to get research from the area that we're doing the show.
01:49So how do you approach, are you kind of attempting to do an impersonation, or are you allowing
01:55yourself to be more free than that?
01:57It feels wrong to, it feels wrong to play pastiche or to play a caricature. But also,
02:07it's a heightened scenario. It's not just the stones existing, it's the stones going
02:12through a time where if this goes wrong, the stones don't exist anymore. So that adds a
02:17certain weight to it and a certain fire behind Keith and Mick and Marianne, and the way they
02:23negotiate being involved in this world. But it's a gas, it really is.
02:30The photos that have been released so far look like you are going to absolutely nail
02:35it. Really fabulous to see the show. Thank you ever so much.