Bare Necessities | The King and I

Words: Caomhan Keane

Bare Necessities

You may remember Ramon Tikaram; He spent a significant part of the 90s getting naked for your viewing pleasure. From his headline grabbing ascent in Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love to his 'shocking' full frontal shower in This Life, he has bared more than his soul for his art. When he recently found himself stripping off for a children's show he had to ask himself; 'how does this keep happening'. "Obviously you couldn't see anything. But when I look back over my early career, a lot of it was spent without my clothes on. It makes you wonder if there was some creepy guy in the BBC who kept coming up with these parts for me," he laughs.

He's semi naked again, all be it from the waist up in, The King and I, which opens here on Tuesday. "I actually lived in Dublin after I finished College. I came here with a girlfriend and had dreams of writing all day, like Joyce and Yeats."

This artistic dream proved to be just that and he soon supplemented his income by gigging around town, laying the groundwork for a later career in musical theatre where his celebrity stature saw him skip several steps in the musical theatre hierarchy and go straight into a leading role. "Part of the job is damage limitation. You don't want people to think you are an arrogant TV star. Especially when they have spent years in ensemble and you walk straight into one of the top roles. So you try to be good and make friends." A process not made easy by the director who wanted him to cut himself off from the ret of the cast. "I was playing Judas in Jesus Christ Super Star and he said 'Please don't get involved with the other actors.' It's a very isolated part, maginalised from that world and he wanted the same thing off of me."

His most high profile role to date was in Asian Dub Foundation's dub/punk opera, Gaddafi: A Living Myth. "It was a very surreal time. The Libyan ambassador was giving me tips on how to be more like him while the exile community were protesting outside. Even after he was executed, Newsnight were calling me up asking for my thoughts."

Tuesday 22nd – Saturday 26th May 2012, Tickets priced from €20.00

http://www.bordgaisenergytheatre.ie/

Story by EI Team | 09:00 | Monday 21st May 2012 | Theatre

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