Just Russell Tovey today. “Just”? No way! Beautifully chaired by writer and critic Barry Pierce, this was the perfect antidote to the sadness surrounding the loss of the incomparable Dolly and also of THE Dr Frank-n-Furter.
Russell Tovey is riding the crest of a wave and has so many things going on in his life that he arrived in Edinburgh four hours before his show in the Spiegeltent, hot off the plane from the States—so he admitted he wasn’t quite sure where he was. You’d never have known if he hadn’t said so. He was upbeat and witty and full of bright-eyed ‘I can hardly believe what’s happening in my life’ enthusiasm. It was wonderful to be part of.
He was here to promote his Audible Original work Starlings. As it’s an audio drama and there are—as yet anyway—no hard copies, instead of Tovey doing a reading, we were played an extract from the Audible Original drama, with the voices of Andrew Scott and George MacKay as the two brothers around which the story unfolds.
“Just Russell Tovey today. “Just”? No way! Beautifully chaired by writer and critic Barry Pierce, this was the perfect antidote to the sadness surrounding the loss of the incomparable Dolly and also of THE Dr Frank-n-Furter.”
Pierce commented on Scott’s rendition, and Tovey explained that many listeners had got quite far through the story and wondered when they were going to hear Scott. In fact, he’s there right from the start, but his voice is SO not what we tend to expect from him that it’s hard to put his face to the voice.
From Jet Lag to ‘Starlings’: Writing Audio Drama with Andrew Scott
With almost imperceptible prompting from Pierce, Tovey told the audience the story of how Starlings came to be: having worked with Audible reading other people’s work, he was invited to write and read a piece of his own work. He’d always written, but admitted to having felt a little anxious about the vulnerability involved in putting forward his own work.
If you want something done, give it to the busiest person you know pertained here. He was busy, busy, busy and so his writing was consigned to evenings, but his ‘pen’ flowed and the characters determined where the story would go and whose voice we’d hear next. And ultimately it wasn’t Tovey who voiced Starlings, who is very thankful that all the actors approached for the different parts agreed without hesitation.
“With almost imperceptible prompting from Pierce, Tovey told the audience the story of how Starlings came to be: having worked with Audible reading other people’s work, he was invited to write and read a piece of his own work.”
Tovey also spoke about the inspiration for the book, which, as Pierce noted, is not a rehash of the tropes we’ve heard so often before. Although there’s always likely to be more than a little autobiographical material in a story about a gay man moving to London at an early age, Tovey doesn’t see this as ‘his’ story.
It’s more complex than that, though he shared with us that the younger brother in Starlings was to some extent inspired by his nephew and the theme of brothers something he knows about, having a brother himself. He says they hated one another when they were young, but are now good friends. That hatred—and its regretting—potentially fired the relationship between Donald and Owen too.
This was an uplifting hour, full of joy and optimism. Russell Tovey isn’t blind to the difficulties and dangers of being queer, trans, neurodivergent and the rest, but Starlings is meant to be enjoyed and the audience certainly enjoyed this hour in the mirrored beauty of the Spiegeltent.
Featured Image: Russell Tovey – Author Image via EIBF
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