Original subtitles

Almost all the songs in Company that Bobby sings,

I mean, he's somebody who supposedly is happy with his unmarried life.

And what we have

to discover, without being told, is that underneath he's screaming.

If you've never seen Company, it's a musical

about one man exploring the idea of getting married.

And as he explores that idea,

he remembers significant moments that he spent with his friends,

who are all coupled up,

and also significant

moments he spent with women he's dating.

It's a musical about

a person wondering if the single life is better,

or whether they should be married and coupled up with someone.

# Bobby, Bobby, Bobby, Bobby, Bobby... #

Sam Mendes approached me and said,

"I'm thinking of doing Company.

"And what do you think of playing Bobby?"

ADRIAN LAUGHS

And I remember that my reaction wasn't quite,

"Yippee, this is great," because I suddenly thought,

"Why-Why-Why do you think I would be the best choice for this?"

Which is strange for an actor to,

when offered a part, is to ask, "Why me?"

# Phone rings, door chimes In comes company... #

I wasn't conscious of being

the first black actor to play the part,

or any kind of racial tones to the piece.

Having the career that I've had and doing mainly

what is accepted to be classical work,

there's been a few times people have said to me,

"Oh, you're the first black actor to do this."

And for me it's the role,

it's the part.

And any kind of firsts or crossing boundaries,

or what that may mean in terms of

the performance, is in the eye of the beholder.

And that for me, I've got nothing to do with that.

For me, it's just about playing the part and doing it correctly.

# Bobby Bobby

# Bobby, baby Bobby, bubi

# Robby Robert, darling

# Bobby, we've been trying to call you... #

Sondheim's been very inventive with this musical.

It's a sort of nonlinear storytelling.

The songs are purely expressive of feeling.

The show doesn't have a narrative drive.

There's nothing pushing the clock forward and saying,

"This has to happen before this, before this."

There's no transferring of information,

one person knows something that someone else doesn't know.

There's none of that.

It's purely an expressive piece,

a journey through, at times,

loneliness and what loneliness means. And then

a journey through being with someone and what being with someone means.

And Sondheim being Sondheim,

he's not going to allow his rhymes

to simply point at what is obvious and what is, if you like, facile.

# It's the little things you do together, do together

# Do together that make perfect relationships

# Hobbies you pursue together, savings you accrue together

# Looks you misconstrue together

# That make marriage a joy... #

He's going to dig out what makes you insecure

and what is at times very dark.

Sam Mendes - brilliant director.

Some very unique things came out of that production.

We allowed ourselves to explore the play really well.

Please! Will you stop blowing that horn, you dodo!

I don't hear anything.

PHONE RINGS

Pick up the phone! I'll get it. The kids! It'll wake the kids!

There's cinnamon in the coffee, Robert.

The odd taste is cinnamon.

He had this great idea that I spent most of

the evening with my back to the audience.

So whenever they said, "Hey, Bobby, have a seat,"

I sat down with my back to the audience so that

the audience and me were in the same position watching

the couples, and I was interacting with them.

But then the couples got to face the audience directly

and talk to Bobby as if they're speaking directly out.

And so, therefore, the audience saw exactly

what Bobby saw in each couple as these tensions arose.

Amy, if anybody should be married, it's you.

Tell her, Robert. Oh.

Robert, tell me.

Who's going to tell Robert?

And the chair that had its back to the audience,

the chair that Bobby sat in, that I sat in, a bit like this,

slowly built up glasses

and alcohol and drugs,

even, around the chair, as he sat

and thought about his life.

BOBBY CRIES OUT

Also, the design...

..was amazing because we were all in monochrome.

No!

LAUGHTER

# It's not talk of God and the decade ahead

# That allows you to get through the worst... #

And the floor was a patchwork of brightly coloured squares,

which responded differently to

the different lighting states that were thrown on it.

But having all of us in sort of, you know, in a monochrome, I don't know,

it allowed more of our characters

to shine through, in a funny way.

Didn't you ever wish you could be single again?

I mean, for an hour even. No!

Could you make it two hours?

LAUGHTER

Doing this performance is probably

one of the most difficult things I've ever done.

# Someone is waiting

# Cool as Sarah

# Easy and loving as Susan... #

It's incredibly hard to get right.

And it is incredibly hard

to make sure this show,

the songs,

have an overarching narrative that gels the whole thing together.

But it needs a context within which you believe

every set-up, every moment, every song

and every scene is grounded in a reality that stays with

the idea that this is one person thinking

through their life and wondering

if being lonely is better than being coupled.

If you marry,

you've got another person there all the time.

Plus, you can't get out of it whenever you just might

want to get out of it. You're caught, see?

And even if you do get out of it,

what have you got to show for it?

Not to mention the fact

that then you've always been married.

Bobby, as a character, is, um, at once the centre of the show.

But in most of the scenes, he is a watcher, an observer.

You know, you two are, he said with envy,

just beautiful together. Really. Wow.

Hey, Peter, if you ever decide to leave her,

I want to be the first to know.

Well...

LAUGHTER

You're the first to know. We're getting divorced.

Bobby has his character

impressed upon him by the friends that he's with,

who's "always a flirt but never a threat.

"Reminds us of our birthdays, which we always forget."

He's constantly the presence

that they want to have in their life.

But you can never pin him down.

There's someone who is a bit of a boyish,

smiling observer who can't be caught, really.

Always says the right thing in a sort of political way.

And that's the loneliest place to be, really.

I think, for someone who is on their own,

if you are constantly at the service

of making sure your friends have a good time,

or trying to be the good time for them,

you lose what it is that YOU actually want.

Sugar and cream? Both. May I have lots of both?

Of course you may. Do you want a brandy in it, Robert?

Oh, are you having some? We don't drink.

Because Bobby's in this sort of observer position,

you do get to see some of the very unusual insecurities

that exist within the couples. Jenny, you are terrific.

Oh, you're the girl I should have married.

LAUGHTER

Listen!

Listen! I know a darling girl in this building you'll just love.

LAUGHS

W-What? When are you going to get married?

What?! I mean it.

To me, a person's not complete unless he's married.

He's complete enough. You are better off the way you are.

That's what I hear. Oh, Dave, do you mean that?

No.

Well...

..sometimes. And so with Harry and Sarah,

there's obviously this moment where they're trying

out their karate skills on each other,

which is a very good metaphor for the struggle of power

and control that they have with each other.

Just come at me. OK. Ooh!

SARAH SCREAMS

Hey, hey, hey.

Whoa!

But they're also trying to have control over their own desires.

APPLAUSE

For Harry, Bobby is the best friend

who will understand his vulnerabilities.

And Sarah, like many of the other characters,

use Bobby as a sort of touchstone for her flirting.

Now, are you sure you don't want a brownie?

Oh, God. No. I'll bust. Bust? You bust, you skinny thing?

Look at you. You're just bones. Look at you.

You are skin and bones. I bet when you get on a scale,

it goes the other way - minus.

She's on a diet that she hates,

and he's obviously trying to stop drinking so much.

So she keeps offering Bobby more food.

And Harry keeps offering Bobby something to drink.

Don't...eat...that...brownie. I'm not.

I'm just...smelling it.

Oh, Robert, you have one. No, not with bourbon.

But thank you, Harry.

And that is a perfect representation of a couple trying to get along,

as all couples do. And Bobby's caught in the middle

and he's sort of saying yes to one thing and commenting on the other

thing and trying to keep the whole thing light,

although he's sat in the middle of tension.

And that repeats itself through all of the scenes with the couples.

Amy, Paul can't find his good cufflinks anywhere.

Um, uh, um-um-um...

On-On-On-On the dresser. OK.

OK.

Right next to my suicide note.

LAUGHTER

I heard once that the difference between

a piece of work and a work of art is the attention to detail,

and that attention

to detail only comes by you removing what is unnecessary,

and you just keep removing it and removing it

until you're just left with what is in some ways profound.

And without wishing to be too arty about this,

there's a lot that is profound in Company.

Hey, Robert. Yeah?

Did you ever have a homosexual experience?

What do you mean? Oh, no, no. I don't mean as a kid.

I mean, since you've been an adult. Those themes, homosexuality,

the drug taking, the, um,

all these things that are taboo subjects in society,

being able to point at them and

put them onstage is, that's a bit of a step.

I think that's a bit of a...bit of a brave step.

I just think, you know, that sometimes you meet somebody

and you just love the crap out of them, you know?

Yeah. Yeah, I know exactly.

And sometimes you just want to manifest that love, that's all.

That's true.

The complicated coupling where Paul is divorcing his wife

and he's still living at home because it makes them both happy.

And then he propositions Bobby.

Like a s... For example, I mean...

Do you think that you and I...

..could ever have anything like that?

You know what I think?

I think we'd better go inside.

Again, Bobby doesn't know

what he's supposed to be to them, or for them.

And so it just leaves you with a question in the air.

Every couple doesn't resolve and answer a question,

they raise a question.

So after you see Harry and Sarah, after you see Paul and his wife,

after...whoever you meet, you are left with a question.

Married people are no more marriage than musicians are music.

And that's the unsettling thing at the heart of the show.

I'm afraid to get married and you're afraid not to.

Oh, Robert. Thank you.

I'm really...

It's just that...

..you have to want to marry somebody,

not just some BODY.

We all got on as a company for Company very well.

We had rehearsed for quite a few weeks,

and we'd been playing for

a little while before we did this recording

for television. So by then,

the company of Company had gelled really well.

I have a lot of favourite songs from the show.

I mean, when you got friends like mine.

I really liked performing Side By Side.

# Isn't it warm?

# Isn't it rosy?

# Side by side He's such a cutie

# By side Isn't he a cutie? #

Under Sam's direction,

and Jonathan Butterell's choreography,

Side By Side became something else.

LAUGHS

Never loses his cool.

# By side I envy that

# Everything shines... #

Side By Side, "Parallel lines who meet,"

was Bobby dividing coke lines on a mirror.

# Parallel lines

# Who meet

# Love him... #

Taking them as the song went on.

And the more he took,

the dance routine became more and more frenzied.

# How would we ever get through?

# What would we do without you?

# Just what you usually do

# Right! You who sit with us

# You who share with us You who fit with us

# You who bear with us... #

WHOOPING

Until it ended in this big set piece.

# Everybody... #

Jonathan Butterell, a gifted choreographer,

looked at the words that Sondheim put inside the songs,

and the hunger and the need for Bobby and the want,

and the, at times, selfish sort of violence, if you like,

behind those words - he put into movement.

# Side by side, by side, by side, by side, by side, by side... #

All together, it came up with something quite unique,

I think.

# By side! #

And then I went straight into

the scene with Hannah and doing Barcelona.

# Where are you going?

# Barcelona

# Oh

# Don't get up

# Do you have to?

# Yes, I have to

# Oh

# Don't get up

# Now you're angry

# No, I'm not... #

And those four notes in that 3/4 rhythm.

Dun-dun-dun, dun. Dun-dun-dun, dun.

Dun-dun... And the words being put to that.

So simple, so clever.

And again, it's lonely and it's sad.

# Stay I have to...

# Fly, I know, to Barcelona... #

It's a complete piece of theatre. It can make you laugh

and it can make you cry.

# Doo, doo, doo, doo Doo, doo, doo, doo

# Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo

# You could drive a person crazy You could drive a person mad... #

Having songs like You Could Drive A Person Crazy

with the sort of Andrews Sisters-style harmonies

that are crafted within it,

and then the Single Ladies,

pre-Single Ladies choreography, that Jonathan Butterell brought to it.

The three actresses are doing these movements

all in sync while they're singing to Bobby,

who again has his back to the audience.

So they're playing it straight out.

It's funny but it's heartbreaking.

It's insulting, which is why it's funny,

but it's also sad, all at the same time.

It was brilliantly done.

I think the energy of New York

definitely comes across. The energy of that, the patter of that,

it's...it is very New Yoik.

What do you get?

The crafting of Being Alive,

it's one of the all-time great songs in musical theatre.

# Someone to hold you too close

# Someone to hurt you too deep

# Someone to sit in your chair To ruin your sleep... #

The same words, the same melody, the same rhythm -

at once refuting being coupled and being with someone.

# Someone to need you too much

# Someone to know you too well

# Someone to pull you up short

# To put you through HELL... #

And then a tiny shift in one word

and it's actually a call for someone to please be with me

because I'm ready now.

I just heard a door open that's been stuck a long time.

And it's so, so simply done.

# Somebody crowd me with love

# Somebody force me to care... #

This show has an amazing quality, really.

Because if you are single, if you are newly married -

whatever the coupling is, the show speaks to you.

It speaks to you because it keeps digging

at the heart of what it's like to be a human being

needing the security of another human being.

And that is the beautiful thing about the piece.

It's a person who is waiting

to be scraped against life into living.

First, the act is painful,

but it reminds you that you're alive,

which is the title of the last song.