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It's no lark for G4 Jon
AS a sale pitch goes former G4 member Jonathan Ansell admits he could probably do better with his description of Larkrise To Candleford, which stars a week long run at Blackpool Grand Theatre tonight.
"It's about the mundane but happy existence of villagers where the smallest things become bizarrely fascinating," he says. "People talk about what might seem absolute rubbish as they take their lunch breaks, they are just getting by from day to day, just keeping things together – it's real people and the reality of it all is immensely fascinating."
Based on the first book of Flora Thompson's trilogy of semi-autobiographical novels of her Oxfordshire childhood, the play with music is also haunted by the spectre of war on the horizon - a war which would slaughter half of the village's male population.
"It's closer to the book than the television series was and takes you from innocent happiness to the depth of despair," says Jonathan. "It's an utter escapism from the reality of life today. It's a real pleasure to be in."
Since the demise of The X Factor favourites G4 in 2007, Jonathan's career has included playing Nanki Poo in The Mikado and playing The Man in Bill Kenwright's touring production of Whistle Down The Wind.
"I've always loved theatre and always wanted to get into musical theatre so Whistle was great and not how people would perceive me," he says. "Nanki Poo was brilliant fun and it was good to get back into a bit of Gilbert and Sullivan.
Being out there on his own wasn't as bad as he feared.
"It felt odd rather than strange because it was a return to what I was doing before G4," he says. "As a tenor I was singing for my bread and butter, it was just a case of slipping back into those shoes."
G4, he says, was "so much fun" but at the end of the day they had come together for the television series.
"The last show was very emotional, the audience wouldn't stop clapping so it was good to leave at the top," says Jonathan. "But there were frictions towards the end. We were getting on each others nerves and it was frustrating because we all wanted to do our own things.
"G4 were friends while we were together but we didn't know each other intimately – and things started to niggle. We'd reached the end of the journey so took the major decision to step away."
As members pursue their careers, does he think they will ever get back together?
"Never say never – look what happened with Take That," he says. "A couple of the guys came and sang at my wedding – we performed as G3 and I was amazed how well it worked."
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Weather for Blackpool
Thursday 23 February 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 10 C to 13 C
Wind Speed: 23 mph
Wind direction: South west
Tomorrow
Sunny spells
Temperature: 4 C to 11 C
Wind Speed: 21 mph
Wind direction: West
