Why new comedy Edmond de Bergerac wins by a nose, says Freddie Fox

Here comes the story behind the story, Edmond de Bergerac, a new play by hot French talent Alexis Michalik that has become the toast of Paris since its 2016 premiere, with more than 800 sold-out performances of this complex but fast-paced comedy with 80 quickfire scenes.

Birmingham Repertory Theatre has snapped it up for the British premiere, translated by Jeremy Sams, that visits the Grand Opera House, York, from Tuesday as one of only four venues on the inaugural tour.

Inspired by the Oscar-winning Shakespeare In Love, with its imagined backstory of the Bard’s creation of Romeo And Juliet, Edmond de Bergerac charts how struggling playwright Edmond Rostand, in the grip of writer's block in 1890s' Paris, must write a play for celebrated actor Constant Coquelin in only three weeks: an assignment he accepts in desperation, having not written anything new in the two years since his last work flopped.

His 30th birthday, as well as his deadline, is looming but his luck changes suddenly when Rostand helps best friend Leo woo a girl called Jeanne by writing romantic letters to her as if from him. Here is the perfect idea for the plot for a play within a play that will take in demanding producers, doubting colleagues, actresses’ whims and his wife’s jealousies.

Michalik’s imagining of how Cyrano de Bergerac came to be written brings together a cast led by Freddie Fox as Edmond Rostand, Henry Goodman as Constant Coquelin, Chizzy Akudolu as faded diva Maria and Josie Lawrence as the actress Sarah Bernhardt, under the direction of Birmingham Rep artistic director Roxanna Silbert.

"It's sort of Shakespeare In Love in style," says Freddie, who will be performing on a York stage for the first time. "It tells us about the writer as he writes his play, and how his own life seeps into his art and informs the plot of his soon-to-be-play, when he's a struggling writer living in the most expensive city in the world [Paris].

"After his last play flopped, he's at the mercy of the critics and the audience, who have not taken him to their heart, so he's under pressure to come up with a play on the spur of the moment."

Summing up Rostand's predicament, Freddie says: "He’s constantly feeling he’s a failure and not good enough, but he’s very determined to create something beautiful and poetic. He believes somewhere in the pit of his stomach that he can create something wonderful even though he’s so afraid of failing. In his deepest soul he’s an idealist and a romantic."

Inspiration comes from Rostand's new muse, Jeanne, and the result is "a play with a beating heart as well as high comedy," says Freddie.

Michalik's play is being made into a film, and Edmond de Bergerac's momentum continues with Birmingham Rep's British premiere. "Jeremy Sams has done a brilliant translation, and because Alexis is completely bilingual [he has an English mother], we've had him on hand to make little insertions to convey things that otherwise only the French would get," says Fox.

Freddie, maybe a little tongue in cheek here, remembers being determined not to like the play when first being asked to read it, but quickly changed his tune, thinking 'd**n it, I'm going to have to do it!".

"I then went to see it in France with Alexis, and I loved the staging, albeit I didn't understand all of it, and made my suggestions of a few changes for the English production," he says.

In a role that takes in romantic drama, high comedy and farce, Freddie has to flex all his acting muscles, physically, vocally and emotionally. "As an artist myself, every creative process is bogged down with self-loathing and anxiety and fear, so that’s easy for me to understand [in Rostand]. But the physical and vocal choices are a leap for me and I enjoy that as I don’t want to just do the same thing over and over again," he says.

"Because it's slightly larger than life, I want to show Rostand really at the height of his anxiety, losing the admiration of his wife, who's beginning to see cracks emerging. I want you to see a man who's eating himself from the inside, and only through theatre and his writing can he unfurl like a fern leaf."

Joining Freddie on stage will be Whose Line Is It Anyway? improv favourite Josie Lawrence in the guise of French actress Sarah Bernhardt. "She’s a wild, energetic woman who comes on like a tornado at the start, then you don’t really see her until towards the end,” says Josie, who also plays a waitress, an old woman, a prostitute and a can-can dancer.

"It’s very much like going back to my ensemble days, which I absolutely adore. It’s like putting a puzzle together and I love that. It’s all madness in the best possible sense."

Madness? Fun? Frolics? Certainly Freddie expects audiences to be surprised. "It entertains and moves you and also hopefully informs people too because in England we don’t know as much as the French do about Cyrano the play," he says. "It’s not like Romeo And Juliet where we know what’s going to happen. There’s an element of mystery to it that’s really exciting."

Birmingham Repertory Theatre presents Edmond de Bergerac, Grand Opera House, York, April 2 to 6. Box office: 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/york.

Charles Hutchinson