Allan Stewart talks to Viv Hardwick about the massive controversy that engulfed his tribute show to Al Jolson, one of the greats of entertainment.

RED-FACED or black-faced? The dilemma has haunted veteran Scottish entertainer Allan Stewart after he was persuaded to ditch the famous blacked-up section of Jolson & Co – The Musical… and unleashed a media storm.

The tribute to the world’s greatest entertainer of the Twenties, which visits Newcastle Theatre Royal next week, has a legacy almost as tempestuous as Jolson’s career.

Stewart, 57, recalls playing the lead in a 1996 version of Jolson’s life – a role he shared with Brian Conley – in the West End and Canada when the pair hit the headlines for blacking up.

“When I did the part at the Victoria Palace in 1996 in a completely different musical we did black up for one number on stage and then took if off again three minutes later. It was a really nice theatrical part of the show but there was a lot of criticism then about it and people outside with placards.

“I took it to Toronto and then another performer took it to America and they took the blacking up out. So this has been a bone of contention throughout the entire Jolson story which I find totally ridiculous. Robert Downey Jr blacked up in the film Tropic Thunder and nobody said anything about that even though there was no reason for it,” says Stewart.

He finishes the tour in May, back in his home city of Glasgow, and is pretty positive that another tour will follow.

Before that Stewart has to field a barrage of questions about the current show and was sent 40 pages of newspaper articles debating the issues of a white man using black make-up.

“It’s just crazy… every journalist wants to talk about the blacking up issue. We made every national newspaper. The strange thing is that it’s such a non-story even though we’re glad of the publicity. There’s one bit in the show where we could have possibly blacked up. That was Rock-A-Bye Baby at the end of the first half. I wanted to do it.

I still want to do it and I think if we go back out again on tour, hopefully I can talk the producers into doing it.

“We have proved with all the publicity that there doesn’t appear to be a PC policy saying we shouldn’t do it. Everyone has said ‘Go ahead and do it because it’s his life story’. In hindsight, it wasn’t a bad decision because it could have gone the other way.

We could have had a lot of negative publicity which would have been bad for the show,”

says Stewart who claims that audiences haven’t noticed anything wrong with the portrayal as it is.

“Jolson did black up in his younger days but his most powerful stuff was after that when he became this entertainer singing for hour after hour because people wanted to hear him.”

Stewart sees his version of Jolson, who died in 1950, aged 64, as more of a characterisation than an impersonation. “I think of myself playing him as the way Michael Sheen does Tony Blair, Brian Clough or David Frost. Sheen uses the mannerisms but has a more difficult job because his subjects only died recently or are still alive. Not many people recall what Jolson was really like except from films and things like that. Even then, The Jolson Story was actually performed by Larry Parks,” says Stewart who feels the most excited he’s been over a 40-year career.

That’s mainly down to the fact that the show features Jolson’s huge ego in action based around a real interview that the performer gave in 1946.

“I sing with this eight-piece band and do gags and anecdotes as well as flashbacks to Jolson meeting his wives or his mother dying, divorcing the actress Ruby Keeler and having a screaming fight with her. So there’s a lot of heavy drama as well. His ego was scary. That’s why you couldn’t live with the man and he was married four times.

“I’m a comedian-singerentertainer so that’s the easy side of it for me. I break down the fourth wall by talking to the audience and having fun with them. That’s the Jolson that the audience knew and loved. I then have to find this incredible ego where you see him face-to-face with people, screaming at them.

I can understand that happening as he lost his fame,” Stewart says.

And asked about the future, he adds: “We are hoping to go back out again in the autumn or next year. Then I’ll sit down with the producers and the director and ask if we can do it and see what they say. But they may say ‘leave it as it is’. We’ll see what happens.”

■ Jolson & Co - The Musical, Newcastle Theatre Royal. Box Office: 08448-112-121 theatreroyal.co.uk