3 days Ago By Olivia Fahy
After spending the summer in the capital for the Danny Robins show 2:22 A Ghost Story, Jay McGuiness is excited to be coming back to Dublin with his latest show and plans on showing his castmates around while they’re here. He’s bringing the show, & Juliet to the Bord Gais Energy Theatre where he plays the role of Shakespeare and it depicts what would have happened if Juliet had chosen not to end her life after Romeo’s death. One of the things Jay is most excited about coming back to Dublin is so he can show his castmates around some of the places he frequented while living her last summer, and seeing how much fun they’re going to have in the city.
He told Extra.ie: ‘First and foremost, I’m really excited for the cast to be here, because I feel like I’ve got quite a bit of experience of being in the theatre right here in the middle of Dublin. I’m just really looking forward to seeing how much fun they’re going to have, because I do feel a little bit like a cheesy uncle of the cast.
‘I also just think the Bord Gais is a great theatre. It was where we had my first musical, and it’s really good-sized space for & Juliet. I think that, because we’re basically putting on a pop concert, with all the trimmings, the lights and the cannons and people going up and down out of the floor.
I think the space is the perfect place to knock people’s socks off.’ Jay has a real Grá for Ireland, having family from the Emerald Isle, and while he is contemplating moving back from LA, he hasn’t ruled Dublin out as a potential new place to live. ‘I love it.
I genuinely love it, and I live in LA, but I’m thinking of moving back to the UK soon and genuinely thinking, why not Dublin? You know, I’ve spent summertime working here. I just love the people. It’s just very spenny here isn’t it?’ & Juliet is created by the Emmy-winning writer from Schitt’s Creek, David West Read, and flips the script on the greatest love story ever told by asking, what would happen next if Juliet didn’t end it all over Romeo? The show’s iteration of the Bard sees him performing amazing boyband hits, and Jay tells Geek Ireland his boyband experience lends itself to the role perfectly as a result.
He revealed: ‘A lot of my songs are either boyband songs or people who’ve departed from boybands and had solo careers, and there’s even one point in the show that I lead a sort of merry band of men in a boyband tribute. It is the most boyband thing that’s ever happened in musical theatre. ‘The fact that I was in a boyband, I think only helps, but we’re wearing the most awful, shiny silver outfits and caps and sunglasses and doing like Frankenstein version of NSYNC and Backstreet Boys.
It’s honestly nuts.’ Aside from his The Wanted and musical theatre careers, he’s also well-known for winning Strictly Come Dancing, and people still stop to talk to him about his Pulp Fiction-themed Jive. McGuiness is still ‘surprised by the legs of it’ all these years later, and told EVOKE that it still comes up in fan interactions in ‘random pubs up and down the country’ that always leave him smiling afterwards.
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