Mamma Mia!: Musical marks return to live theatre for Scarborough's open air venue

“It was in Scarborough that was the first time we started to hang out with each other,” Sara recalls. The pair were starring together in a production by the Halifax-based Northern Broadsides theatre company. “It was a long slow burner me and Sara getting together and I think that was the turning point,” adds Richard, a former Coronation Street star.

An open-air venue is the perfect setting for Mamma Mia!, they agree. Back in 2021, the show was held in the open for the first time, set in the grounds of Leeds’s Harewood House. The musical itself follows the tale of a mother, daughter and three possible dads on a Greek island idyll and is, of course, set to the timeless songs of Mamma Mia hit-singers Abba.

Since premiering in London’s West End more than 21 years ago, the musical has been seen by over 65 million people and has been turned into much-loved films Mamma Mia! The Movie and Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again. Next week, it can be enjoyed by the sea and under the stars in the country’s largest open air concert arena, offering one of the last chances to see the show in the UK, before the tour embarks on an international leg.

“I think that’s incredible actually,” muses Leeds-born Sarah Earnshaw, who plays Tanya Chesham-Leigh, close friend and Dynamos bandmate of Donna. “I went to the venue with the other girls playing the Dynamos and it’s amazing. It’s going to be such a different experience for all of us to do something in an open air venue and so special. “And I think Mamma Mia is totally suited to that. The end of show in particular is almost like a concert anyway. And I think when it’s outside and people feel quite free, it will be amazing.”

Sara agrees. The cast, she says, enjoy it as much as the audiences do. “We’re great comrades, colleagues and friends and I think it shows. It’s a show about friendship and I think what happens off stage reflects what happens on stage. Certainly me and the dynamos, we laugh every night – we really, really laugh and that’s infectious. We’re having a riot. And, particularly in the medley at the end of the show, the audience are having a riot too.”

Sara turned to theatre slightly later in life having originally trained for a copywriting career. Having previous dabbled in am-dram, she was working in copywriting at Nottingham Playhouse when she decided it was on stage where she wanted to be, telling stories directly to audiences.

“My character Donna is a great woman,” she says. “I remember going to see Mamma Mia! in London when I was doing Billy Elliot at the time. I had a really profound moment when I saw this character on stage and I said I wanted to play her one day…If she was a real person, I’d want to be her friend. I think she’s flawed, vulnerable, strong, kind. She encompasses lots of different traits in people.”

For husband Richard, originally from Ackworth, in West Yorkshire, his role of Sam comes with inevitable comparisons to Pierce Brosnan, who plays the character in the Mamma Mia film. “I can play a man who is in love with Donna. And I can play a guy who struggles to say things in the right way until the very last minute because that’s most of us. I just feel I wish I was a little bit more tall, dark and handsome and had a dinner suit on,” he jokes.

Sarah, meanwhile, describes playing Tanya as one of the best roles of her career. “She’s just brilliant - she’s fun and feisty and will tell you what she thinks. She loves her mates and there’s a real female empowerment between her and the other women.”

Sarah’s journey into the theatre industry began with dance classes in Leeds from early toddlerhood, progressing to acting classes and then singing lessons by the age of 11, before she then joined the National Youth Music Theatre. “Leeds and the surrounding areas were a really huge part of my development in my early stages of performing and I’ve got a lot to thank that time for,” she reflects. “Being young and surrounded by it really helped further down the line and having those experiences in my hometown really ignited my love for what I do.

“To get to do what my hobby was from being a toddler as a job is a dream come true. I love being on stage every night and especially in Mamma Mia! because it is just so feelgood and fun - I definitely always feel better after work.”

The power of the show feels even stronger than before the pandemic, Sara says. “And my experience was that it was really loved beforehand! But since then, people really want to come to the theatre and have a good night out. I think they want something they know will make them feel good and Mamma Mia! does that effortlessly…

"It’s been quite humbling to see the power of what can seem like quite a simple piece of theatre can have upon people. Our choreographer said recently that Mamma Mia! may not be high art but it’s special art and I think that absolutely sums up what we’re doing with this production.”

Mamma Mia is at Scarborough Open Air Theatre from June 14 to 18. Visit scarboroughopenairtheatre.com