David Gedge on The Wedding Present musical: 'People keep asking 'is it about you?'

“Oh man, I can’t get over how hot it is,” Aston sighs. “And (the actors) are all jumping about and running around and that makes it feel even hotter.”

Nonetheless, he’s delighted to report that his cast are “cracking on with it, looking after themselves and drinking plenty of water”.

“They’re young, they’re looking after themselves, it’s fine,” he says, adding praise for the Playhouse which has allowing them use of the rehearsal space free of charge. “It’s nice to get a bit of support from them,” he says.

Gedge says he is “really looking forward” to seeing the production onstage. “I’ve not really had much to do with it – other than write the songs, I suppose – so it’s nice to be a bit detached,” he says. “It’s obviously a Wedding Present project of sorts but I haven’t got Matt’s stress or anything.”

The day we speak Aston and the cast have had their first full run-through of the show. “As expected, it was clunky and things were being dropped...but actually it unpacked really, really well, so I was really pleased with how it went, as was the creative team,” he says. The following day they were due to move to Slung Low’s warehouse in Holbeck, where the musical is being staged for two weeks until September 6.

“The actual creative side of it, getting everyone together and the rehearsals, that’s been really great," Aston says. “The first thing that the lighting designer who watched the run this morning said was ‘That’s good casting’. The cast are fantastic, there’s a lovely balance of young and experienced, there’s some people who are looking young but have actually been doing it for seven or eight years and know the business. The other side of it is the Slung Low warehouse, which is great and Slung Low have been fantastic supporters of it, but we are in a way starting from scratch because although it is a venue, we are bringing in a lot of infrastructure – the staging and the seating and the tables before we get to the point of the set design.”

The Covid pandemic played a large part in Reception’s slow gestation – a few years ago it had been intended to stage it at Leeds Playhouse, then there was talk of including it in Leeds’s Year of Culture in 2023 – but Aston, an experienced director whose credits include several Rock ’n’ Roll Pantos at Leeds City Varieties, seems happy that the show will actually coincide with the 40th anniversary of Gedge founding The Wedding Present in Leeds.

A story of love, loss, break-ups and breakdowns, the show tells the story of a group of Leeds University friends who keep in touch over five years of trials, tribulations and life events. Its timeline – between 1985 and 1990 – coincides with Gedge’s band becoming firm favourities with legendary BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel and releasing their albums George Best and Bizarro. Yet Gedge says he “didn’t have any need” to share memories of what Leeds was like in that era because Aston was then a teenager growing up besotted with The Wedding Present himself.

“It’s funny,” Gedge says. “People keep asking ‘is it about you?’ and I say no, it’s a fictional drama, but I’m in and out of it sometimes. It’s set in Leeds when The Wedding Present started, it’s the same timeline, basically, and it’s about relationships; one of the characters moves to Seattle, which I did, and there’s a hit set in Brighton. It’s learly not about me, but there’s little nods to me. It makes sense to do that. Rather than just straightforward drama, it’s a period drama from the 80s.”

Aston adds: “I was 13 in 1985 and going to family weddings and all that, I can remember dancing around handbags and all that malarkey, the big back-combed perms and what people were wearing. We’ve really gone for it with the costumes – the wedding dress that we’ve got and the veil is proper 1980s and it looks like something my sister wore then when she got married.”

The show includes a new Wedding Present song – which is due out later this year on a double compilation album, 40 – alongside classics such as Brassneck and deeper cuts from Gedge’s catalogue. “There’s going to be stuff there for hardcore Wedding Present fans, but hopefully it’s also going to work for non-Wedding Present fans who are more musical theatre fans who are going to take a different slant on it as well,” Aston says. “I want it to work for both audiences.”

He is hopeful that Reception will also have a life beyond its initial run in Leeds. “It would be nice if it was my pension,” he jokes, “but there’s been various twists and turns over the last five years since me and David first talked about it with Tony (Ereira, founder of the label Come Play With Me and diehard Wedding Present fan) and the fact that we’ve got to this point now, with the show about to open, is brilliant. It’s been a real journey.

“One of the original plans was for it to tour straight away but I think it was the right decision not to do that because it’s been such a massive effort to get it beyond these few weeks. But I see this as the beginning of the journey, not the end of it, because there’s enough there from a show point of view to give it a chance. You never know with any play or new musical how it’s going to be taken, but we’ve put all the right things in place. I think script-wise it unpacks as a story, the songs work, those who I work with will tell me if something’s rubbish but they think it’s in good shape, the actors are great, the sound’s great in the rehearsal room. There’s a lot to sort out but I’m hopeful that there are people who are coming to see it that could give it another life, and I know that we’ve got a couple of venues that would be interested if we’re going to tour it. You never know, but I really want it to go beyond these next few weeks.”

Reception runs until September 6 at The Warehouse, Holbeck. https://www.leedsplayhouse.org.uk/event/reception-the-wedding-present-musical/