Peter M Smith told David Hennessy about playing the late Thin Lizzy frontman Phil Lynott in the musical that comes to Hammersmith this weekend.
Moonlight: The Philip Lynott Enigma is coming to the Eventim Apollo this weekend 50 years after Live and Dangerous live album was partly recorded there. This night will be followed by dates around the UK in May.
Phil Lynott was the charismatic leader of Thin Lizzy who remain well known for classics like The Boys Are Back in Town, Jailbreak and Whiskey in the Jar.
However his last years were affected by drug and alcohol addiction and he passed away in 1986 at the age of 36.
Moonlight aims to tell the deeper story of the Irish rock music icon exploring Philip Lynott’s formative years, his struggles, and his legacy and inspiration to musicians around the world while honouring him in the pantheon of great Irish poets.
Peter M. Smith leads the cast as Lynott with support from Padraic O’Loingsigh in the role of Brendan Behan and Riley Clark playing Oscar Wilde.
Thin Lizzy co-founder/guitarist Eric Bell plays himself, bringing authenticity to the production.
The cast is completed by Luke Hayden as The Landlord and John Newcombe as The Journalist and Mazz Murray playing Phil’s mother Philomena for the Hammersmith performance.
Jason Figgis directs.
The show was the brainchild of John Merrigan and Danielle Morgan.
Moonlight sees three Irish poets- Lynott, Behan and Wilde- meeting in the afterlife.
Peter M Smith’s screen credits include the Denise Gough drama Who is Erin Carter? and Guy Ritchie’s In The Grey but Moonlight possibly takes him back to the music that first brought him to prominence. Peter first came to attention in reality TV shows like Irish Popstars and Popstars: The Rivals. It was then that he was first likened to Phil Lynott.
Peter M Smith, who took to the Trafalgar Square stage recently to sing to the St Patrick’s Day crowd in character as Phil Lynott, took time to chat to the Irish World about the show.
How does it feel to be bringing the show to Hammersmith and the UK?
“It’s a dream come true.
“It’s going to be a bit of a party, I’m really looking forward to it.”
What does it meant to get a chance to play Phil Lynott? Is it a dream role?
“I don’t feel the pressure.
“It’s a responsibility.
“I’m from Drimnagh, I’m from Dublin 12 and so if I can’t get it right, it can’t be It can’t be gotten right.
“It’s one of those.
“It should be a gimme.
“But John’s script is very, very well written and he writes Dublin people very, very well.
“He writes Irish people very, very well and I think it’s one of those things.
“When you’ve been away from somewhere that you’re from, you tend to hang on to that Irishness that’s unique to people that travel, like myself, and I think that’s one of the main reasons why he’s nailed it on the head and that’s why it’s been so well received, because it’s that intimate sentiment of unique Irishness that really seems to come across.
“It’s great craic, I have to say.”
Do you think what Phil had in common with another character in the play Oscar Wilde is that they were both ‘different’. Of course we wouldn’t blink at Phil’s mixed race identity or Oscar’s sexuality now but at the time they lived, these things made them different..
“Yeah, I think very often life imitates art as well.
“I think there’s an obvious reason why I’m kind of drawn to play this part.
“(It is also) the struggles that you have to go through just to be heard and just to be accepted for what you do and what you are.
“I think that’s why it’s probably resonating so genuinely.
“I think it’s kind of serendipity that John has chosen the three characters including Brendan Behan to be in each other’s orbits because naturally they would have been drawn to each other spiritually.
“Obviously Philip was an avid consumer of poetry so Wilde would have been right at the top of that list, the great, classic outsider.
“It’s funny and life imitates art.
“He’s an artist, Padraic and I’d like to think that I have some of those traits even though I’m more of a traitor.
“My thing is I want to make things work but the art on the stage is is reflected in our real lives and I think that’s one of the principal reasons why this works.”
About making it work is it about making it authentic. I doubt for a second you are merely doing an impersonation of Philip..
“I think as an actor as well, you have to be authentic.
“You have to do the work and the research.
“I’m not a fan of people doing their own versions of things as an actor, there has to be a certain amount of research done.
“Yeah, stylised but done.
“I would come from the Daniel Day-Lewis school where he absolutely lives as that person.
“And I did.
“I’ve spent the last two years living as that person to a certain extent.”
The show has already got a poignant reception from fans who can’t believe you have ‘brought Phil back’…
“People have an emotional connection especially when people are gone.
“I think there’s a huge thing out there of Philip in particular because he was so young.
“I mean he was 36.
“He went into hospital for a week and never came out so there’s a lack of acceptance among the core fan base.
“I did a show at the Point at Christmas, his 40th anniversary show and the feeling that I get, and I’m starting to get to know an awful lot of the hardcore people, is they just refuse to accept the fact that he’s gone, emotionally.
“I’m talking about emotionally.
“These people felt like his family because he was quite an accessible guy.
“He would make a point of standing there and talking to people.
“He was decent so emotionally, these people are just not ready to let him go.
“I think that’s part of what draws people to him.”
One of the things that composer Danielle Morgan said surprised her about Philip’s story was how genuine he was, no one had a bad word to say about him. That’s a rare thing for a rock star..
“I know what it’s like to not feel like you belong somewhere, what it’s like to feel like an outsider in your own skin and the first people that really embraced Philip, besides his own family obviously in Crumlin, were Irish people, locals.
“I know what it’s like to be encompassed by a community.
“They’re aware that you’re different and they become protective of you because of that.
“It’s a very Irish thing, ‘He’s from there but he’s ours’.
“The people take possession of you and I think Philip spent most of his life reciprocating that so when people would say, ‘Oh but you’ve African heritage, you’ve South American heritage’ he said, ‘No, I’m Irish’.
“He felt a responsibility to reciprocate that acceptance.
“I think Philip spent his whole life in search of ultimate acceptance which, of course, you can argue he may or may not have ever felt and he certainly never felt a stronger sense of acceptance beyond Ireland and beyond being Irish.
“That was the blanket that enveloped who he was and why he identified as Irish first even before black or anything else.”
Of course you were very young when Phil passed away but do you remember becoming aware of him as a child?
“You’re always aware.
“Where I’m raised was practically a stone’s throw away from his house.
“You’re aware of everything.
“You’re wrapped in this blanket and you’re told Thin Lizzy are like religion.
“They’re like, and Philip’s legacy is like, a religion.
“I remember being a very small child and every two or three weeks you turn on The Late Late Show and he would be sitting there.
“And what strikes me from looking back at that footage-I do remember watching the first time around but none of the information went in like it does now but I remember kind of looking at him- He was always championing somebody else.
“And that’s missed because people are too busy championing themselves, a part of themselves that doesn’t really f**king exist, and that’s missed.
“Philip would be the type of fella who would see a band who he thought were brilliant because he had a great taste in music.
“He would take Irish bands like The Boomtown Rats and go, ‘I think they should be signed’.
“He was always championing people.
“It’s shameful. I look at shows like The Late Late Show and they don’t f**king champion new talent anymore.
“It’s all about what’s popular, what’s happening on Instagram.
“Philip, and that spirit out of Philip’s time is really f**king missed and I feel so passionate about it because people sometimes, and we all do it, we put Philip and people like Philip into this box: That’s what they were.
“No, he’s missed not just for who he was.
“He’s actually missed for what he did because nobody picked up that mantle and ran with it.
“The John Peels, the Kid Jensens, the Larry Gogans, they’re gone and they haven’t been replaced.
“Only Dave Fanning is left, everyone else is just kowtowing to advertisers, not taking a chance on new talent.
“Philip was, it’s a great shame he didn’t live longer because we all know six or seven bands who we go, ‘How did they not make it?’
“They didn’t make it because there was no nobody like Philip around to go, ‘Right, lads, I’m going to bring you to a meeting at EMI or at Polydor or whatever and you’re going to get that deal’.
“There’s no one left like that.
“There’s a huge hole left and I think it’s a societal thing as well as a music business thing.”
You actually met with Philip’s late mother Philomena, didn’t you?
“Yeah, this was 2001 at her house out in Sutton.
“She was lovely. God love her.
“I was only a kid, only a baby.
“I had just come off the first TV show that I did which was Irish Popstars with Louis (Walsh).
“That’s how long ago it was and a few of his friends and peers kind of saw me on TV, were like, ‘Okay, this guy even sounds like Philip’.
“I went out to meet her.
“She’d written a book called My Boy which was a best seller at the time and she spoke to me for 10 minutes and then spent the next two hours on the phone to my mother which I found fascinating.
“She didn’t care as much about who I was, she just wanted to know how I was raised and that’s instinct.
“And her and my mother kept in contact right up until she died.
“They’d have a call maybe once a month.
“But I love her.
“What a lady, what a strong lady because you had to be.
“I immediately saw the strength in her when I met her, the type of strength that nobody was going to tell her to go to any laundries with her child.
“She was going to do it her way.
“She was going to leave Philip with her family.
“He was going to be raised as a Lynott in Crumlin, not by strangers in some strange country, there’s strength in that.
“Listen we all know that your mother is the most important person.
“Everyone has a different experience with their mother and I get that.
“The fact that she’s not my actual mother, you want to make sure that her interests are represented honourably and in fairness, John touches upon it delicately.
“He just talks about what’s in the public domain in a delicate way, in a nice way and just the focus is on her bravery and also her struggle at the time and how he would have felt as a young boy, which I can identify with.
“Again it’s all handled very, very delicately with no presumptions made, no judgments made and just in a beautiful way and then tailed off in wonderful songs as only a play like this should really do.”
We spoke about authenticity before. Having Eric Bell, founding member of Thin Lizzy, also gives the show real authenticity with one of Phil’s actual bandmates onstage with you..
“I’ve gotten to know him quite a bit.
“The first time we met Jason, the director, brought him through to a little mini press conference that we were doing down at The Button Factory.
“He stopped at the door and went to walk away and I didn’t know why.
“Jason was telling me because it was too much for him emotionally because Philip and him had this brotherly relationship where they’d be best friends but then they’d be rolling around the ground, punching the head off each other, literally.
“I find when I’m in the room, Eric gravitates towards me and he kind of sits under my wing and he’ll talk to me like he doesn’t want anybody else to know.
“It’s his muscle memory.
“You must remember Eric is 78 now so his memories are encased in that porcelain that doesn’t break so we just automatically click because I’m a similar character to Philip.
“Yeah, he’s lovely man, a very talented man and full of stories.”
You mentioned race and skin colour before, a big part of Phil’s story no doubt. Does it come into the play?
“Do you know what? Probably in a more nuanced fashion in terms of what his mother would have gone through when she became pregnant with him, and those kind of attitudes.
“But the wonderful thing about John’s writing is John is so purely focused on Philip as an artist and taking those challenges which are peppered throughout the play and how Philip converts them into his wonderful art and poetry.
“I think that’s the difference between what other directors I’ve met and other writers I’ve met have tried to do with Philip’s story.
“John has made it a triumph over adversity.
“In fact he hasn’t shied away from the adversity but he’s used it.
“He’s used it in a positive sense which is what everybody wants.
“If I’m being honest with you I’ve been invited to be part of so many race organisations and my thing is, ‘Let’s not be victims’.
“We’re not victims.
“Life is a trade.
“We’re all different.
“What have you done with that difference that you were given, that gift that you were given of difference?
“I know what I’ve done.
“Let’s tell them that none of us here are victims.
“People will try to make you a victim if you let them but if you use what you’ve been given by God and let’s face it, the colour of your skin makes you stand out in some circumstances. It has for me and I think what John has done is turned it into a wonderful positive and that’s, again, another reason why it works here.”
You are bringing this show to England but there’s no limit to where it could go, Phil Lynott and Thin Lizzy are internationally renowned..
“They say that anywhere an Aer Lingus flight stops, we can go.
“We, as the footballers say, have boots, will travel.
“The story is universal.
“A story about a young poet, a young musician and his background. It’s universal.
“The music is great.
“The characters, again, are universally known so there’s no limits.
“The only limits that are set upon a show like this are the limits that we set upon ourselves.
“Hammersmith’s important for us.
“We need everybody, anyone with an Irish passport or British passport that used to be used to have an Irish passport, we need them all to turn up.
“We need them all there.
“We need them all there because that’s the springboard.
“We get it right in Hammersmith, we’ll get it right anywhere in the world.”
Moonlight- The Philip Lynott Enigma comes to Eventim Apollo, Hammersmith on Sunday 29 March, Pavilion Theatre Glasgow on 20 May, Tyne Theatre and Opera House in Newcastle on Thursday 21 May and The Alexandra Theatre in Birmingham on Saturday 23 May.
