We’re following the Yellow Brick Road - the Wizard of Oz arrives at Birmingham REP

Jos likes barbecue flavour. We don’t. And so we move on to other stuff. Like chocolate. And then, mercifully, The Wizard of Oz.

Jos is an exceptional, leftfield choice for the role. An absurdly handsome actor with cheeks as high as telegraph poles, the body of a ballerina and eyes that pierce like lasers, he’s as likely to play a Wicked Witch as Johnny Depp is to play Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean. Oh yes. He did, didn’t he.

Jos spends most of his time playing high-falutin’ roles in plays by Shakespeare, Ibsen and the like. His CV reads features some of the most serious, most sophisticated and most cerebral plays ever written: Arthur Miller’s A View From The Bridge, Ibsen’s Ghosts, Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, Shaun McCarthy’s Circus Britannica, William Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost, King Lear and Romeo & Juliet. . . you get the picture.

And then, sometimes, Jos goes dizzyingly off piste and heads to the dark side. He pops up in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang as the Childcatcher or, this winter, The Wizard of Oz, as the Wicked Witch of the West. He loves those castings.

“I only play baddies and lovers. That’s it for me. I’m never the boy next door and that’s thrilling. We have the most amazing creative team at the Birmingham REP with brilliant actors, singers and dancers. We’ve just 30 seconds ago finished our second run through and it’s moved me to tears

BEAUTIFUL

“The Wizard of Oz is a beautiful story about humanity and life and wishes. The re-imagining of the story is so superb and up to date that I defy anybody not to say it’s one of the most beautiful productions they’ve ever seen.” The show won’t be just another Christmas production.

It’s an everyman production that will appeal as much to serious fans of drama as it will to kids who love a decent fairy story; it’ll thrill seventysomethings who love the original film while connecting with twentysomething hipsters who want to see the coolest cast in town.

Jos adds: “The original film was made in the 1930s but is so engrained in popular culture that everyone loves it. And this is a show that crosses those boundaries and will appeal just as much to my five-year-old nephew as it will my grandma and grandfather. We’re not just restaging the movie. It’s presented very artistically. We’ve gone back to the original book and paid attention to the story. It’s not all about yellow brick roads; though there are nods to those things throughout the show. Creatively speaking, we’ve really turned things on their head.”

Jos loves playing baddies. Villains, he says, are the most passionate people of all. “Oh yes, they are. They’re great. The trick is to make them into characters that people secretly would like to be. The other thing to remember when you’re playing somebody evil is that that person doesn’t find themself evil at all. That person thinks they are right. That person feels justified in behaving in a way that other people hate. It’s an amazing journey.”

The Wizard of Oz runs from November 24 until January 13 and features a whole troupe of people. In addition to the cast on stage, there are countless crew, ladies in a wardrobe department and many, many more.

“The women in our wardrobe department, well, I’ve never met such people. I said to someone the other day, The Wizard of Oz was an MGM classic. MGM was the true home of entertainment, there was wardrobe, press, a music department, everything. The REP is a bit like that too: it’s like the MGM of the Midlands.”

Jos likes the diversity of roles that he plays. Flipping between Shakespeare and Ibsen to modern day classics via a show that involves lots of green smoke and real munchkins is almost dreamlike.

“I find it so exciting to be immersed in really serious drama and then play in a show that is completely different to the traditional classics. After this, it’ll probably be serious telly or theatre, so to be spending Christmas doing something like this is a real treat.

“You know, it’s such an amazing show. One minute I’m in the castle telling Dorothy she’s going to die and then all of a sudden you hear Lorna Laidlaw being hysterically funny as she’s about to jump into a green balloon on a bike.”

It’s even better than barbecue Popchips.

“We have munchkins and everything. There’s smoke and whirlwinds. It’s the most fabulous production. When I’m not on stage I stand in the wings and can’t take my eyes off the action. I love it. I sit there beaming. The director tells me I’m like his mother because I keep saying ‘this is my favourite bit. . . no, that’s my favourite bit now’.

There’s serious intent in Jos’s portrayal of the Wicked Witch.

He hopes to connect with the audience and put in a performance that makes them think, as well as smile.

“The best drama is the kind where people catch themselves a week or two after they’ve seen something and start to think.

“It might encourage them to change a habit, be kinder, do something different. . . it evokes a response. For me, The Wizard of Oz teaches us that all our personal hang-ups are only in our mind. They are things that we learn as children and pick up along the way.

“The other thing it teaches us is about home and having an appreciation for where we are. It’s about being grateful for being in the moment and it’s about the small pleasures of life for family and friends and loved ones, which marries beautifully with the thoughts people have at Christmastime.”