Interview: Childminding with The Manny

Sam McArdle is The Manny

Sam McArdle is an Irish actor whose one man black comedy The Manny plays at the King’s Head Theatre in January 2023. We caught up with him to have a chat about developing and funding the show, as well as his own experiences working as a male nanny.

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Well, the title of the play probably gives a bit of a hint, but first tell us about the premise of The Manny.

The Manny is loosely based on when I was working as a male nanny for rich single mums in West London in my 20s. I always feel the need (and rightly so!) to stress that the character is quite different to me. He’s quite a morally grey figure, who uses this flexible, well paid job to his advantage by living a ‘Peter Pan-esque’ life of casual dating, probably because he’s a little lost in his place in life. Although he comes across as quite confident, he also represents the anxiety that can come from society’s pressure to have achieved all of your ‘objectives’ by a certain age, and so he is settling for this life where he doesn’t feel anything. He meets an actress called Molly, who also seems lost, but in a different way. She came out of the top drama school in London with all of the agents coming for her, but after a few years she seems to have been cast aside by the industry, and it looks like she won’t achieve her dreams. She is also settling, in a different way, by being in a relationship with a ‘safe bet’. He works in tech, makes a good salary, but he doesn’t really ‘see’ her. Not in the way The Manny does. She’s drawn to his appetite for life and brazenness, and he’s never met someone before who is following their passion, no matter how much it hurts them. Finally, we have Michael. He’s a seven-year-old, pain in the arse, right-wing child with slightly Machiavellian tendencies, who is the product of a cold, loveless marriage. He’s settling for turning into every example of an entitled smarmy public school boy that we see today. But he himself is drawn to The Manny, as he has no role model in his life. So this brash, crude male nanny’s realistic outlook on life may act as an unlikely role model to the boy. In summary, it’s about how all three of these characters need each other and are changed by each other throughout the show.

You have drawn on your own experience working as a manny in London; can we expect a Hollywood-style ‘any resemblance’ disclaimer?

Everyone signed NDA’s so I’m safe! No I’m kidding… The character is very different to me. I wanted to explore those themes of societal pressure, loneliness in your 30s, and unrequited dreams, but I wanted to do that through the lens of The Manny. I also wanted to write about a character who goes on a journey throughout the show and is changed. So I wanted him to start in a certain place of thinking, and because of what happens throughout the show and the characters that he encounters, he ends up in a very different place to how we see him at the start.

I worked with a variety of families; some were lovely to work with and I still keep in touch with! Others were different, but all the characters are based on real life people, apart from Molly. I did meet a child with slightly psychotic tendencies that Michael is based on!

It’s been a long process to bring The Manny to the stage, from writing it in lockdown to hugely successful scratch nights in London. How have you found your script and performance developed?

I started writing this show in early 2020, but as I had quit acting at that time it was still only in rough form. When COVID hit, I actually stopped writing it all together for a couple of months. It wasn’t until that summer when a Michael Jordan documentary called The Last Dance came out. It blew my mind how focused he was, and it made sense. I had been quite driven in my 20s (not that I’m comparing myself to MJ!) but I had lost that spark, through being ground down by the industry. There were a number of things that helped me get me back on track, and that documentary was one of them. I became much more disciplined with my routine, sleep and diet, and it all helped to constantly refine and refine the script. I would gather feedback from people whose opinions I trusted, and then in the summer of 2021 the director Melanie Fullbrook came on board. We’ve been close friends since we were in drama school, and she knows me better than anyone, so when I had the final script, she was able to shape and create my performance. This version of the show is very similar to the one we did last year. It’s taken a bit of time for us to find the right venue to bring the production to the next level, so it’s a great pleasure to be working with the King’s Head Theatre. They’ve been fantastic, especially Valentina Londono who’s been fantastic with marketing and selling the show.

There was some crowdfunding to help produce this run. Tell us a little about that and the challenges involved in putting on a show like this?

It’s been a huge learning curve producing this show myself, and raising funds is the most important thing – making sure everyone gets paid, and that we cover ourselves. We ran an IndieGoGo campaign in November, and that’s been instrumental in securing our funding. I also wrote to various trusts and boards, as well as doing the ACE application (50 pages of agony), and were rejected on them. I think crowdfunding is the best option for fringe shows. But still, we are doing this on quite a tight budget. There’s a huge financial risk with putting on any theatre, as we know, but we do need more help from the government. COVID, Brexit, various Tory governments are crippling the arts, and it’s difficult to get going in today’s climate. I don’t mean to be despondent, but I think Arts Council funding being cut for the major theatres, as we have seen, has a huge knock-on effect.

How did you get involved with The King’s Head to bring this play to their stage?

I wrote to Mark Ravenhill last year, who was very complimentary about the play, which was really lovely to hear, as I was a huge fan of Shopping and F*cking. From there, we met with Sofi Berenger, lead producer at the venue, and they offered us a great slot to kick off 2023!

What are your ambitions for The Manny, and do you have any other projects coming up to tell us about?

The Manny has a two-season TV show arc, which I would love to develop. I’ve got the TV pilot written, which we are currently pitching to networks, and some are coming to see the show. This is the first thing I’ve ever written, and I’m loving knowing nothing about it, but being on a journey of learning (as wanky as that sounds). So I want to get better at writing these characters for TV where I can properly flesh out their backstories and character arcs. My favourite character is probably Molly (at this point in time), and there’s a lot under the surface that we only catch a glimpse of in the 60 min show.

Finally, are there any lessons or skills you learnt while dealing with other people’s children that you have been able to apply in the theatre? Do you find it easier to wrangle directors and producers or, dare we suggest, actors?

I think the key to working well with anyone, from kids to adult creatives, is listening. Everybody comes to a discussion/meeting/argument with a list of pain points and objectives they want to get across. Most people just want to be heard and listened to. If you can put yourselves in their shoes, you’re normally able to meet in the middle and both of you come out of the meeting or argument feeling heard and willing to work together.

But also, much like it’s sometimes easier to let a bratty child win the Mario Kart game, sometimes it’s easier to pick your battles and save your energy. I try and stay away from energy vampires, and if it’s not worth the fight, just smile and be polite. That was an unintentional rhyme! Ha!

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Our huge thanks to Sam for taking time out from preparing the show to chat with us. You can find him on Twitter and on Instagram.

The Manny plays at The King’s Head Theatre from January 10-14. Further information and booking details can be found here.