Mood Music stars say #MeToo movement is about more than actors

Feeling moody: Seána Kerslake plays a singer and Ben Chaplin her producer
Dave Benett

The stars of a new play looking at the dark side of the music industry say they were “conscious” of the show’s wider significance in the light of the #MeToo movement.

In Mood Music, Seána Kerslake plays a singer used by a veteran musician, played by Ben Chaplin, but dropped after becoming more independent and demanding credit for their success.

Kerslake, 27, said: “There is a whole speech in the play about being a diva, a drama queen, hormonal or needing to be the centre of attention and people saying, ‘Don’t be hysterical.’

“It’s all geared towards women and a lot of the time it’s like men just want to get their job done, while a woman is having a moment or being outrageous so you are definitely conscious of that, you never want to be called a diva. But it is not just singers or actors, it can as easily happen in a science lab.”

Chaplin, 47, said the play, written three years ago before the #MeToo movement swept through the film industry, had “hit something” about the current mood and that there had been “some cultural shifts recently”.

He said: “People are being held accountable for their actions even if they are a long time ago and that’s a great thing.”

But the play’s writer Joe Penhall said the music industry was “immune” to some of the pressures brought to bear on Hollywood after the fall of disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein.

He said: “One of the reasons is the film industry had a kind of legitimacy and a power in America, whereas the pop music industry has increasingly been seen as just product. Possibly, they don’t have pretensions to politics, the film industry is very political and the film makers are very political and the #MeToo movement has a lot of currency in the industry because they like to see themselves as serious and significant politically, whereas the music industry has never bothered about that, they just want to make rock and roll.”

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