Jochebel Ohene MacCarthy
Elle Ma-Kinga N’Zuzi
On the 24th of May 2023, Anna Mae Bullock, the ‘Queen of Rock ’n’ Roll better known to the world as Tina Turner, died at her home in Küsnacht, Switzerland, at the age of 83.
It was a day that Jochebel Ohene MacCarthy will never forget as, at the time, she was starring as the pop legend in the Australian production of Tina – The Tina Turner Musical. It wouldn’t be until the next day that she would learn of the sad news, making that night’s performance one of the most emotional of her career.
Looking back, she recalls, “When I first performed this show, Tina was still alive, a week after we opened, she passed. I didn’t know until I started receiving messages from people the next day telling me how sorry they were to hear the sad news. I was like, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa…’
“That night, the house was packed, people wanted to be there to pay their respects and show their gratitude. Having experienced doing the show with the potential for Tina to walk in the door at any moment, that night I experienced it with the potential of her presence being there… the emotion was phenomenal, a different level of performance, like an out of body experience.”
Today, both Tinas are together, sharing their love of the star who first came to public attention as one half of Ike and Tina Turner and later scored global success on her own with songs such as What’s Love Got To Do With It?, We Don’t Need Another Hero, and, of course, The Best.
N’Zuzi says, “My foster dad was a huge fan of Tina Turner, consequently, she was the first black artist I was introduced to as he had all her cassettes and CDs. I’d dance in front of the TV whenever she was on, that’s why they sent me to dance school, to stop me blocking the view of the telly.”
As a child, N’Zuzi’s party-piece was Proud Mary, indeed you could say she was destined to play her current role, “Maybe there was something in the stars,” she agrees, admitting her road to the musical was “random”. She explains, “I was in rock bands at the time and at several concerts I’d been asked to sing the likes of Proud Mary. I was working in Germany when the producers needed an alternate Tina and they emailed me. I thought, ‘Why not?’ So I went along and I got the job. It just happened.”
It was at the age of seven that MacCarthy first came across the name Tina Turner thanks to a singing birthday card she’d bought for her mum. She laughs as she recalls, ”That was the first time I ever came across her name, it was back in the day when you got these cards that, when opened, would sing. This one sang, ‘Simply the Best,’ over and over again.”
To their regret, neither N’Zuzi nor MacCarthy met the rock legend whose story they tell, the former missing the opportunity to do so by just a few months.
“Tina had visited the show a few months before I joined during a cast change,” she says. “So half of the cast had met her, the other half, like me, had not. But I discovered that Tina loved Germany and that when she ran away from Ike, she hid in Stuttgart, just around the corner from our theatre there. Not many people are aware of that. In fact, while I was there, I went to a local recording studio to record some stuff and there, on the walls, were all these amazing photos of Tina that I’d never seen before.”
Being on stage when Tina died meant MacCarthy couldn’t pay her respects to the star until the tour had finished, at which point she embarked on a pilgrimage to Switzerland, to visit Tina’s home.
“I went to her house and laid some flowers by her door. Unlike many huge stars who live in secluded communities, her house was by the road, she always wanted to be accessible. I spent 45 minutes there; I knew she wasn’t there but I wanted the connection of having walked the streets that she would have walked. It allowed me to say, ‘Thank you,’ to her for being the incredible woman she was and for giving strength to so many people. It was a visit filled with joy and gratitude.”
For both actors, telling Tina’s story is a challenge they are revelling in, from her trademark strut to her powerful, distinctive vocals, they have spent many hours studying the singer in order to capture her essence.
“Our choreographer Simone Mistry-Palmer worked a lot with Tina so knew all the moves. She has ensured that what you see in the show is faithful to what Tina did on stage and both Jochebel and I have watched a lot of videos. We still do because we are very different Tinas,’ says N’Zuzi, adding, “No one will ever be her, but as we are telling her story, we have a tool box of things we can choose to implement in the songs, for example, she had a very specific way of forming some words that audiences expect to hear.”
MacCarthy confesses that the famous strut was something she took time to master. “That whole Tina-esque presence was definitely something I had to work at and took about eight or nine weeks to perfect, but with Tina you are constantly learning. If you want to be better and better you have to constantly go back to the documentaries about her, to revisit her story, and then drive that into your performance. Every day, you learn something new. The thing is, when you finish rehearsals and go to the shops and suddenly hear, ‘What’s love got to do, got to do wIth it…’ coming over the store’s speakers, you do think, “Tina’s following me. She wants me to do better – that’s how I feel anyway.” “Me too,” laughs N’Zuzi.
With such an iconic back-catalogue to choose from, it almost seems unfair to ask the pair to choose their favourite song, for the record it’s Tina’s cover of The Tramps’ classic floor-filler, Disco Inferno, although MacCarthy, adds, “I also love singing I Can’t Stand The Rain because a sample of it was used in Missy Elliot’s The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly) – I like that, the past and the present coming together through Tina’s influence.”
N’Zuzi ranks River Deep Mountain High and, unsurprisingly, Proud Mary among her favourites, but admits, “ It’s so hard to choose, however, my favourite moment in the show is when it’s time to sing Simply The Best. The second the audience hears the introduction they are on their feet, singing out loud and in that moment Tina is alive. I look up and think, ‘Tina’s up there somewhere watching this going, ‘Oh, this one again…’.”
Simply The Best begins the musical’s explosive concert finale, which recreates Turner’s record-breaking 1988 show in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Recalling the first night she stepped in front of an audience to deliver that scene, N’Zuzi reveals the audience reaction left her in tears. “I cried because, oh my God, I had done it, we had done it, and the audience gave us so much love. We were celebrating and honouring Tina together.”
That love continues at the stage door, says MacCarthy, “When you come out the Stage Door, having given it your all, and audience members, many of whom saw Tina in concert, are waiting to thank you for giving them back the memory of seeing her live, it is so encouraging. It’s a lovely, lovely feeling, so many blessings of love that can sometimes be a little overwhelming.”
N’Zuzi smiles, as she remembers, “I’m quite small in real life, so often I’m not recognised, but when I started playing Tina, my hair was shaved. When I walked back to my car after the show people never recognised me. I’d hear them replaying the medley at the end of the show on their phones, saying things like, ‘Oh my god, she is Tina Turner!’ I’d stay silent but hearing them say that was such a gift for me. I’d just have a little smile. But it’s also lovely to do pictures and sign for people. Hearing them tell you how much they loved the show is so validating. That’s why you do it, to make people happy and feel nostalgic.”
N’Zuzi speaks for both of them, when she says, “That’s the great thing about Tina – The Tina Turner Musical, it ensures her amazing story can live on, and on, and on, and we are honoured to be keeping a part of her alive .”
Interview by Liam Rudden Media
Photography credits: Matt Crockett, Johan Persson
