When Christopher Isherwood published A Single Man in 1964, it shocked many of his friends, contemporaries and the literary world. Its plot, about a middle-aged British university professor in LA who is grieving the sudden loss of his long-term partner Jim, explored and humanised a gay relationship at a time when queerness was not written about so openly in the mainstream.

The novel has been adapted many times, probably most notably as a 2009 film directed by Tom Ford and starred Colin Firth and Julianne Moore, but a new version of A Single Man has just hit the London stage, this time as a ballet.

Devised by British choreographer Jonathan Watkins, A Single Man takes an intriguing approach to the source material. The role of George, the titular single man, is divided between two performers. Dancer Edward Watson embodies George physically on stage. Meanwhile, George’s inner life is given voice by singer John Grant, the acclaimed musician known for his baritone voice and confessional songwriting, who performs an entire album of new songs expressing George’s thoughts and emotions live every night.

With such a unique concept at play, we spoke with John Grant to learn more about his role in A Single Man, how the project came to life, and whether those who missed out on tickets will ever get a chance to hear these new songs.

Barry Pierce: What do you remember about your initial meeting with Jonathan Watkins back in 2018?
John Grant: I was really busy, and I remember just feeling annoyed, like, “What does this person want? Why is this person bothering me?” Y’know? I didn’t look at the novel. It just sat in my room for a couple of years. Sometimes, I would notice it and think, “That probably is really good. You probably should read it.” I don’t know what my problem was; I was just busy and didn’t want to be bothered. My manager kept getting on at me about it, saying, “[Jonathan] keeps coming back and asking.” I suppose one likes to be pursued… I had a meeting with him, and I was like, “Who’s this weird creature?” But I happened to notice that if I just sat there and listened to him, I really loved what was coming out of his mouth. I really started to become quite fond of him. I read the book, finally. But, you know, it was much more important for me to connect with him somehow. Which I didn’t, at first.

BP: How did Jonathan win you over?
JG: I just liked the way he was talking, you know? He’s from a little bit of a different world, and he’s unapologetically himself. I don’t know. It’s a great thing to surprise yourself and let yourself be conquered by people that you wouldn’t normally gravitate toward. That means you’re growing. You can surprise yourself. And that led to me thinking that I could surprise myself by doing this, saying, “OK, I’m going to do it.” But when I read the book, I was just completely floored by it. I couldn’t believe that I made it to my mid-fifties without having read it, because I think it would have really, really saved me many, many times when I was younger. I was blown away by the facility of language that Christopher Isherwood has.

“When I read [Isherwood’s A Single Man], I was just completely floored by it. I just couldn’t believe that I made it to my mid-fifties without having read that book, because I think it would have really, really saved me many, many times when I was younger.”

BP: When you were reading the novel, did the songs just jump out at you, or was it a more of a concentrated effort?
JG: I had to show up for [the novel], which I find quite difficult to do in January and February in Iceland. I have crippling self-doubt, even though I’ve gone through the process so many times. But what I’ve learned is that if I can just show up, I’ll be fine. There are so many obstacles. My mind is so overactive, and I fall into these old patterns of doubt. But I was so inspired by the book that it just came out of me. I didn’t have trouble finding melodies. I mean, I would have liked to have had a little more time, but I don’t know. I think that would just mean that I would have been stressed for quite a bit longer.

BP: What was the actual process of writing the songs like? How did you decide where to fit them into the narrative suggested by Isherwood?
JG: I just kept reading [the novel]. And I just kept underlining everything that stuck out to me. It was sort of like being in school, or what I should have been doing in school: reading it over and over, sitting with it, letting it wash over you, underlining everything, making little charts all over the place with arrows pointing from things to other things, making lists of words and asking yourself, “What is the pattern here?”

“I have crippling self-doubt, even though I’ve gone through the process so many times. But what I’ve learned is that if I can just show up, I’ll be fine.”

BP: So, you’re writing the songs in your home in Reykjavik, but where does Jasmin Kent Rodgman come into the picture? She’s writing the score for the ballet, which has to cohesively fit around your songs. How did that collaboration work?
JG: She wanted to send me things, and I sort of told her, “I don’t want to hear anything.” I think she may have been a little bit put off at first by that, maybe just for a couple of seconds. It is really important to say exactly what you need, succinctly and clearly, when you are working with these time constraints, so that there is no confusion. But we knew we were on the same page. There was a trust there. I do not know whether we had any right to have that much trust toward each other, but we did. Her score is really beautiful. There are some incredible pieces in there. I did not want to be too influenced by her stylings. You do not want these things to flow into each other too much, you know?

“Sometimes I feel a little bit useless up there, because I’m up there the whole time, you know, standing around, sitting around. I’m as useless as tits on a bull, as they say in the South”

BP: The songs that you’ve written are hugely important to the show, but there’s also the other aspect, which is the fact that you’re performing them yourself on the stage whilst it all happens. Was that the plan from the beginning?
JG: Yeah, [Jonathan] wanted me to be in it. And I was just like, “I’m not going to be in it. He can have his little fantasy.” But increasingly, it became obvious that, of course, I’m going to sing my own songs.

BP: You could have so easily just recorded the songs and they would be played over the piece. Part of you must have really wanted to do this.
JG: It wasn’t daunting to me. It was more a question of, “Do I want to do this? Am I really invested?” And at some point you really have to say, “Yeah. I believe in Jonathan, I believe in the material, and I need to say yes.” Take a shit or get off the pot, you know?

BP: You’ve done hundreds of live shows, has doing this brought about any new or unique challenges that you’ve not faced before?
JG: I mean, sometimes I feel a little bit useless up there, because I’m up there the whole time, you know, standing around, sitting around. I’m as useless as tits on a bull, as they say in the South. The mind becomes idle at times. But I was able to get my head around that.

BP: With the songs, I’m interested in if they’re going to be this ephemeral thing that will only exist when A Single Man is produced or do you have any plans to record them and give them a life outside of the ballet?
JG: I would like to do an album. I would like to do an A Single Man album with the songs and maybe add one or two pieces. I have a piece that I’m really fond of that is not in the show, but I wrote it and it overlapped a bit too much with one of the other songs, theme-wise. That was a real “kill your darlings” moment that happened early on, which I found painful, and I told them, “I don’t like this,” but I just wanted to express honestly the way I was feeling. I knew that sort of thing had to happen. There is this really great part when he’s driving on the highway, and he is thinking about some journalist talking about how we need stricter laws for “dealing with people like you,” which is actually happening in the United States right now. So he is going down the highway, and he is thinking about what he would do to all these people. He would send these politicians the heads of their children in the mail, in boxes. I really feel like it is important to bring all these different areas into it. At the base of it, within the homosexual community, you have had all these people saying, “We don’t want gay men portrayed like this in movies because it makes us look bad.” Well, we do look bad, because we are human. We are not any different from anybody else, and that is the thing that we need to not be ashamed of. I feel like it is important for the gay community to talk very loud and proud about the things that we actually go through and the thoughts that we have. Because nobody has the right to judge us.

A Single Man runs at the Linbury Theatre, Royal Opera House until September 20th. Limited tickets are available on the Royal Ballet & Opera website.