Actor Taron Egerton has spoken about his aborted West End run in Cock at the Ambassadors Theatre in London.
The Kingsman star, who is currently promoting his new movie Tetris, started performances in a revival of Mike Bartlett’s Cock in 2022, alongside Jonathan Bailey and directed by Marianne Elliot.
However, Taron exited the production shortly after it opened.
His run in the show had already got off to a rocky start when he collapsed during a preview performance, and his understudy Joel Harper Jackson had to go on.
Egerton then got Covid, and then left the production citing “personal reasons”, leaving Harper Jackson to play the part for the rest of the show’s run at the Ambassadors.
“It was a difficult episode,” he told The Telegraph this weekend, saying that his decision to quit for personal reasons was due to his mother’s cancer diagnosis, and not other rumours, including a split with his girlfriend.
When asked whether he would think about going back on stage, he said: “I’d love to, but I don’t know that anyone’s going to take that chance on me again.”
His exit from the show was clearly not with the blessing of the show’s producers, Marianne Elliot and Chris Harper. Elliott’s press statement at the time pointedly made no reference to Egerton, only that, “Joel is an absolute hero. He is a brilliant and gifted actor and stepped into the role at extremely short notice. Audiences have been standing and cheering and so am I.”
Egerton trained at RADA, and his singing voice helped him win the Stephen Sondheim Society Student Performer of the Year in 2011, singing “Giants in the Sky” from Into the Woods to win the prize.
To that end, his plans for another stage role may include singing, with Taron saying that he was thinking about being in another musical.
His other stage credits have included The Last of the Haussmans at the National Theatre and Tommy in No Quarter at the Royal Court Theatre.
Tetris opens in UK cinemas and on Apple TV+ on 31 March 2023. Taron is also appearing in Black Bird on Apple TV+.
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