INTERVIEW: Inside Million Dollar Quartet: Elvis, Cash and rivalry

Connor Payne, Christopher Erasmus, Joe Bence and Joey Bradick step into the roles of Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins for Million Dollar Quartet, which opens at The Arts at Marble Arch today. We sat the quartet down for a rapid-fire round of friendly rivalries, loyalties and favourites before opening night.

“Hi, I’m Elvis Presley.” “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash.” “My name is Jerry Lee Lewis.” “My name’s Carl Perkins.” Introductions over, the four actors deliver their line in perfect, rehearsed unison: “And we are the Million Dollar Quartet.”

It’s a neat piece of theatre in itself, watching Connor Payne, Christopher Erasmus, Joe Bence and Joey Bradick step so easily into the identities of the men whose real, once-in-a-lifetime jam session inspired the show.

A lively vintage band rehearsal on a neon-lit stage with guitars, drums, and a microphone stand in a retro club setting.

On 4 December 1956, Presley, Cash, Lewis and Perkins found themselves together in Sun Studio, Memphis, for the first and only time: a chance encounter engineered by producer Sam Phillips that has since passed into rock ‘n’ roll legend. Seventy years on, the four actors bringing that night back to life at Arts at Marble Arch are just as capable of a friendly rivalry as the real thing.

Elvis or Cash?

Ask the company to pick a side and loyalties split cleanly along casting lines. The Christopher Erasmus and Connor Payne, the actors playing Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley are quick off the mark: “Cash,” says Erasmus without hesitation. “I’m biased – I’ve got to say Elvis,” Payne admits . “I think he’s got some great moves that I get to hopefully replicate a little bit, and some great songs that I get to sing. It’s just a blast,” he finishes with a laugh.

The other two are just as split. Bradick, who plays Carl Perkins sides with Payne, leaving Bence who stars as Jerry Lee Lewis to make it two against two: Bence is quick to explain his reasons “I’m a sucker for a singer-songwriter, and Johnny Cash was quite the songwriter and a singer,” he says.

Erasmus is quick to make peace with the other camp too. “I think they both brought a lot to music in different ways, which is as important as each other in a lot of ways.“

A three-against-one guitar debate

The genuine consensus of the evening turns out to be guitar over piano, with Bence who, true to Jerry Lee Lewis form makes the case for the piano, finds himself heavily outnumbered. “You’re outnumbered,” Payne informs him cheerfully, the moment the votes are in.

Even so, Bence doesn’t back down easily. “The piano’s got 88 keys, and guitar only has six strings,” he points out. “You can’t do anything with that.“

The others aren’t having it. “It’s portable,” Payne counters. “You can play it at parties, play it in an airport. You can’t take a piano with you.” Erasmus, laughing, offers the most honest reason of all: “Girls like it, I’ll be honest. I do like piano too“… though not, evidently, enough to switch teams.

Rock ‘n’ roll or gospel?

Musician duo on stage: a man with a guitar singing into a microphone while a woman in a green blouse harmonizes beside him, with neon purple lights and a retro lounge backdrop behind them. — *Connor Payne as Elvis and Jenay Naima as Dyanne photo: Julianna Barnaby*

Ask which they’d go for — the raucous rock ‘n’ roll of Sun Records or the gospel music that shaped so much of it — and the cast won’t be drawn into picking a side.

“Chicken or the egg, right?” says Erasmus. “One influenced the other, so I think it’s hard to say one without the other.” Payne agrees entirely: “I couldn’t decide, because I think both had such an influence on modern rock and pop music, and I couldn’t choose.“

It’s a question, Erasmus points out, that sits right at the heart of the show’s own drama. “It’s an interesting time for these characters too,” he says. The four men were, in their own lives, wrestling with exactly that tension between the music they’d grown up with in church and the new, dangerous sound they were busy inventing.

Which side won out, he teases, “you can find out when you come see the show.”

Sun Studio, 1956, or Arts at Marble Arch, today?

Given the choice between witnessing the actual Million Dollar Quartet session in Memphis or watching the show that recreates it, Bence makes the case for staying put in London… and does it with a genuine sales pitch. “Sun Studio 1956 is where all four musicians had their founding moments — you wouldn’t have some of the most defining music of the 20th century without it,” he says. “However, the Arts at Marble Arch is where you see one of the hottest shows in town, for a limited time only, just 12 weeks“

Erasmus is quick with the punchline: “It’s a little closer than Sun as well.” Payne, though, admits he’s genuinely torn, before landing, with a laugh, on the more sensible choice. “I would love to be in Sun Studios at that time, but I also have to remind myself I’m a musician, and I’d be competing with those four greats. I couldn’t keep up. So I’m going to pick the Arts at Marble Arch.“

The songs they can’t wait to sing

*Joey Bradick as Carl Perkins: photo, Julianna Barnaby*

Each performer has a number they’re especially fond of, and the reasons say a lot about how they’ve come to understand their characters.

For Bradick, it’s Matchbox, Perkins’s own song, and the one he gets to open with. “It’s one of the heaviest, rockiest numbers of the show,” he says, “but unfortunately we only get one minute of it, because I’m rudely interrupted by Jerry Lee Lewis. Still, it’s a great rock ‘n’ roll bash.” Bence, typically generous, picks a song that isn’t even his own: I Hear You Knocking, performed by Jenay Naima as Dyanne. “She does a wonderful job of getting the rock ‘n’ roll and the gospel feel, and it really gets the toes tapping. It prepares you for the rest of the show, probably the most rocking moment.”

Erasmus can’t settle on just one. “I like Great Balls of Fire! I think it rounds the show off really nicely, and Jerry Lee really gets to cut loose.” His other pick, Ghost Riders in the Sky, comes with a lovely observation about what happens in the room each night: “There’s something about the chorus that gets everyone singing back at you. Everyone knows the words. It’s the only time in the show where people actually sing back at you, as opposed to dancing back at you.”

Payne saves his highest praise for the finale. “Whole Lot of Shakin’ Goin’ On, at the end of the show, I think that’s the culmination of everything the show’s led up to,” he says.

“It is Jerry Lee Lewis’s song, but it’s a wonderful moment where all the characters come together and have a jam. Our amazing Joe does a great job of getting the audience up on their feet and everybody dancing. It’s a blast.” Not that he’s entirely without bias of his own: “If I’m going to be biased, I also love doing Hound Dog, because you get shaken up, and it’s always fun.“