The writer, actor and singer won an award for her role in Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812. Then everything went silent. As the rising star returns in her very own musical, she hits out at ‘massive’ celebrity casting
T
his time last year, Maimuna Memon was surfing an almighty career high. The Lancashire-born composer, writer and actor had just won an Olivier award for her performance in the musical Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, based on a section of War and Peace. But then it all went silent. “I didn’t expect to skyrocket but I did think, ‘OK, what’s next?’” she says. “And it was a rather quiet year, which was tough.”
It turned out to be useful, in terms of “stripping the ego away”. She went to Galway to be with her mother, a nurse and fiddle-player. “I watched her play and saw these incredible musicians playing for the love of it – not for how they will be reviewed, or to win any awards, or any of that.”
Still, the aftermath to her Olivier win sounds peculiar. Memon, 33, is no ingenue. She received critical acclaim for her portrayal of Mary Magdalene in Tim Sheader’s production of Jesus Christ Superstar, sang her own compositions in the National Theatre’s adaptation of The Grapes of Wrath, and was first Olivier-nominated for the musical Standing at the Sky’s Edge. How did she make sense of that eerie quiet?
