The Real 'Five Guys Named Moe'

What I never really wanted to do was get stereotyped as a musical theatre actor,' says Clarke Peters in his measured, bassy tones.

It's fair to say he dodged that bullet. Now aged 58, the New York-born Peters found fame in middle age, with the role of veteran Baltimore detective Lester Freamon in HBO's acclaimed cop
drama 'TheWire'. Yet despite having become synonymous with such a quintessentially American show, Peters has in fact lived in the UK for most of his life, and boasts a long and impressive West End CV.

His biggest stage triumph, however, came 20 years ago, when he penned a show called 'Five Guys Named Moe'. It was a rather idiosyncratic musical in which a no good, whiskey-sodden layabout by the name of Nomax was chucked out by his girlfriend and then waylaid by his subconscious, which manifested itself as five chaps called, as the title suggests, Moe.

Said quintet then spent the best part of two hours subjecting Nomax to a rather passive-aggressive form of counselling, while singing a selection of songs from the colourful back catalogue of seminal jazz and bluesman Louis Jordan. Unexpectedly, it was a huge hit, transferring from the Theatre Royal Stratford East to the West End and Broadway, running for another five years. Two decades on, Peters has revived the show, bringing it back to Stratford East, where it all began.

'I'm a romantic like that,' he smiles.'Paulette Randall, my original director, is with me as well. The first time she got sort of sidelined, but Paulette and I… we're doing it again, the way that we wanted to do it.'

If he's too much the gentleman to be bitter, Peters is open about the fact that the shiny West End and Broadway incarnations of 'Five Guys…' were not in line with his and Randall's original vision. This, then, is his chance to do it right. Peters himself plays Nomax, meaning the character is much older than the fiery screw-up he was written as.

Despite the ebullient live jazz band and not infrequent moments of zaniness, the whole piece now has a creepy, bluesy darkness about it: claustrophobic, masculine and with a very ambiguous end. It is emphatically not 'feelgood'. 'I wrote it as a small experimental piece,' notes Peters, 'and referring to what you say about it not being feelgood, well it should have had that to begin with, that sense of this man's journey, rather than “let's do a musical”.

It was Paulette who really helped me to begin that process: she was a script editor and would grill me on what was really happening. Now we've picked up where we left off. The younger Nomax was an aggressive guy, and that type of drinking was a false bravado; he was trying to say, “This is who I am.” As you get older you feel like you know who you are. Then you're just drowning your sorrows.'

It's certainly very different from the jukebox musicals that have appeared in its wake: much of 'Five Guys…' simply involves the disconsolate Nomax staring blearily into the void as the Moes puckishly serenade him. Really, Louis Jordan is the only one who comes out looking good. Still, the success of 'Five Guys…' helped open the gates for some pretty wretched - but lucrative - musical theatre. Does this concern Peters?

He laughs. 'I think when [jukebox musicals] first started coming up, then I thought: Come on you guys! But you can't copyright a good idea, man. If I could have made even one per cent of what they got…' He shakes his head, smiling. 'I may have influenced them, but Ned Sherrin's [TV show] “Song by Song” and Sheldon Epps's [musical] “Blues in the Night” influenced me. Make sure you rip off from the best!'

There are rumblings about a West End transfer, but Peters won't feature beyond the Stratford run, as he has commitments to 'Treme', the new show from 'The Wire' creator David Simon. One gets the impression that this revival really isn't about making a quick buck or exploiting his TV fame - there isn't even a picture of Peters on the poster, and clearly he felt the original show was too commercial. His drive seems to come from something closer to social responsibility: from feeling responsible to Paulette Randall, to Louis Jordan, even to Nomax.

'Nowadays,' he sighs, 'an actor is a guy who wants to be a star. Some of them are really well trained and some of them aren't. It's a weird time, but the great stories are constantly there and I want to tell those stories, whether it's Nomax or Lester or whoever. 'We can't let art just become a commodity without it having some influence on society. We're not politicians, but we can still serve the public.'

'Five Guys Named Moe' is at the Theatre Royal Stratford East until Oct 2. See listings