'Kiss Me, Kate' star Georgina Onuorah on playing Lois Lane/Bianca at the Barbican

The West End star talks about appearing in another op’nin’, another show in Kiss Me, Kate at the Barbican, alongside Stephanie J. Block and Adrian Dunbar.

Musical theatre performer Georgina Onuorah was a new drama school graduate when the pandemic struck in 2020. “The industry was on its knees. There was nothing you could do. We were completely helpless,” she says.

In the four years since then, Onuorah has not allowed that rocky beginning to slow her progress and has starred in shows such as Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cinderella and The Wizard of Oz at the London Palladium, which she says “felt like a dream.”

Now she is appearing in director Bartlett Sher’s version of Cole Porter’s musical Kiss Me, Kate at the Barbican, which follows a theatre troupe putting on a production of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. London Theatre Magazine caught up with Onuorah about playing the dual role of Lois Lane/Bianca in Porter’s metatheatrical musical.

How did you get into theatre?

I was in an acting company from Luton called NGYT. It was something to do in the evenings. I didn't realise people did this as a job. Then one summer, I went to the National Youth Music Theatre, and I thought, “I can't do anything else.”

I want to be a voice for people who don't think they can do this, and who haven't grown up with lots of money or with getting to see theatre that often.

What is it like working on Kiss Me, Kate with Adrian Dunbar, Stephanie J. Block, and Charlie Stemp?

Everyone’s experiences are so different. Adrian has done a lot of TV and Stephanie is an icon. I watched videos of her growing up, and her acting through song is so detailed. She’s hilarious on and off stage. And with Charlie, we’re just playing and working things out together — we have good chemistry.

How have you approached playing Lois Lane/Bianca?

Lois Lane is usually played as someone a bit silly, a bit up in the clouds. I definitely don’t want to lose that element of her, but we’re really trying to give the women more agency in this version.

We have come on leaps and bounds in terms of how fleshed out female characters can be, so we're trying to give the women more of a voice without changing the script too much.

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Photo credit: Kiss Me, Kate at the Barbican. (Photo courtesy of production)