‘This is the era for women’s stories’: director Blazey Best updates Andrew Lloyd Webber

She made the leap into directing six years ago with Steve Rodgers’ King of Pigs and followed the success up quickly with Sensitive Guys, by MJ Kaufman.

“I love how collaborative the whole process is,” she says. “I love drawing the best out of the actors, and working with the designers, right down to the stagecraft of getting the lighting just right.”

Previous directors adapted Tell Me On A Sunday to modern times with mobile phones and text messages, but this version is proudly planted in 1978.

“We wanted to show the choices that were available to women at the time – or not available. It may give young women who come and see it an understanding of the women who have gone before them,” says Michelle Guthrie, who is producing this Hayes Theatre Company show.

“Things have changed vastly for the better,” she says. “Thanks to the agitators and activists who came before us, it’s a different world to what it was 40 years ago. But we still have a way to go.”

The 70-minute song cycle rests on the shoulders of 34-year-old Erin Clare who whooped it up as Doralee, in Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5, the musical. Clare, who wasn’t even born in 1979 when the show premiered, is both daunted and excited by the role; she’s thrilled to be wearing high-waisted trousers and having her hair flipped back every night.

Best and Clare sang alongside each other in the Hayes production of Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music last year.

The musical is one of Lloyd Webber’s shortest, but the score includes some of his best known ballads such as Take That Look of your Face, It’s Not The End of the World and Tell Me on a Sunday.

“No-one is going to leave without hearing Erin’s full repertoire,” says Blazey.

At its heart, Best says, Tell Me on a Sunday is about a woman coming of age and learning her own true worth.

“It’s not a political show; it’s not so much about the men she sees as what she learns about herself along the way. I hope when people leave, they feel they have got to know the young woman. Her rage, her lust, her fear, her joy.”

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Next up for Best is a return season of Well-Behaved Women at the Belvoir Theatre. “This is the era for women’s stories.” she says. “I just happen to be fortunate enough to be around at the right time to direct them.”