DinoFetscherComesHometoTheatre

From Olivier-winning comedy to career-defining drama, Dino Fetscher reflects on creative trust and why the best performances happen when you stop trying to perfect them.

 

INTERVIEW Mason Alexander Park

 

WORDS Phillza Mirza

 

Interview taken from IMAGINE Magazine Issue Three Pre Order here

 

There are some conversations that never quite become interviews. They drift somewhere else entirely, carried by shared memories and inside jokes that only exist between people who’ve made something meaningful together. That’s exactly what happens when Dino Fetscher and Mason Alexander Park sit down to talk. What begins as a conversation about Oh, Mary! quickly becomes something much more personal.

 

They reminisce about board game nights backstage, crying through their final performance, corpsing on stage and the grief that comes with leaving a production that had quietly become home. Beneath the laughter is something else: two actors reflecting on trust and the people who remind you why you wanted to do this in the first place.

 

For Fetscher, Oh, Mary! arrived at a moment when he was craving a return to theatre, but what he found was far bigger than another role. It gave him permission to rediscover a side of himself audiences had rarely seen. One rooted in play and certainty. As the conversation unfolds, it becomes clear that the production reminded him that the best work often begins the moment you stop trying to get everything right.

 

Mason Alexander Park: How much do you miss me in the building?

 

Dino Fetscher: Not at all. No, I miss you daily. We started this together, didn’t we? From the day I got the job, to meeting at press night, going for coffee and bumping into Giles. It’s been such a journey together. You’re my irreplaceable Mary and when the cast changed it was a real trauma. I miss you immensely, and I need you to come back from Budapest immediately so we can hang out.

 

MAP: I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone cry more than you and I on the last show we did together. It was like someone had taken one of our favourite toys from childhood and shot it in the face.

 

DF: We could barely get through scenes. We were crying like kids. It was a testament to the whole journey we went on with the play. We built it together, shared every bug, both had flu, went through the Oliviers together then won the Olivier. It was one of the most incredible journeys of my life, and we did it together. So when you left, it was horrific.

 

MAP: Let’s go back to the beginning. You’ve had a remarkable career across theatre, television and film. How did Oh, Mary! come into your life?

 

DF: Theatre is home for me. It’s where it all began when I was seven. I love screen work, but I was itching to do another play. It had been three years since The Normal Heart, and I’d been telling my team I really wanted to get back on stage. Then I got a text from Josh, the assistant director on The Normal Heart. He said, “Have you heard of this play? It’s called Oh, Mary! There’s a part I think you’d be great for.” I had this really strange feeling. I stopped what I was doing, looked it up and tried to order the script. I couldn’t get it in the UK, so I found a bookshop in America and had it sent over. Within the first scene I put the book down and thought, “I need to do this.” It was unlike anything I’d ever read. I was laughing out loud, which is rare when you’re reading a script. Even now I still laugh backstage listening to it.

 

I’d mostly done drama, which I love, but at drama school, comedy was where I really thrived. I’d never really had the opportunity to show that professionally, so when this came along I grabbed it with everything I had. Before I’d even auditioned, I’d booked tickets to New York to see the play with my fiancé. Then I got the audition, and I was cast the day before I flew out. It all felt incredibly serendipitous.

 

MAP: I also reminded you every day that Titus Burgess was much better than I was.

 

DF: “Interesting choice…” [impersonating Mason]

 

MAP: “Well, Titus didn’t do it that way…”

 

DF: “No, no, it’s great. You do you.” [Still impersonating]

 

MAP: That’s the thing about this show. It’s so open to interpretation. I didn’t know you were such an idiot. Honestly, watching you every night, your physical comedy was extraordinary. Based on your career, I knew you could act, but I didn’t realise this whole other side of you existed. It makes me want to do a drama with you one day.

 

DF: That’s so lovely. I’m glad we met on that level because it’s actually much closer to who I am as a person. I’m very silly and playful and my humour is ridiculous. Getting to bring that part of myself into this role was such a gift. It also did something to me personally. When you get to access yourself like that on stage, it brings an aliveness that’s hard to explain. Every role changes me in some way, but this one was special.

 

Working opposite you was a huge part of that. From the first read-through you set the bar. It gave all of us permission to just play. No two shows were ever the same. You’d throw me something different, I’d throw something back, and whatever happened, I knew we’d figure it out because we’d built that trust. I realised something working with you. I’ve always had this tendency to be the good student, trying to get things right. But the right thing isn’t the magic. The moments that stay with me are when someone really listens. You’d respond differently because you were genuinely present, and suddenly the scene became something completely new. That made every performance exciting because I never knew exactly what was going to happen.

 

“The show was so physical that something would inevitably go wrong every few performances, and sometimes you’d make me laugh so much I couldn’t recover. I’d see that little twinkle in your eye right before I had to do something really earnest and think, “You bitch.“

 

MAP: That’s what I loved about the play. It gives actors permission to bring every part of themselves into a role. If you stay alive inside it, it’s impossible to be bored. Everything you give comes back from the audience, and that just encourages you to give more. It was such a joy getting to do that with you.

 

DF: There were definitely times we took it too far.

 

MAP: There’s no such thing as too much fun.

 

DF: We got in trouble with stage management a few times because we’d corpse. The show was so physical that something would inevitably go wrong every few performances, and sometimes you’d make me laugh so much I couldn’t recover. I’d see that little twinkle in your eye right before I had to do something really earnest and think, “You bitch.”

 

MAP: Public apology. That’s the only reason I agreed to do this interview.

 

DF: But those moments are the best. They’re awful at the time, but they remind you to stay present.

 

MAP: That’s what I’ll remember most. We had incredible moments throughout the run, but what really stays with me is the company we built.

 

DF: Absolutely. Of course, it was amazing having people like Ian McKellen and Sigourney Weaver come to see the show, but what I’ll always remember are the moments when things went wrong. You had to figure it out together in real time. That’s exciting. I also loved the family we built backstage. Thursday nights playing board games, dinners together after the show, rehearsals, nights out. Those are the things I’ll take with me.

 

MAP: There was something unique about this group. I’ve never been more certain that I want to stay in touch with an entire cast after a job. That made everything else, including the Oliviers, even more meaningful.

 

DF: What a night. We were nominated for Best New Entertainment or Comedy Play, but Mason had convinced me there was absolutely no chance we’d win. So, I’d prepared my polite congratulations face. Then they announced Oh, Mary!. I just jolted backwards in my seat. I looked at you and you looked completely stunned. It meant so much because it wasn’t about one person. It recognised what we’d built together as a company. It also reminded me to trust my instincts. I’d felt something special when I first read the script, and that award felt like affirmation that I’d been right to follow that feeling.

MAP: I don’t normally care that much about awards. They can be affirming, but they can also distort your sense of reality. What meant something was that our peers recognised this strange little play we’d all poured ourselves into. It felt like confirmation that we’d made the right choices and that people had connected with it. And then there was you, screaming on stage.

 

DF: I was possessed.

 

MAP: You really were. Looking back at your career, was there a turning point where it started to resemble the career you wanted?

 

DF: Definitely. Before then I’d done some great television, but The Normal Heart at the National Theatre really changed everything. I’d never even auditioned for the National before. Then, just after lockdown, I got an audition for [the role of] Felix Turner. I was on holiday with my fiancé’s family when it came through, and I had to apologise because I disappeared for hours every day to learn the play. I fell completely in love with it. The story Larry Kramer wrote is so important to me as a queer person. It isn’t just theatre. It’s part of our history. It educated younger audiences and gave people who’d lived through that period a chance to revisit it in a completely different way. Playing Felix allowed me to show a different side of myself as an actor. After the Olivier nomination, I think people started to see me differently. More importantly, I saw myself differently. I thought, “Yeah, I can do this.”

 

“I fell completely in love with it. The story Larry Kramer wrote is so important to me as a queer person. It isn’t just theatre. It’s part of our history.”

 

MAP: I love that your turning point was theatre. That’s something Britain still does so well. Some of the biggest careers begin on stage.

 

DF: It also reminded me why I wanted to become an actor in the first place.

 

MAP: Money?

 

DF: Exactly. The cash. No, it’s the conversations that stories create. Theatre reaches people in a way that being told what to think never can. Even Oh, Mary!, ridiculous as it is, has value because for eighty minutes people leave feeling lighter. I’ve had people come out after the show and say, “Thank you. I really needed that today.”

 

Someone recently described us as “Laughing doctors.” That really stayed with me.

 

MAP: They never said that when I was there.

 

DF: Maybe Catherine Tate’s getting all the credit now. Seriously though, I couldn’t be happier for you. Watching this part of your career has been such a joy. You’re one of the most generous people I’ve ever worked with, and I’m excited to see what comes next.

 

DF: That means the world coming from you. I love you very much.

 

MAP: I love you too.

 

When the conversation comes to an end, the jokes never really do. Dino and Mason bounce between future projects, old memories and promises to see each other soon, slipping back into the easy rhythm that’s carried them through months of performances together.

 

What stays with you the generosity between them. The way they speak about each other’s work with genuine admiration and the way success is measured less by recognition than by the people you meet along the way.

 

Listening to Dino Fetscher, it’s impossible not to come away with the sense that every role leaves something behind. Sometimes it’s confidence. Sometimes it’s perspective. Sometimes, as Oh, Mary! proved, it’s simply the freedom to be a little more open, a little more playful and a little more yourself. In an industry so often driven by certainty, perhaps that’s the most valuable thing an artist can hold onto.