Guest blog post for a female-founded talent agency
(Names changed to protect client anonymity)
Project summary
This female-founded talent agency is making waves in the entertainment industry. It represents amazing actors and creatives working in TV, film, and theatre today.
The agency has a fabulous all-women team of agents who work hard to support their clients. I particularly admire their advocacy for the Black, Asian, and minority ethnic clients on their books.
To write a slick and professional yet conversational guest blog post introducing one of the agency’s actors.
My first port of call was to craft creative, thoughtful interview questions for the actor. I researched her acting profile and identified unique angles for questions to illuminate her onstage experiences. This gave me the basis for an exclusive interview-style piece, just what this client loves!
An long-form interview / editorial hybrid that wouldn’t be out of place in Vanity Fair.
The agency’s founder was over the moon with the style of this piece. The blog post allowed her to present her team in the best light and promote one of her clients. (I’ve written many more of these guest blog posts for her, each spotlighting another actor or creative.)
The images below are placeholders and do not belong to the client.
Mabel White on Playing Raquel in the Only Fools and Horses UK Tour
Here's the finished result!
Mabel White has led a glittering career on-stage and on-screen. She has appeared in series like Britannia High and Tracy Beaker and theatre shows like Everybody’s Talking About Jamie and Heathers: The Musical. Now, she’s playing leading lady Raquel in the UK tour of Only Fools and Horses.
In this exclusive interview, Mabel takes us behind the scenes of Only Fools and Horses and discusses her relationship with Vanessa Lennox’s boutique Bold Agency.
Drawn To the Role of Raquel From a Young Age
Mabel grew up watching Only Fools and Horses. “My mum and dad used to watch it. My nan and grandad used to watch it,” she says. “It has been a constant source of entertainment in my household since I was born.”
“I very much knew the characters and their stories long before I was asked to audition, and a couple of people had mentioned to me, ‘Oh, gosh, you really do remind me of Tessa Peake-Jones,’ who’s the actress who plays Raquel in the series. ‘Have you thought about auditioning for Only Fools and Horses?’ And I had said, ‘I’d love to play that role.’”
Raquel is a “brilliantly iconic” role for Mabel because she’s “the only one really who lets Del [her partner] get away with what he gets away with.” She’s also “not afraid to be the person to put a foot down and say no. She’s the only one that he listens to.”
When the opportunity arose for Mabel to audition for the role, her talent agent Vanessa Lennox was also certain that this was the perfect role for her. Mabel remembers her saying, “You are Raquel. You have to audition. It’s just too perfect.”
Mabel’s Take on the Role of Raquel
When Mabel found out that she had landed the role, she rewatched episodes of Only Fools and Horses to study Raquel’s “mannerisms, accent, facial expressions, and delivery of lines.”
While some scenes in the musical directly recreate those from the TV series, others have been adapted to serve the show’s plot. These differences have “really helped” Mabel make the role her own. “It’s not as if I can just watch the series and mirror it verbatim as to what Tessa did so brilliantly,” she explains.
Mabel adds that Raquel, for her, is the “heart of the show.” Raquel is “this ordinary woman who has her hopes, her dreams, and her aspirations but is equally as big of a failure as Del.” Because of this, “she brings a very vulnerable driving force, which forces Del to become vulnerable as well.”
A Show for Every Generation
While many shows serve different age groups, people of all ages enjoy Only Fools and Horses. Mabel recalls seeing young children sitting in the front row, including “a beautiful little boy in Edinburgh who came to watch dressed as Del.”
At the other end of the spectrum, several elderly people and people of all ages in between come to watch the musical. “It really is such a broad age range,” Mabel says. “I think that comes down to the fact that everything represented in the musical is still so relevant now in this day and age.”
“Certain TV shows come on and they’re brilliant at the time, but then when you watch them back, they’re incredibly dated.” Meanwhile, Only Fools and Horses is still shown often on television. “It’s played on repeat,” Mabel says. “That’s because it can be. The appeal is still there for everybody. It’ll be ingrained in British TV and comedy for years to come.”
Adapting the Only Fools and Horses TV Show for the Stage
Having acted on-stage and on-screen, Mabel is no stranger to the differences between these sub-industries. “They are two completely different crafts,” she says. “One requires you to be a lot more natural rather than trying to fill a 3,000 seater.”
With Only Fools and Horses, the cast and crew work hard to bring the televised series to the stage. For Mabel, one of the most magical aspects of this transition is the music.
“When you watch an episode of Only Fools and Horses, if you listen beyond the scene, you’ll find there is music pretty much all the time,” she says. “One of the beauties of the show is that they’ve picked up on that. So there are a lot of songs in the show that were background music in the TV series.”
“Pretty much every character has a standout moment with regard to a musical song. One of my favourite songs is the one that I get to sing in Act One. It’s called ‘The Girl.’ If you were to imagine a film noir moment where it’s just a face in the spotlight and you’re looking into this character’s soul, that’s what I think it is.”
Mabel’s Love of Touring
While performing at the same theatre has its conveniences, Mabel loves touring with Only Fools and Horses — and has toured for several productions. “The thing I love about touring the most is that you get to go to a different venue every week or every other week and you get to experience the different audiences,” she says.
“With a show like this, you would — incorrectly — expect southern audiences to be a bit more ruckus because it’s based in London and it’s very southern-driven. It’s been the opposite. Actually, the northern venues, certainly Scotland, have gone mad for it. It’s so lovely to gauge the difference between areas.”
“Also, I don’t think that regional venues get enough of the spotlight. There are some absolutely cracking theatres that you visit when you’re out on the road. Beautiful companies who help maintain them and try to get them on the map.”
Of all the theatres Mabel’s toured, Bristol Hippodrome is her favourite, although she loves the Edinburgh Playhouse and the Grand Opera House in York too.
“I’ve been to Bristol with every tour I’ve done,” she says. “I call it the chocolate box theatre because it’s so beautiful and perfect. It’s so old. There’s so much history. The auditorium is stunning. When you sit on-stage looking out, it’s breathtaking.”
Representation With Vanessa Lennox’s Bold Agency
Although Mabel signed with Vanessa Lennox’s Bold Agency in 2021, she’s known the talent agent since she was 16.
“I have admired her for that long,” she says. “When the opportunity arose that I was able to sign with her, it was the biggest shift not only in my career — in terms of it being one of the best things that I’ve ever done — but also for me personally.”
“I have never had a representative or an agent who has truly believed in me and also looked a year or so down the line and gone, ‘Okay, this is the goal. This is what we’re working towards. I need you to do this, this, and this. In the meantime, I’m going to be doing this, this, and this. If we work together, we’ll get it done,’ and it actually coming to fruition.”
“I think she has the most amazing way of being able to really make it work for her clients. It’s such a testament to her and how she runs the company. I have the utmost respect for her and I think she’s brilliant. She’s done nothing but amazing things for me since I signed with her. She is my biggest cheerleader, my biggest supporter.”
Working With Vanessa Lennox’s Agent Team at Bold Agency
Beyond Vanessa Lennox herself, Mabel has fostered strong relations with the rest of the Bold Agency team. “I love the fact that when I call the Bold Agency, I can say, ‘Hi, it’s Mabel,’ and every single person in the office knows who I am.”
When she calls, she knows whoever picks up the phone will ask how she is and have a chat before asking how they can help. “It’s never just a receptionist going, ‘Hi, sorry, who?’ Or, ‘Who are you calling for? All right. Okay, let me see if they’re free,’” Mabel says. The team has an “almost family atmosphere” while “also maintaining a really professional relationship.”
“It’s a boutique, small team, but they give their utmost attention and time to every single client,” Mabel says. “When you’ve been with slightly bigger agencies like I have, where they have hundreds upon hundreds of clients and hundreds and hundreds of agents, you feel like you get a little bit lost in the system, which I’ve never felt once with the Bold Agency.”
Mabel’s Dream Role
Mabel has three dream roles. “I’d love to play Glinda in Wicked one day,” she says. “But I’d also love to be Fantine or even Madame T in Les Mis. Madame T would be way more fun than Fantine, but Fantine gets the beautiful ‘I Dreamed a Dream.’”
“Ellen in Miss Saigon is also a huge dream role of mine. I’m absolutely in love with that story, in love with the music, in love with everything it represents.”
Advice for Children Who Are Coming Up in the Industry
Mabel started her stage and TV career as a child, and she now offers advice for the next generation pursuing acting careers. “Believe in yourself,” she says. “Don’t be afraid of failure. You are going to have setbacks and knockbacks. That is inevitable in this industry.”
“But do not let it get you down because the stronger you are and the more resilient you become, the better. When you start believing in yourself from the inside, it shines on the outside and people can see that.”
About Vanessa Lennox’s Bold Agency
Vanessa Lennox’s Bold Agency represents a select group of actors and creatives who excel on the stage, screen, and radio. All agents share the clients and help them secure contracts working in critically acclaimed and commercially successful productions. The agency’s strong relationships with producers and casting directors worldwide enables clients to receive career-defining opportunities across several genres.
