Singer-songwriter Alan Doyle to star in new musical comedy 'Tell Tale Harbour'

Alan Doyle's new theatre role Alan Doyle joins us to chat about "Tell Tale Harbour."

The Confederation Centre of The Arts is preparing for the 2022 Charlottetown Festival, which includes the world premiere of a new Canadian musical comedy called "Tell Tale Harbour."

The musical, based on the movie “The Grand Seduction,” tells the heartfelt tale of a struggling community in Atlantic Canada. It’s the product of a collaboration between Adam Brazier, the artistic director of performing arts at the Confederation Centre, and singer-songwriter Alan Doyle.

“It started with Adam and the gang from the Confed Centre asking me to be a part of developing this project, this musical comedy adaptation of ‘The Grand Seduction.’ I worked on the music for it for a year or so before Adam and the gang talked me into having a go at playing the lead role of Frank,” says Doyle.

“The guy I play is the head conjurer of Tell Tale Harbour. He’s the guy blindly, optimistically, totally believes that, without a doubt, the good doctor who is visiting will stay here for the rest of his life and secure the new plant and indeed the future of ‘Tell Tale Harbour.’”

Doyle says, while he’s nervous about taking on the lead role, he is enjoying learning a new type of performance.

“It’s a whole new muscle for me, but I’m surrounded by literal veterans and legends and superstars of the trade over here. So I’m in real good hands and they are all helping me a lot,” he says.

“I’m having a great time learning this whole new way of performance and acting and singing and just storytelling that is very physical and fun. I just keep telling people I think we’re creating what’s going to be a really, really moving, funny, great night out for people.”

Like many artists during the pandemic, Doyle and his collaborators found themselves with extra time on their hands.

“So we kind of got to leap-frog a few steps and what would have taken years took months and here we are ready to go.”

The cast of ‘Tell Tale Harbour’ has also recorded an album that will come out around the same time as the show.

“The singers are amazing … It’s delightful to be amongst them and to feel the support of their incredible experience. I’m really lucky, I’m really, really lucky to be in this cast,” says Doyle.

Doyle says part of the draw of working on the project was the opportunity to get to spend his summer on Prince Edward Island.

“Like a lot of Atlantic Canadians who are lucky enough to come to Charlottetown for work or for whatever in the summertime, it’s kind of like a dream to get to spend a block of time in Charlottetown in the summer. It’s like what everybody in Canada wants to do and I get to do it for almost the whole summer. I’m really looking forward to it,” he says.

When asked why people should go see the musical, Doyle says the show is so good it will garner a particular type of praise that only Atlantic Canadians will understand.

“I think people my dad’s age, fellas in their 60s and 70s and that, will come to ‘Tell Tale Harbour,’ and the next day in the shed, this is what they will say, they will say, ‘I went to that play they put on, I didn’t mind it. I didn’t mind it so much at all,’” says Doyle.

“That’s how good ‘Tell Tale Harbour’ is going to be. That is high praise in Atlantic Canada.”