FILIPINO theater actor Joaquin Pedro Valdes calls the United Kingdom “home” now, as much as Manila is after six years of staying in London with his lawyer-wife, Agee Romero.

Joaquin recently returned to the country with wife Agee, whom he tied the knot in the UK in 2015.

“I had a nice pocket of time between my last job (‘The Baker’s Wife’) and my next, which I can’t say yet,” Joaquin excitedly shared. “There’s an embargo. I can’t divulge it yet, but it’s a very popular musical coming from Broadway.”

The musical premiered in Broadway in 2019 and stopped in 2020 due to the pandemic. Joaquin will be in the UK premiere early next year.

The erstwhile member of the Filipino cast of Matilda and Kinky Boots moved to the UK since 2018. He uprooted with his lawyer-wife. Even through the pandemic, Joaquin and his wife dauntlessly stayed on in the UK.

“At one point, I was part of a small musical in 2020, Fanny and Stella: The Shocking True Story, where we were only six in the show,” Joaquin shared.

“We were the only six actors at that time working. We performed in open-air in a small pub. We set up our own stage.

“All the London critics came. The small group of actors have since moved on to do different things. Even my agent was like, ‘You had a great pandemic compared to everybody else.”

Since that first pandemic musical, Joaquin fortunately got one stage project after another. From then on, it just never stopped and he cannot be thankful enough.

In 2021, Joaquin got the first musical to return to the West End, Heathers, his West End debut. “We were the first in the West End to do a show,” Joaquin said. Call him brave, but Joaquin insisted he is really “blessed.”

After Heathers: The Musical, UK is now the second home of Joaquin, who shares his flat with his lawyer-wife, Agee. She supports his theater career a hundred percent.

”In 2021 came another musical, Vanara, for Joaquin the same year. “It was basically Avatar or Pocahontas and Ferngully set in Mars,” he said about Vanara.

At the end of 2021 until 2022 saw Joaquin in The Lion King. End of 2022, The Lion King wrapped up and Joaquin got the chance to return to Manila with his wife before his dad passed on.

“It was sudden passing, but he passed away peacefully in his sleep,” shared the fifth of eight kids in the Valdes brood.

“I’m the youngest with my mom and I have three half-siblings with my dad,” he said.

The year 2022 was a “sad” and bittersweet” one for Joaquin. “My dad flew me and Agee home,” he offered. “He wanted to see me for Christmas that year.

“ It became a lovely Christmas for us. But a couple of days after, he passed away in his sleep. I guess he subconsciously knew.

“My dad died on December 30, 2022. We stayed in Manila until the New Year, then Agee and I returned to London.”

The year 2023 was an “incredible” one for Joaquin. “It was almost like my dad gave me the tailwind to really just fly,” Joaquin admitted.

He did three new musicals all in the same year. The fourth was a revival, ‘Killing the Cat,’ a five-hander staged at the Riverside Studios.

After that came Then, Now and Next, written by Jon Robyns and Christopher Orton. Then came the period musical, Death Note, a really big and successful show in the West End.

“That (Death Note) really put me in the London map as a formidable leading man,” Joaquin beamed. “That was a huge production and I’m very thankful for that. That was one of the most challenging, too. Stakes for that were really high.

“We did the English-language premiere. It was originally written in English, but was never released in English until last year. It was immediately translated to Korean and Japanese. The English language premiere was what the whole world was waiting for.”

The composer of Death Note was Frank Wildhorn, who wrote Whitney Houston’s Where Do Broken Hearts Go, the musical “Jekyll and Hyde.”

“He’s a hit maker,” said Joaquin of Wildhorn. “The music of Death Note was his and that was his baby. There was a lot of pressure and people really wanted to succeed.”

They did a concert-version of the musical. “They just really wanted to present the bones of ‘Death Note’ with all the songs,” offered Joaquin. “But for a concert production, it was fully staged and choreographed.

“We were not singing behind microphones. For a concert, everything was choregraphed. Initially, it was supposed to run for only two nights, but because of the demand, the tickets sold out within only five hours.

“So they added another show and from The Palladium, we transferred to the Lyric Theater. So over all, we did ten, sold-out shows in two West End venues where I got to perform in a span of three weeks – which was a big deal.”

Following that, Joaquin did Pacific Overtures, the revival of a Stephen Sondheim classic at The Menier Chocolate Factory in the UK. That took him through winter of 2024.

At the start of the year, Joaquin did A Song of Songs,” another new musical before “The Baker’s Wife,” his last before he returned anew to Manila recently.

“The Baker’s Wife” had a cast full of A-listers in the West End,” Joaquin offered. “The show is about a small village in France in the 1930’s. They were waiting for a baker and an elderly man comes with a young wife (Genevieve).

“I was the local lothario, the young lover boy and I steal the wife away. I’m the bad guy. Because of that scandal, it affects the whole village. I’m the catalyst for the scandal of the village.”

UK is now the second home of Joaquin, who shares his flat with Agee. His wife supports his theater career a hundred percent.

“It has been great,” admitted Joaquin. “It has been affirming. It seems that this is only going to move further. Hopefully, I continue to make a mark and make Filipinos proud.”

AUTHOR PROFILE

Leah C. Salterio