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Interviews
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Making Her Pantomime Debut Simon Sladen talks to Jenny Eclair who will play the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella at Richmond this year. No stranger to the world of comic antics, this year Jenny Eclair is set to flutter her wings and wave her wand as the Fairy Godmother in Richmond Theatre's Cinderella. She'll be spreading festive cheer and fairy dust over audiences throughout the show's five week run, but is she looking forward to it? I caught up with her as she prepares for her first season in panto. As soon as we meet Eclair compliments me on my choice of audio device. "I much prefer this," she says as I explain I plan take a recording and transcribe it at a later date. "I don't like to see a man doing short hand, it's very off putting!" Within two seconds we're already laughing and it is clear that Richmond audiences are going to have a ball with Eclair this season. Although billed as her pantomime debut, Cinderella will not actually be Eclair's first time upon the pantomime stage. In 2007 she appeared as the Magic Mirror in a production of Snow White. "That was easy," she says. "I didn't have to be there. I did a recording somewhere against a blue screen and they put it on a screen in the theatre and I appeared magically every day, sometimes three times a day; I was working by remote control from Camberwell to Basildon!" This year's run will be a little more gruelling with a total of 68 performances over two months. I ask Eclair how she feels about such a daunting set of dates, having experienced much worse in the jungle during her stint in I'm A Celebrity....Get Me Out Of Here? "The only thing I'm genuinely scared of is being stuck on Waterloo train station and they say, 'We've cancelled all the trains' and I can't get here. That freaks me out. But nothing else." Eclair is passionate about performing and incredibly excited to be premiering her Fairy Godmother in Richmond, where there's "a great delicatessen across the road" for those mid-show snacks. It seems odd that Eclair has not done a pantomime before given her talent for comedy, so why now? "I would never have been asked ten, twenty years ago and it never entered my head," she explains. "I was never a leading lady, Cinderella type. I think that you grow into your panto role and I think that I was always only going to be asked as a middle aged woman because I never had the sweetness of character to be a Snow White or a Sleeping Beauty." So how did the call from First Family Entertainment, the producers, come about? "It's one of those things that came out of the blue and it made me laugh. And then I thought, 'Well what are the practicalities?' The offer was very good. It's in London and I don't need to live away from home. I can do the commute. I do like Richmond, the shopping here's very good. There are a lot of pros." Eclair adds that knowing the theatre and being supported by what she jokingly calls an "alright" cast were other factors that swayed her. There is a lot of joviality in the room, especially between Eclair and panto co-star Gary Wilmot, that it looks as though the cast are set to have as much, if not more, fun than Richmond's audiences this Christmas. In the press conference before the individual interviews, Eclair mentioned that she would have preferred to have been playing "wicked" as she puts it. I ask her if we can therefore interpret Cinderella as being the start of an illustrious pantomime career? "Well, we'll see," she answers, pausing to think. "We'll see whether this one kills me off or not! If not, maybe I'll rise from the ashes or maybe I'll be one of those ones that never does it again. I think that the world does divide into those that say, 'Never, ever, ever again' and those that absolutely get off on it." I ask her whether she has an inkling as to which camp she will fall into, having earlier stated that pantomime "has played a very insignificant role in my life." She hardly visited the pantomime as a child as her youth was spent travelling the world with her father in the army. "If you come and there's a notice up saying 'Miss Eclair's understudy will be performing this afternoon', you'll know which way I've fallen!" Providing she does enjoy it and turn up night after night, I ask her what audiences can expect from her performance. After her stint on Comic Relief Does Fame Academy in 2005, will she be flexing her vocal chords, perhaps? "There's very, very little hope or chance of seeing me singing!" she replies. "If I were the management, I would now be in talks about what we were going to do with Jenny. They would be foolish to think that I could sing. Really foolish." With singing off the list, I ask her if she'd be prepared to fly? "Flying's fine", she says, as if it's something she does on a weekly occasion. "I've flown before, flying's good, I like flying. Anything with a harness, I don't mind." Producers had better book the rig now for Eclair's flying Fairy. Is there anything else she'd like to do in the show? "I think pantomimes should have lots of surprises. There should be lots of loud bangs. There should be lots of visuals. I like coloured smoke. I like the idea of things going 'pop' and a lot of coloured smoke." Of course, she can have all of this in her role as Fairy Godmother. "And I want a lot of sound effects", she adds, as if making a wish list for her first spectacular entrance. So with coloured smoke, sound effects, flying and pops galore, what will Eclair's Fairy Godmother be like? "I'm sure she'll be quite bossy," she remarks without hesitation. "Quite bossy, eccentric and loud." But, as Eclair explains, having not yet seen the script, it's difficult to judge how her final character will come out. Although she's never been on the panto stage in person before, Eclair has toured extensively with Grumpy Old Women Live, The Vagina Monologues and her stand-up shows, not forgetting many, many successful seasons in Edinburgh, where she became the first female comic to win the Perrier Award in 1995. Edinburgh holds a dear place in her heart and is somewhere she is keen to champion. "Thanks to Edinburgh we have one of the most fabulous live, thriving comedy and theatre scenes in the world. I think we beat New York into a cocked hat. I think that thanks to Edinburgh we have an experimental, wild hot bed of brilliant writing and theatre talent." She begins to gush with passion, "I think that most of the talent, most of my interest and most of the fun is on the fringe. The West End is very staid; I think it's over priced and I yawn more in the West End that I ever, ever do when I'm at the Fringe." Pantomime is sometimes seen as a stepping stone for performers who wish to re-route their career into acting. Eclair openly describes her own acting CV as "minimal", so could her first pantomime be a sign of more stage work in the future? "I am open to doing theatre," she says, "but it would very much depend on the part. It's a tricky one because there's a part of me that would like to do something very experimental for £200 a week in the back end of somewhere mad. I wouldn't like to do a long run of something that had been done before. I'm interested in new writing." A writer herself, Eclair is currently finishing her third novel and will put pen to paper once more next year for a film script she's been commissioned to write. Having written in various media, including radio, and having performed in a variety of venues, from the West End to Wolverhampton, would Eclair ever consider turning her hand to directing? "Oh no. I can't direct to save my life," she laughs, before continuing "I don't know why that is. My daughter can really direct. I have no-idea how to even start." Eclair has never been directed by her daughter, who recently graduated from University, but would love the opportunity to work with her on a project together. She is obviously a very proud mother and after bemoaning the lack of opportunities for those wanting to break into the industry, she lights up when the conversation returns to her daughter. "I'd put myself in her hands any old day," she confides. "I would kill to work with her. I genuinely trust her. I think she's brilliant." From loving mother to magical Fairy Godmother, Eclair is set to make all of Cinderella's wishes come true this Christmas, complete with glittering transformation sequence. But after all that magic and mayhem, how will she unwind post-show? Why, with "a very large glass of dry white wine," of course! Jenny Eclair performs as the Fairy Godmother in "Cinderella" at the Richmond Theatre from 9th December 2011 to 15th January 2012.
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