Stars say smaller is beautiful


Stars say smaller is beautiful

Conrad Astley
19/ 5/2006

DAWN French and Alison Moyet say Manchester will be their "party town." The pair have been performing Smaller for several months now, after a mini-tour and a hit run at the Lyric Theatre in London's Shaftesbury Avenue.

They say their attention to the project has been so intense there has been no time for any of the late night shenanigans usually associated with thesps on the road.

But June's run at the Opera House is the final leg, and the actresses are excited about the prospect of being able to let their hair down - and are already planning their bar crawls.

The pair first talked about working together in 2001 - in the dressing room after one of Alison's performances of the musical, Chicago - but they go back a lot further than that.

Alison's memory is slightly clearer than Dawn's, however. "It's 22 years now," she said. "I remember because it was my son's 21st birthday recently, and we met the year before he was born. We'd met at a party, the type of which neither of us would normally go to.

"We've only been to a couple since, I think," Dawn adds, tongue in cheek. "I was a huge fan of Alison's, and I was very much in awe of her.

"But my in awe-ness - if that is a word - doesn't usually show itself in me holding back, but in being quite full-on, so I just started talking to her."

Deciding to work together after two decades of friendship, the pair came up with a very broad brief - they wanted a play they could both appear in, which would give Alison the opportunity to use her famous vocal talents.

This brief was given to actress Kathy Burke who became the show's director, and who suggested Carmel Morgan as the play's writer.

One time Granada press officer Carmel has written for The Royle Family and Shameless, but it was her episodes of Coronation Street that caught the attention of former Harry Enfield Show and Gimme Gimme Gimme star Kathy.

"I told Kathy that we wanted to do a play that meant something," Dawn said. "I didn't want to be fluffy. I wanted to have a laugh, but I wanted to say something worth saying."

The play they ended up with, after months of meetings with the writer and the director, is a tale of resentment, fear and Catholic guilt - with a few belting songs thrown in.

Dawn plays middle-aged teacher Bernice Clulow who grows ever more infuriated as she cares for her disabled mother Maureen, played by June Watson.

Alison plays Bernice's sister Cath, who left home at the earliest opportunity for a singing career.

But while their mother is obsessed with the absent golden girl, Cath has ended up wearing humiliating costumes to entertain hen parties on the Costa del Sol. The three-woman play has deliberately been kept as stark as possible. Scenes featuring Bernice at home with her mother are alternated with scenes showing her sister's performances - of karaoke classics as well as of songs specially written for the play by Alison.

Dawn's role, as the dutiful but downtrodden daughter who can only take so much of being called a "fat f***er" by her mother, seems a long way from The Vicar Of Dibley.

"I found it a challenge," admitted the actress. "But although I've always been drawn to slightly more serious things, it's just that the opportunities I've had have meant the comedy has been what I've mainly ended up doing. This play is also very funny, but it's a different type of funny. It's very raw, dark humour."

If the role was a challenge for Dawn, it was even more intimidating for Alison, who is still known to many for her pop albums of the Eighties.

"What happened very early on was we decided to trust each other and just go in feet first," said the singer. "We could have ended up with egg on our faces, but that's part of the challenge.

"I'm far more afraid of not daring to try anything new. There's a lot of artists who end up not doing anything and just criticising other people's work, and I'd hate to end up like that."

Smaller is at the Manchester Opera House from June 6 to 10.


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