Must See Theatre: Trafford Tanzi/Kevin Maguire
EdFringe | Trafford Tanzi starring Toyah Willcox! The play that changed my life – Kevin Maguire
Having given Andrew Pierce the opportunity to share the story of the musical that changed his life – it was Mamma Mia! you may recall – it seemed only fair to offer Kevin Maguire the same courtesy, especially as the pair’s Edinburgh Fringe show, Andrew Pierce vs Kevin Maguire (Assembly Rooms, 8-10 August), pits them against each other. So, in the interest of maintaining an even playing field, here, Maguire shares the piece of theatre that ‘changed his life’… Toyah Willcox in Trafford Tanzi.
‘Time erased exactly why I went to see punk princess Toyah Willcox hitting a wrestling ring’s canvass during 10 rounds over three hours, yet the exhilaration – mine, not hers, just to be clear – is as fresh today as that evening 41 years ago and counting. You never forget the magical impact of your first play, the memory sticking like first day at school, first day at work, first football game, first kiss.
I was a late debutant to the theatre, growing up in a Tyneside working class home where money was tight and the stage a social world away from our life. There’s no need to get out an unfeasibly small violin. Childhood is recalled happily even if now I recognise it could’ve been enriched culturally.
Never going to the York Theatre Royal during three years at the city’s university is explained blushingly by hanging with a group, at least one of whom subsequently came to see Willcox in her cartoonish outfit, who, like me, preferred football, playing the fool and doing nothing.
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