Needn't
get to know you, Su!
Not everyone will know the story or
songs from the musical Annie, but everyone will
know the actress playing Miss Hannigan in the
forthcoming Blackpool production.
Su Pollard made her name as dippy chambermaid
Peggy in "Hi-de-Hi" -- but in Annie she
struts her stuff as a hard-faced and drunken
orphanage manager.
"It's fantastic to be able to play a part
you don't have to glam up for. She wears make-up
on top of make-up and she's taken to the drink
because her life is meaningless. She always takes
it out on the kids but you do feel sorry for her
really," Su said.
Her showbiz CV makes great reading. After an
apprenticeship at the Arts Theatre in her home
town of Nottingham, she came second to a singing
jack russell on TV talent show Opportunity
Knocks.
Undeterred, she quietly amassed a wealth of
experience all over the world. She's taken lead
roles in musicals such as Grease, Little Shop of
Horrors and Me and My Girl, farce (creating the
role of Suzette in Don't Dress for Dinner),
countless TV comedies and programmes, recordings
of musicals, pantomime, summer seasons (including
Blackpool's North Pier), cabaret in New York and
on the QE2 -- even voices for cartoon characters.
Not surprisingly, you could sum Su up in just one
word: enthusiastic.
"With Annie, in a way people already know
what they are coming to see. But it's up to every
performer in the show to give 110 per cent."We
work really hard, but we also have a policy that
we work hard and we play hard!"
And she is still happy to be remembered as Peggy.
"The only time it gets on my nerves is when
people are too shy to speak and they wait until
I've passed and shout 'hi-de-hi' after me. Of
course, I shout 'ho-de-ho' back. And then I
think: well, that's the voice gone for tonight's
performance!"
by Nikki Masters
Blackpool Citizen
November 2002
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