Post by SheWolf on Nov 9, 2007 3:50:59 GMT 1
From Liverpool Daily Post
LISA RILEY, Emmerdale’s large and effervescent Mandy Dingle, is not the first person who springs to mind when you think of pole-dancing women. But think again.
Lisa has spent the best part of the year going up and down the pole in a new stage comedy, The Naked Truth.
It arrives at the Southport Arts Centre on Tuesday for a three-night stay.
It won’t be the last time Lisa appears on stage in Southport, either, and by next month she will be back for a stint in the Southport Pantomime, Aladdin, alongside Syd Little.
While a pole-dancing Lisa Riley might stretch the imagination, it will be for her role as Mandy Dingle, part of the TV soap’s dysfunctional family, that she will be remembered.
“That was a phenomenon, eight wonderful years,” she says.
“But, after eight years, I realised I wanted to be creative as an actress. I had become very popular as Mandy and they still want me back.
“But I wanted to use my brain and get other challenges.”
The producers fought hard for her to stay but she had made up her mind.
“So what they did was give me a two-hander with Dominic Brunt, who played Paddy Kirk the vet and my sometime husband.
“They had never done a full 30-minute two-hander before on the show so it was wonderful.”
It was the episode in which she finally bowed out of the soap.
Her father had become ill in the script and she had an affair with his male nurse and Paddy found out. Hence the dramatic confrontation between the two.
While she may be missing from the screen in Emmerdale, her presence is still felt.
“I am often referred to in the series, and if a character is going on holiday, they often go to see Mandy.
“I am meant to be living in Southampton, but I don’t think I am with the male nurse any more!”
Mandy was one of Emmerdale’s more comic characters, but when she left she decided she wanted to do something a little more serious.
A TV series, Fat Friends, set around a dieting club, was it.
“I was blown away when | was asked to do it. I played a character named Rebecca Patterson who was bulimic and self harmed.”
She followed that up with a tour of The Vagina Monologues stage show in which she discussed women’s problems. That was “amazing”, she says.
There was also a spell presenting the silly video show You’ve Been Framed.
“The TV people realised that as a person I was very popular with the public which was why I was asked to present it – and I doubled the previous presenter Jeremy Beadle’s figures. It was me, of course, but I did have an autocue, and the script was written by someone else, so it was a bit like acting.”
There have also been episodes of The Bill, Holby City and Doctors among others.
Last year she made a film, still awaiting release, and a tour of The Play What I Wrote, another comedy.
And it is comedy, she admits, that she loves best.
“It’s a real tonic to me to make people laugh, and that has always been part of me. I have been the same since I was a child.”
Lisa was born in Burnley and was hankering after an acting career at an early age. By the age of nine, she was training at the Oldham Theatre Workshop, and three years later got an agent. One of her first roles at the Oldham Coliseum was in Worzel Gummidge.
By 15, she was finding herself difficult to cast – “I was getting too old for a 15-year-old,” she has said – and took a job as a receptionist in a foam factory.
But she was soon back in the acting game, even taking a small role in Coronation Street as a worker in Bettabuys supermarket.
It was Emmerdale which gave her the biggest public profile, one that had her winning the National TV Award for Most Popular Newcomer, shortly after arriving in the soap.
Dave Simpson, a writer on Emmerdale, wrote her role in The Naked Truth especially for her.
She plays a woman in a pole dancing class.
“She doesn't take life too seriously, but she has a secret which I won't reveal,” she says.
And, yes, she does get to do some pole dancing.
Along with other cast members, she rehearsed the technique in January for three weeks before the show took to the road.
“I didn’t realise I could do certain things that I can do now,” she laughs.
It has also meant that during the run she has lost a little weight. Not so much you would not recognise her, though.
“I’m not Kate Moss,” she declares.
She returns to Southport next month to play the Empress of China in Aladdin.
“It will be my 10th anniversary in pantomime. I usually play the cute fairy, and there isn’t a fairy in Aladdin, but I will be singing and doing comedy again.”
THE Naked Truth is at the Southport Arts Centre, Tuesday to Thursday next week; Aladdin is at the Southport Theatre, December 8-January6.
LISA RILEY, Emmerdale’s large and effervescent Mandy Dingle, is not the first person who springs to mind when you think of pole-dancing women. But think again.
Lisa has spent the best part of the year going up and down the pole in a new stage comedy, The Naked Truth.
It arrives at the Southport Arts Centre on Tuesday for a three-night stay.
It won’t be the last time Lisa appears on stage in Southport, either, and by next month she will be back for a stint in the Southport Pantomime, Aladdin, alongside Syd Little.
While a pole-dancing Lisa Riley might stretch the imagination, it will be for her role as Mandy Dingle, part of the TV soap’s dysfunctional family, that she will be remembered.
“That was a phenomenon, eight wonderful years,” she says.
“But, after eight years, I realised I wanted to be creative as an actress. I had become very popular as Mandy and they still want me back.
“But I wanted to use my brain and get other challenges.”
The producers fought hard for her to stay but she had made up her mind.
“So what they did was give me a two-hander with Dominic Brunt, who played Paddy Kirk the vet and my sometime husband.
“They had never done a full 30-minute two-hander before on the show so it was wonderful.”
It was the episode in which she finally bowed out of the soap.
Her father had become ill in the script and she had an affair with his male nurse and Paddy found out. Hence the dramatic confrontation between the two.
While she may be missing from the screen in Emmerdale, her presence is still felt.
“I am often referred to in the series, and if a character is going on holiday, they often go to see Mandy.
“I am meant to be living in Southampton, but I don’t think I am with the male nurse any more!”
Mandy was one of Emmerdale’s more comic characters, but when she left she decided she wanted to do something a little more serious.
A TV series, Fat Friends, set around a dieting club, was it.
“I was blown away when | was asked to do it. I played a character named Rebecca Patterson who was bulimic and self harmed.”
She followed that up with a tour of The Vagina Monologues stage show in which she discussed women’s problems. That was “amazing”, she says.
There was also a spell presenting the silly video show You’ve Been Framed.
“The TV people realised that as a person I was very popular with the public which was why I was asked to present it – and I doubled the previous presenter Jeremy Beadle’s figures. It was me, of course, but I did have an autocue, and the script was written by someone else, so it was a bit like acting.”
There have also been episodes of The Bill, Holby City and Doctors among others.
Last year she made a film, still awaiting release, and a tour of The Play What I Wrote, another comedy.
And it is comedy, she admits, that she loves best.
“It’s a real tonic to me to make people laugh, and that has always been part of me. I have been the same since I was a child.”
Lisa was born in Burnley and was hankering after an acting career at an early age. By the age of nine, she was training at the Oldham Theatre Workshop, and three years later got an agent. One of her first roles at the Oldham Coliseum was in Worzel Gummidge.
By 15, she was finding herself difficult to cast – “I was getting too old for a 15-year-old,” she has said – and took a job as a receptionist in a foam factory.
But she was soon back in the acting game, even taking a small role in Coronation Street as a worker in Bettabuys supermarket.
It was Emmerdale which gave her the biggest public profile, one that had her winning the National TV Award for Most Popular Newcomer, shortly after arriving in the soap.
Dave Simpson, a writer on Emmerdale, wrote her role in The Naked Truth especially for her.
She plays a woman in a pole dancing class.
“She doesn't take life too seriously, but she has a secret which I won't reveal,” she says.
And, yes, she does get to do some pole dancing.
Along with other cast members, she rehearsed the technique in January for three weeks before the show took to the road.
“I didn’t realise I could do certain things that I can do now,” she laughs.
It has also meant that during the run she has lost a little weight. Not so much you would not recognise her, though.
“I’m not Kate Moss,” she declares.
She returns to Southport next month to play the Empress of China in Aladdin.
“It will be my 10th anniversary in pantomime. I usually play the cute fairy, and there isn’t a fairy in Aladdin, but I will be singing and doing comedy again.”
THE Naked Truth is at the Southport Arts Centre, Tuesday to Thursday next week; Aladdin is at the Southport Theatre, December 8-January6.