Yahoo News 'I am dead chuffed to keep being asked back to Hull' - Pantomime star Neil Hurst
Neil Hurst simply cant get enough of the unpredictability that he has come to know and love during his career in theatre.
Neil is a veteran of Hull pantomimes – this year will be his sixth (if you discount the Christmas of Covid) and he can’t wait to be back at Hull New Theatre, this year playing Joey the Clown, in Goldilocks and the Three Bears. However, before then, he will steal the limelight in the touring production of Hairspray, as it rolls into Hull next week.
And it’s a first for Neil, as he is playing a woman. Yorkshire funnyman Neil, who hails from Wakefield, said: “My feet are killing me in those high heels.”
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He also never knew the problem of falling-down bra straps was ever going to be something he would encounter. “It’s a whole new world. It’s great fun.
“When they asked me, they said it was the best part in the best musical,” said Neil, who was not immediately convinced. “When I started doing it I realised, yes it is! It’s such a fantastic show for all the family – and the songs are bangers.”
Neil will appear as Edna Turnblad, mother of Tracy, the plot's protagonist, in Hull, from Monday to Saturday, November 18 to 23. He was speaking to Hull Live from Newcastle, which is playing host to the West End and Broadway hit musical before Hull.
“I’m driving up to Newcastle from home every day for the show. I like to be able to do that when I can to spend time with my wife and kids – I’ve got a 16-year-old and a 13-year-old and actually, I’m lucky if I see them when I am at home because they are probably in their rooms.
“When I finish the run in Hull, I’ll be off to Bradford for Hairspray – but rehearsing for the panto in Hull during the day. I am kind of on autopilot now with Hairspray, I can just go on and do it.”
Switching between roles just makes life more interesting for Neil, he says, and he is relishing the return to his great love, pantomime. “I am dead chuffed to keep being asked back to Hull.
“I was counting up the other day and this will be my 30th panto. This is the first time I’ve appeared in Goldilocks and the Three Bears – I’ve been Buttons hundreds of times and I’ve been a few Silly Billys – and what’s also a first for me is, this time, I get the girl!”
Neil wanted to be an astronaut until a school visit to the IMAX cinema at the National Science and Media Museum and seeing a film show that made him travel sick. He took up acting instead and toured the country with a song and dance act in variety shows, supporting comedy legends such as Bruce Forsyth, Bob Monkhouse, Jimmy Tarbuck, Ken Dodd and Cannon and Ball.
The actor, who recently toured with the stage show of the Full Monty, has many theatre credits to his name, as well as TV roles – “I’d like to do a bit more telly, the last things I did were All Creatures Great and Small and Michael McIntyre’s Big Show, working alongside Michael to set up his Unexpected Star of the Show” – but he always returns to pantomime.
“I think the best memories I have are when things have gone wrong. I like it when we get the kids on stage at the end and I interview them and let them have their five minutes [of fame].
“The magic is it’s different every time. There was one little lad, I asked him what he wanted for Christmas and he said Taekwondo gear.
“I asked him what Taekwondo was and he showed me by beating me up in the middle of the stage. There was another time when I was on stage with the kids and it was getting a lot of laughs and I didn’t know why.
“One kid behind me had pulled down his trousers and was mooning at everybody. You never know what’s going to happen where kids are concerned.”
Neil said: “The thing with telly is, you do something, they film it and it goes out. You don’t see the reaction.
“I much prefer being on stage for that immediate response from the audience but TV helps you to be more relevant and better known when you do come to theatre. People will say, ‘oh, I know him from so-and-so’.”
Neil said: “When people ask me what I do, I will say I’m an actor. Sometimes I will say, I make people laugh for a living.
“It’s lovely to be able to do that, to give people a good time.”
