Blackpool Citizen
November
2002 Needn't get to know you,
Su!
by Nikki
Masters
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.
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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.
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"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!"
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