The Stage

Cutting back and moving on - Sarah Parish

Published Thursday 4 November 2004 at 15:25 by Phil Penfold

While enjoying working on BBC1’s musical drama Blackpool, Sarah Parish has decided to leave her starring role in the Corporation’s hairdressing drama Cutting It to explore other projects, she tells Phil Penfold

At first sight, Natalie Holden has the lot - a luxury home, a happy family and status in society. “You couldn’t be more wrong,” says Sarah Parish, who plays her in the new BBC drama series Blackpool.

Parish says: “Viewers are going to find out that her marriage is a bit of a sham - her husband isn’t above playing away - her son is sexually confused, her daughter is dating a much older man and she feels totally inadequate.

“She may have money but she is a very sad lady. It was a gift of a script (by Peter Bowker) and that’s why I grabbed at it. And, of course, it was about as far from Allie Henshall in Cutting It as I could possibly get!”

Parish explains that Blackpool is going to be drama with a difference. “For a start, there is a lot of music in it and yes, we do occasionally break into song, although it is very far from being a musical. Think along the lines of Pennies From Heaven but not quite.

“It’s all slightly distanced from reality but we all keep very much in character and we take the scenes into the songs. It’s all a very different style of drama, very heightened and tantalising.”

She laughs: “At first, it was all quite frightening, because the last thing that I am is a trained singer - and that goes for David Morrissey, who plays Natalie’s husband, Ripley, as well.

“I’m actually a great fan of musicals - if I had my fantasy realised, I would be up there singing the role of Mrs Lovett in Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd every night of the week but I don’t think that I’ll ever be asked, more’s the pity.”

Parish reveals that she will be leaving Cutting It early in the new year.

“I have asked to be written out after the first four episodes,” she says, “and we begin shooting the series again in November in Manchester. I have no idea how Debbie Horsfield, who writes the scripts, is going to ease Allie out. When I do get the scripts, I’m going to keep very quiet about the way that Allie goes. I wouldn’t dream of spoiling the suspense.”

She adds: “It’s all been great fun but I’ve been in the show since we started in 2002. I really do think that I have had about enough and I’ve taken the character about as far as I can. I want to do other things - like Blackpool - and to play other people.”

Despite the popularity of Cutting It and her long association with it, Parish says she does not find herself getting recognised constantly.

“You know, it’s been an amazingly successful series but I’ve never honestly been recognised that much. When people do come up to me, they always demand to know how I can be so bloody awful to my husband Gavin, played by Jason Merrells. Whenever that happens, I realise that I must be very convincing. My own hairdresser, a marvellous guy called Lino, thinks that it is hilarious that I appear on screen professing to be an expert in styling. In reality I can just about run a brush through my hair and blow it dry.

“Whenever I’ve had my hair done when I’m away from home the stylists come up, do that bit about running their fingers through my hair and flicking it back with a comb and then they look at my face in the mirror opposite and a slow flicker of recognition follows. The funny thing is that they all seem to think that I’m in their line of business and not an actress and we talk hairdressing shop, rather than showbusiness, which is a refreshing change in its way.”

Parish remembers that she and the cast of Blackpool had a great time filming in the town, especially when during the summer season.

“We were there twice in the year. The first time, in April, it was absolutely dead, just before the season began. But on the second occasion in July, the place was absolutely lifting with people - the lights, the noise, the crowds. We went up the Tower, did the pier and the shows, we went to the drag revue Funny Girls, the lot.”

As the plot revolves around Blackpool’s entertainment and gambling scene, the cast were very much in the midst of the resort’s activity.

“We were in the thick of everything, because in the story Ripley is a very successful businessman, a real wheeler-dealer, who makes his money from amusement arcades. He is in the right place at the right time, because Blackpool is trying to reinvent itself as the Las Vegas of Europe. He spends all his time at the arcade and arranging business deals and neglects Natalie.”

The first thing that she did to prepare for her role, says Parish, was to give Natalie a back story and work out how she has arrived at the point at which we find her.

“I guessed that she and Ripley met when she was about 17 and he was already a very big buck. She was very young, very naïve and very impressed. I could imagine myself doing something like that - girls in their teens can be very impressionable. She still loves him very much and she finds that he has a certain charm but that he is so outspoken that he can be embarrassing. He has big ideas and is very unconventional. They do have a wonderful life but it’s not enough to fill the void in her life.”

So Natalie involves herself in charity work and becomes a Samaritan, answering the phones for the organisation. To make it as realistic as possible, a man who volunteered for the Samaritans came in and discussed the background of their work.

“That was fascinating to research. He made it quite plain that if the Samaritans were going to be depicted on screen, everything had to be absolutely accurate. We didn’t want to let them down in any way, so we listened - hard.”

There is going to be a little bit of love interest in Natalie’s life when a Detective Inspector DI Carlisle, played by David Tenant, comes to town. His contrast to Ripley - he is more of a ‘spur of the moment’ man and not at all calculating - proves appealing to Natalie.

In real life, Parish is happily involved with actor Dan Fredenburgh. “We’ve been together now for nine months but we have known each other for what seems like ages. We both live in Islington and there is quite a crowd of actors there, lots of people associated with the business and we all sort of move around in each other’s circles. It is a strange little world. So after socialising a bit together, it blossomed into something else very special. We are very happy together and enjoy each other’s company a lot.

“No, there are no plans to make it any more permanent at the moment, we’ll see what happens as time goes by. We both feel that it’s a case of ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’.”

• Blackpool airs on BBC1 on Thursday, November 11 at 9pm