Fringe star Jill Halfpenny on her Edinburgh return 12 years after big break

Aug 17 2008 By Steve Hendry

FRINGE star Jill Halfpenny is loving being back in Edinburgh after 12 years with a new leading man - her baby son Harvey.

The former Corrie and Eastenders actress has seen her career take off since getting her big break in the capital in 1996 when she spent her time off-stage enjoying late-night Festival fun.

Jill, 33, is finding out about life as a working mum as she combines looking after her first child and starring in the hit Fringe play Surviving Spike.

The show is about the relationship between lauded comic genius Spike Milligan, played by Michael Barrymore, and his long-serving secretary and manager, Norma Farnes.

And it's all very, very different from her last trip to the festival.

She said: "When I was here 12 years ago it was, 'What are we going to see, where's the bar and what can I have to drink?'

"It was my first job out of drama school, I was 21, very excited and you have that lovely, fresh-faced, world-is-youroyster feel.

"This is my first job since becoming a mum and it's all about Harvey, as it should be. It's very early mornings, feeding, playing, walking round, then going to work.

"Once I walk on stage I'm focused and my mind doesn't wander, wondering if Harvey is all right or what he's doing.

"I know he's in safe hands with my husband Craig.

"But the minute I walk off stage I check my phone and I'm calling home.

"By the time I finish he's ready for a feed and it's all about getting him settled down for the night. It really couldn't be a more different Edinburgh and it's bizarre to be back when so much has happened in between.

"But both experiences are as enjoyable as the other."

Surviving Spike is on at one of the festival's hubs, the Assembly Rooms on George Street, the same venue where Jill took her bow in Edinburgh in 1996.

She starred in a production called Like A Virgin - alongside Vicky Entwistle, another future Corrie star - about two besotted Madonna fans. It was a huge risk at the time.

She said: "I got a job when I was in my final term at drama school and I had to leave to take it up.

"It was a cracking role and I knew I was right for it but the final term of drama school is when agents come to see you so it was a real gamble. I decided to do the job and thankfully I got an agent from it, so it worked out.

"It was very much the start of things for me. In fact, the casting director for Coronation Street at the time saw me in the play in Edinburgh and cast me a few years later because of it.

"I feel very, very lucky. I won't lie and say I'm constantly in work but I haven't had many long periods out of work.

"I have friends who are fantastic actors who haven't been so fortunate.

There's a lot of right face, right time about this business and I was lucky things happened for me when I was young.

"I was getting my face about and a momentum builds up."

That is an understatement. As well as playing Corrie nurse Rebecca Hopkins, who had an affair with Martin Platt, and Phil Mitchell's wife Kate in East-Enders, Jill has starred in Peak Practice and Waterloo Road and guested in everything from Shameless to the Catherine Tate Show.

And she made a huge impression as herself on Strictly Come Dancing in 2004, winning the show and being snapped up to play leading lady Roxy Hart in West End musical Chicago.

But she admits she still wants more.

She said: "If someone had asked me when I was 21 and in Edinburgh first time round how I would feel if I got a role in EastEnders or Coronation Street or a lead role in the West End, I would have said, 'Wow, I've made it'.

"But then you do those things and your aspirations just get bigger and bigger. It sounds ungrateful but it's just ambition."

Surviving Spike has had good reviews and the odd, inevitable headline which follows troubled comic Michael Barrymore.

Straight-talking Geordie Jill refuses to get involved in the controversy which dogs her co-star.

She said: "I'm just an actor on a show with him. We work well on stage together and that's it. He's been great. I enjoy working with him."

She is more forthcoming about their play which covers a period of 36 years, from 1966 until Spike's death in 2002.

Jill's character narrates the one-hour-45-minute show. It is a tough gig but one she felt she could not turn down, especially when she heard it would be coming to Edinburgh.

She said: "I was about five months pregnant and looking forward to sitting down and putting my feet up when the script came through.

"I didn't know Spike Milligan's work but you don't have to be a fan to enjoy the play.

"It's more about relationships and I was hooked about 10 pages in. It was really interesting for me because I'm usually the girlfriend or wife or mother-of-two, rather than ageing through 30 odd years.

"It was hard when I was pregnant because you do get tired. Learning lines with a mushy head was quite terrifying.

"When they said it was going to Edinburgh I was so happy because I have such fond memories of the place. It was a real launch pad for me."

"Harvey has lived through the whole thing - he's lucky he's not called Spike."

Surviving Spike is at the Assembly Rooms until August 25. Telephone 0131 226 2428.

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