‘I would ask for Donald Trump to feel loved... maybe then he wouldn’t be such a scared bully’
Comedian and actress Nuala McKeever (53) lives in Belfast. She is starring in Ireland’s first arena panto, The Spectacular Aladdin, at the SSE Arena. She says:
If I could go back and ask Santa for something different in my childhood, I would ask to join a dancing and singing group. We did theatre at school at St Dominic’s on the Falls Road. I was in The Mikado and I loved it. I played the flute in the school music group, but I would have loved to have learned how to really sing properly. I might have been discovered, done shows in Hollywood and been cast in La La Land.
I’m not the best singer in the world. It’s like a lot of things, I’m good, but I’m not amazing. I won a plaque for ballroom dancing when I was about 12. I danced the male part. That might have been the start of some confusion in my life. So maybe I would ask Santa if I could go back and dance the female part with a tall male partner.
Every Christmas at home, we all sing and dance. My brother, John, plays guitar and we all join
in. It’s lovely. I always tell myself that I need to practise and do something really festive, but I never do.
We always fall back on The Beatles and Rolling Stones, that kind of thing.
Maybe Santa Claus could help us to bring out the McKeevers’
Christmas Medley CD.
I love that we still do that here in Ireland. It really brings everyone together on Christmas Day. There’s that tradition of people entertaining each other.
You don’t have to be brilliant — singing and dancing is just a great way to express yourself
and you can also get a work-out at the same time.
I’m in rehearsals for panto at the minute with a lot of professional dancers and it’s just amazing the things they can do. I stand back and wonder what might have been. Why didn’t I start training when I was 13? It’s tough going. I hope I still have a singing voice left come Christmas because we’ve got three shows on Boxing Day.
I’d ask Santa to look after my voice. I would also ask Santa to impress upon us all the fact that we’re all interconnected. What we do to the Earth, to plants and animals and the land, affects us all. I’d like for us to extend our circle of compassion to encompass nature.
Unfortunately, the likes of Donald Trump are doing what they can to destroy the environment, so I would ask Santa that Trump feels loved. Maybe then he wouldn’t be such a scared bully. When people feel safe and loved, they don’t feel the need to go around hurting others and generally being a negative influence. I think we’ve all got a touch of the Trumps in us.
We’re all afraid and we do questionable things.
It’s just that he happens to do it in an extremely worrying way from a position of immense power.
I’d like for us all to be happy with what we have too. I’m not having a consumerist Christmas this year and it’s a relief. I’m not going out and buying a load of rubbish. It doesn’t make me happy, at the end of the day.
As Mahatma Gandhi said, you should try to be the change you want to see in the world. Do what you can do where you are and speak up for goodness everywhere.”
Maybe Santa Claus could help us to bring out the McKeevers’ Christmas Medley CD