Manchester-born star in the making plays it for laughs
PLAYING STAGE manager Annie in the touring production of The Play That goes Wrong, Manchesterborn actress Katie Bernstein is thrown into extreme circumstances: “As the play unfolds Annie is put into situations that no stage manager would ever find themselves in, quite often on stage and it’s ridiculous!”
Of course it’s the farcical element that has made the play a huge success. It isn’t the first time though that Bernstein has been exposed on stage... so to speak. She played Peggy, one of the Windmill girls in Mrs Henderson Presents at the Noel Coward Theatre in London and appeared nude on stage: “I sort of thought ‘Well if I’m going to do this I might as well do it whilst I’m young’, I probably won’t want to when I’m older!” says Bernstein, who is now 27.
“The rehearsals were petrifying, I just felt totally weird being in this rehearsal room and being naked. The strangest thing though was once we got into the theatres with the lights and costumes and sets and all that, when I had to be naked, I felt liberated. It was empowering and I felt so confident. It was actually great.”
Growing up, attending King David High School, she was always headed for a career on the stage. Her father, Stevie Bernstein, a sports nutritionalist, is also a singer, popular on the Manchester circuit with an act entitled Simply Sinatra. Her uncle was a musician and her grandfather was always singing. She says, “I discovered I could sing when I was about 10 and it was such a joy. I knew immediately I wanted to do it as a career.”
When she was 16 she was in talks with Decca for a development deal. She’s bright and bubbly and you could easily picture her as a pop diva but as much as she enjoyed singing, she realised she wanted to do more: “I think I was probably too young and I didn’t have management. I decided I wanted to do more than just sing, so I went to the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts and had an amazing time and learnt so much.”
She’s steadily been building her acting career since but has also been working as a session singer which has taken her to some fairly big events. For example, she was one of Katie Melua’s backing singers at the BBC Proms in the Park: “I was definitely thrown in at the deep end. But going to drama school gave me confidence and Katie Melua was really lovely and helped me to feel at ease.”
Her next audience was massive, 200 million worldwide saw her as she sup- ported Belgian star Loic Nottet at the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna: “It was an amazing experience,” she says “I think I underestimated it before I went because here in the UK we view it as so cheesy. But being there and seeing and hearing the people who take part, there is some fantastic genuine talent.” On the night Loic came third.
She’s touring until August in The Play That Goes Wrong and then would like to find a role in a TV drama. She’s also expressed interest in playing Amy Winehouse if there was ever a musical made about her, telling an interviewer last year: “I guess she’s a Jew and I’m a Jew… who knows?”
Until August she’ll be taking the stage each night in pigtails, dungarees and no make-up, appearing in theatres from Southampton to Cambridge. “I love it!” she beams.