Cheryl Fergison Jess O Sullivan talks to the former EastEnders star who is taking to the Dublin stage this week
Well-known as Heather in EastEnders, Cheryl Fergison tells Jess O Sullivan why her part in Menopause the Musical, which is coming to Ireland, is so enjoyable and so important
It’s always a good sign when you kick o an interview with a big, heartfelt hug, which is how ex- EastEnders star, Cheryl Fergison, greets me in the foyer of RTÉ. I couldn’t imagine her being one for handshakes or air kisses, and as she is an excellent hugger, why would I mind? She has had a busy day in Dublin, promoting the Irish leg of the Menopause the Musical tour, so she enjoys the chance of a chat over a cappuccino. En route, we pass by the set of Fair City, and Cheryl’s eyes light up. “Wow, this is amazing! Can I have a look?” e set is empty, so she immediately takes out her phone and starts lming herself for Instagram, making sure to get the Carrigstown Spar in the background. “I think that you guys should give me a little job in Fair City. Somebody who passes through for about six months and then gets killed o again. I don’t mind. at would be fantastic. Get me on... I’m kind of there, my foot’s almost in the door. Yee-ha!” I’m immediately thinking of how much Fair City fans might enjoy seeing EastEnders’s Heather Trott, (George Michael super fan and loveable sidekick to Shirley Carter, killed o by a knock on the head with a photo frame in 2012), hanging out in McCoys. Cheryl’s tongue-in cheek job application is picked up by the newspapers the next day. ‘Former EastEnders actress pleads for role on Fair City’, says one headline, while giving Menopause the Musical a good plug to boot.
When we settle in and calm the giggles, I ask her if she thinks it’s necessary to be a bit cheeky to create opportunities for yourself as a performer, especially as a woman. “I think we have to promote ourselves, in whatever form that might be. We’ve been told to sit back, look pretty, and don’t say anything. en when you do say anything, it’s di cult because people think you’re above your station,” she says. “I think some women haven’t found the balance of how to do it right. Yes, it’s self-promotion, but it’s also a bit of fun. It’s not about manipulation. I’m genuinely also quite excited when I go on a set. I don’t care whose it is. ere’s something in me, when I go somewhere where something creative is being made.” Cheryl is a creative soul, no doubt. She grew up on a council estate in south London, and trained in community theatre and theatre in education before becoming a working actress. She has also taught herself to play 11 instruments (maybe 11; she can’t remember exactly how many) without being able to read music, sometimes for a part (bodhrán, cello, saxophone) and sometimes for her mental health (drums mid-divorce). “ at’s a good tip actually – bang that because there’s no point in banging up your furniture,” she tells me. Her only son, Alex (19), is following in her footsteps, and is just about to graduate from the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, so the apple clearly hasn’t fallen far from the tree. Spending ve minutes in Cheryl Fergison’s company is enough to brighten anyone’s day, so one can only imagine how entertaining a twoand-a-half-hour show with her and her co-stars Katherine Lynch, Maureen Nolan and Rebecca Wheatley would be. Menopause the Musical is an all-singing, all-dancing, all-round belly laugh of a performance, but Cheryl says that the show is about so much more than that. It’s about empowering women by talking openly about a subject that 20 years ago was taboo and giving everyone permission to celebrate a stage of life when women can e ectively disappear. “Today people are talking about everything more. In my book, it’s good to talk; it’s educational.” Cheryl says that women of all ages come to the show. Men too, but she recalls the experience her uncle had when he came to see the show
Whatever it is, you have to really love yourself, or at least like yourself
with his wife. “My uncle, who’s a bit of a geezer – loves his pints and darts – came to the show, and laughed the whole way through it. He said, ‘I understand now why my wife was like that, and why she chucked a Tonka toy at my head.’” Cheryl believes that the true power of the show’s message lies in the fact that it is communicated through laughter and music rather than heavy drama. “ e women who come think, ‘Oh my gosh, I identify with this, and I don’t feel on my own any more. ere’s a common denominator. ey go berserk at the end because they’ve had a great night out and we have learned something, so we’re united and we’re empowered.”
e show brings together four central characters in a department store, each representing an archetypal female you expect to be experiencing ‘ e Change’. It is the sale of a black lace bra that acts as the catalyst for the on-stage heart to hearts about hot ushes, night sweats, memory loss, chocolate binges, not enough sex and too much sex. e characters don’t even have names; instead they are e Housewife, e Professional, e Fading Soap Star, and e Earth Mother, which Cheryl plays. “What she’s called is what is the outside of her, but what goes on in the inside is a di erent thing,” she explains of her character. “ en you’ve got Fading Soap Star, who actually isn’t me, funnily, but it’s about how you get too old, and you can’t do the job any more – that’s the pressure of media.”
Cheryl loves that the show is an opportunity for older actresses to be attractive, funny and entertaining. She lists the roll call of talented British actresses who have survived the cull that comes with ageing in their industry: Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Diana Rigg… and there, she trails o . “I’m 53 and a lot of actresses drop out when they get to that stage because there’s nothing for them. ey have been put down in many ways. ey have been told they don’t look right or they have to be a certain size.” However Cheryl is adamant that self-belief is ultimately what will get any woman su ering a crisis of con dence in mid-life over the line. “Whatever it is, you have to really love yourself, or at least like yourself. Whether I change my weight or my hair, I can still feel I look like Bubbles DeVere from Little Britain one day and then another day I think, ‘Move over Kate Moss.’ It is all about our mindset. We have to be stronger. We are born strong and with so many skills that are muted by being told we can’t do something.”
She shares a trick that the show’s sound engineer uses to keep the microphones safe for two reasons. Firstly, to explain just how much she and the ladies sweat during the high-energy show and secondly, to illustrate how times have changed in the last 20 years. “Because we sweat so much while dancing and wearing those big costumes, our sound guy Paul puts our mike packs into condoms because he doesn’t want water getting in. So you can imagine what a full run of Menopause the Musical goes through in condoms. It doesn’t matter how long it takes to achieve something, as long as enough people are going in the right direction, you will get there. And we are getting there.”
Menopause the Musical at the Royal eatre, Mayo (March 31), the Gaiety eatre (April 1-6) and INEC, Killarney (April 7)