Covid’s behind us - oh yes it is
PANTO FAVOURITE MATT SLACK TELLS ROZ LAWS HOW HE WAS ‘MORTIFIED’ TO HAVE TO TAKE A WEEK OFF LAST CHRISTMAS
There will be plenty of double entendres. I mean, I’m called Dick! But we don’t go too far.
THE best in the business is back with a bang. Nobody does pantomime like Matt Slack – and the Birmingham Hippodrome star is looking forward to making thousands of families laugh again.
He’s back for a ninth consecutive panto, playing the title role in Dick Whittington. And he can’t wait for a normal, happy run after two years of being hit by the pandemic. The show was cancelled in 2020, then he was forced to take a week off last year after catching Covid.
“It crippled me, to be honest,” says Matt of that moment when he tested positive on Christmas Day, and was forced to isolate. The Boxing Day show was cancelled and his role as the Ringmaster in Goldilocks and the Three Bears was taken by Johnny Mac until January 2.
“I was mortified. To have to take a week off was very, very tough. I felt rough from Covid but it wouldn’t normally stop me going on stage. I’ve done shows with a detached ligament in my ankle and a broken vocal cord – I’ve never missed a show before, you never go off. What really hurt was the feeling I was letting people down, after we’d waited for two years to do it. It was hard not to be ‘poor me’. I don’t like to feel that sort of self-pity but I couldn’t help it, it was very frustrating.”
But Matt, 52, has put the dark days behind him and can’t wait to bring joy to the stage again. And, with social distancing in the past, he can also bring children up on stage for one of the funniest parts of the show. Anyone who saw him throw a
child into the orchestra pit – don’t worry, it was part of the act and he was unharmed – will ever forget the shocking and hilarious moment.
“It will be great to have the kids on stage again; I have a lot of fun with them,” says Matt.
“We could do with a nice, stressfree run! Everybody needs a laugh right now. We’ve had doom and gloom after doom and gloom. There are very few things to celebrate at the moment, so let’s take any opportunity we can.
“We’ve worked very hard on the script this year. There are some little twists to the story, but there will also be the usual slapstick comedy, an impressions routine and my lip synch stuff. People expect that.
“And yes, there will be plenty of double entendres. I mean, I’m called Dick! I do push it but we don’t go too far. There’s a line and the audience trust me not to cross it.”
Audiences have been loving Matt at the Hippodrome since his first show, Snow White, in 2013. Since then he’s worked his way up the bill and shared the stage with Stephanie Beacham, Jimmy Osmond, Jason Donovan, Julian Clary, Beverley
Knight and Marti Pellow.
His co-stars may be bigger names, but he gets the biggest cheers in Birmingham. He’s clocked up almost
500 appearances and more than 1,000 hours. No wonder he has a seat named after him in the stalls of what has become his second home.
This year he’s reuniting with two more Hippodrome favourites, Andrew Ryan as the Dame and Doreen Tipton as his cat. Plus Marti Pellow is The Ratman – he was also the villain in Aladdin alongside
Matt in 2015 – and Suzanne Shaw, who was Cinderella in 2017, is Alice. The only person Matt hasn’t worked with before is Dr Ranj Singh, who is The Spirit of The Bells and is ‘‘instantly gorgeous”.
Matt has been in Dick Whittington at the Hippodrome before, in 2016, when his co-star was his old friend Steve McFadden, better known as Phil Mitchell in EastEnders. It was Steve he chose to be his best man when he married Jess this summer, in a ceremony which had been due to take place in June 2020.
Matt says: “The wedding was cancelled twice but it finally went ahead this year, in a beautiful 14th century castle in Girona in Spain. It was the most magical wedding we could have ever wished for, even better than we hoped, and extra special because we had to wait. It was incredible.
“I cried non-stop, I think everyone did, even Steve. He was there by my side. He surprised me by arriving a day early and joined me for my stag night in Barcelona.”
Matt admits he is a ‘‘soppy’’ romantic, proposing to Jess on hol
iday in Dubai in 2019 while serenading her on a ukulele. He credits his new wife with being an “incredible support”, who gets him through the rigours of panto and his preparations during the year.
Matt, who started out as a blue coat for Pontins in 1993, spends months writing his clever routines, in between appearing on TV shows like Doctors and EastEnders and on stage – earlier this year he was Uncle Fester in The Addams Family.
If you saw him in panto six years ago, you might recognise a tongue-twisting pun-filled verse he is performing again. He weaves in 68 place names in the Midlands, such as “I left her some food but there was Nuneaton”.
“I’m pretty proud of it and I thought it deserved another airing,” explains Matt.
Audiences should also look out for a mention of Birmingham’s special summer hosting the Commonwealth Games.
“I thought the Games were incredible. Everybody should be very proud. There’s a nod to it in panto, I made sure that went in. It’s been a great year for Birmingham and I hope that buzz can continue. Let’s embrace it, enjoy it and make it last as long as we can.”
Dick Whittington plays Birmingham Hippodrome from December 17 to January 29.
Tickets can be booked at www. birminghamhippodrome.com or by calling 0844 338 5000.