I’m such a Dead lucky Ringer
She grew up mimicking Mrs Thatcher and has Lorraine Kelly down to a tee but there’s so much more to Debra Stephenson than her impersonations
away from giving birth to her son. “I couldn’t allow the fiction to inhabit my brain too comprehensively for fear I’d induce premature labour,” she says.
But because of that experience, while filming Prisoner X, she made up her mind to speak to one of the wardens of the American jail on behalf of her fellow inmate.
She adds: “I can only describe him as frosty. ‘What you need to remember,’ he said, ‘is that we’re saving this child from being brought up in a drug-filled community.’ I felt he was playing God but I do now see that there were two sides to the situation.”
Back to the sunnier world of celebrity impressions. Has anyone eluded her? “Well, I find Susanna Reid hard. Hers is not that dissimilar to my own voice. And then, of course, people fade from the limelight,” Debra reveals.
“That’s slightly true of Theresa May since she stepped down as prime minister. I must say, my male counterparts are delighted that Boris is now centre-stage; not so good if it had been the far less distinctive Jeremy Hunt, they say.”
Referring to her characters such as the late Amy Winehouse, she says: “It’s also tricky if someone dies. You’re never sure whether it’s respectful to keep the tribute going or is it perhaps in poor taste?
“A case in point is Victoria Wood. I absolutely loved her, a complete original, a total one-off. I have no wish to trash her memory.”
Debra has teamed up with comedian Tony Hawks for Midlife Cowboy, his musical about a man whose marriage has gone stale and is only comfortable dressed in cowboy gear. “I liked it immediately,” she says. “It’s fun and funny but poignant, too. It’s a love story about a midlife crisis so of course it spoke to me: I’m 47.
“The two of them had had an enjoyable sideline as a country and western duo playing in clubs but then she developed a strong urge to become a mother. But it didn’t happen. So they’re childless and at a crossroads.
“We see them working through their problems, underpinned by a succession of country songs, although there is ultimately a resolution. Which, of course, I’m not going to reveal.”
The tricky thing, she says, is that she hasn’t played a guitar since she was 10. “I used to perform in old people’s homes in Kingston upon Hull with a friend, both of us in straw boaters. Our big numbers were Country Roads, Streets of London and sea shanties. Tony’s had to show me some new chords.”
Away from this hilarity, Debra has an unapologetically happy home life on the Dorset coast with builder husband, James Duffield, 48, and two children: Max is 16, Zoe 12.
Now they’re older, she feels able to do musical theatre tours. And there’s always her onewoman show: Night of 100 Voices. She says: “The trick is to achieve a work/life balance. Without wishing to tempt fate, I’ve more or less managed that.”