There ain’t nothing like Peter Duncan’s Dame
The Blue Peter star tells Simon Button how at 65 he’s finally old enough to be a panto dame but still feels young
HE HAS lost count of how many pantos he’s appeared in since Blue Peter made him a household name, but this year marks the first time Peter Duncan has played the dame. How so? “Well, she’s meant to be funny and energetic,” says Peter. “But I never thought I looked old enough to be one.”
To be fair, he still doesn’t. Peter may be 65 but as he bounds into a London cafe fresh from a costume fitting, he looks two decades younger.
He fits the other criteria perfectly however, being both very funny and highly energetic.
The veteran actor and TV presenter finally gets to drag-up for Jack And The Beanstalk which he calls “a planet-saving pantomime”.
He recently told this newspaper that it will address climate change and corporate greed. “But it will be a lot of fun, I promise,” smiles Peter
– who is both its star, its writer and its producer. He even had a hand in building the props.
The only thing he hasn’t done is direct it because he says, “if I tried to do that as well, my brain would implode – now I can just concentrate on the acting.”
The pantomime, playing in Poole, Dorset, includes an Elton John medley which resonates for the man who once had to sing in front of the Rocketman himself on Blue Peter.
Pantomime is in Peter’s blood since his parents produced and starred in them back in the day. His actor father and singer mother also staged old time Musical Hall shows on Brighton’swest Pier – his earliest memory is of lying in his cot at the side of the stage gazing up at the lights.
This year marks Chelsea-born Peter’s 50th anniversary in showbusiness. He made his stage debut as Jim Hawkins in Treasure Island in 1969 at 15.At the time it didn’t feel like a big deal. “When you’re that young you’re kind of wide-eyed and just grateful to get a job,” he recalls. “But playing Jim was a fantastic start and all through the 1970s I had a very successful career as a young actor.”
He spent two years with Laurence Olivier’s company at the Old Vic before breaking into TV in Oranges And Lemons in 1973 and rock-androlling on the big screen as one of David Essex’s Stray Cats band in Stardust the following year.
Having done Shakespeare plays, Ayckbourn comedies and big musicals such as Barnum in his post-blue Peter career, he’s still very serious about acting as a profession, talking about it as a craft that you get better at with practice.
“It’s like a muscle and I am a bit of a Method actor in terms of the thought processes and how much you lose yourself in a role.the most joyous part of acting is when you are in essence the character and you’re actually expressing the emotions you’re pretending to express.”
There was no pretending on Blue Peter. He was recruited for the BBC One children’s TV show in 1980 and found it a perfect fit. “I was a joker and an adventurer. I loved the foreign travel and the