Cheryl Fergison shares her excitement at hosting an event in Blackpool & why you should come

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Take a look at our exclusive interview with the Eastenders and Celebrity Big Brother star Cheryl Fergison ahead of her show in Lancashire this weekend.

Actress Cheryl Fergison, who is perhaps best known for her role as Heather Trott in Eastenders (2007-2012), is hosting an ‘Evening with’ event at the Blackpool Grand Theatre on Friday.

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The 59-year-old mum of one, who moved to the Fylde Coast eight years ago and now lives in Cleveleys with her husband and son, promises to share stories from her 35+ year career on stage and screen which will get audiences “giggling”.

Ahead of the evening - which still has some tickets remaining if you’re quick - we had an exclusive chat with the adopted Lancastrian to find out more so see what Cheryl had to say below...

'An Evening with Cheryl Fergison 'is on at the Blackpool Grand Theatre on Friday, August 23.'An Evening with Cheryl Fergison 'is on at the Blackpool Grand Theatre on Friday, August 23.
'An Evening with Cheryl Fergison 'is on at the Blackpool Grand Theatre on Friday, August 23. | submit

How are you feeling about hosting an ‘evening with’ event this weekend?

“I'm very excited to be quite honest with you, it's been a bit of a whirlwind couple of months, getting everything together because there's so much going on. I'm doing the ‘evening with’ with my son [Alex Saddiqi], he features in it and he's been doing the technicals on it; I've got my best friend for over 40 years at drama college… directing it and we're producing it all ourselves so it's a bit of a new adventure! 

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“It’s kind of scary but at the same time, it feels like coming home. This feels like what I need to be doing now and then afterwards, I need to be writing my autobiography so this is kind of little steps towards getting to a bigger goal. But it's always a bit scary doing things live, I'm not a stand up comedian in any shape or form, but I am a comedy actress… so I'm seeing how difficult it is for performers to perform comedy live. It's quite difficult, as one woman to do, but this show has [other] elements - it's got songs in it, it's got audience participation, there’s stories, there's projection slides, there's just general fun, laughter, tears, it's the whole gambit. 

“I talk about early life -and these are just snippets, because there's so much to put in, it's only a couple of hours long - drama college, theatre, television, where I am now, what I'm doing and introducing my son, who has followed not in my footsteps - he always says, alongside you mum because I can't do what he does, he can't do what I do- so, you know, we walk alongside each other. 

Cheryl and her son Alex Sadiqqi, 25, who is also an actor.Cheryl and her son Alex Sadiqqi, 25, who is also an actor.
Cheryl and her son Alex Sadiqqi, 25, who is also an actor. | submit

“He trained at LIPA in Liverpool for four years, he did his first big panto last year, and this year we're doing panto together. It's really bizarre, it just so happens that he's in the panto that I'm in, he's always done things on his own, he never tells you when he's going for auditions and he doesn't like letting people know that I'm his mum but gradually, it's getting out there.

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“He's a young gay man that came out at the age of 14 and has had a lot of adversity, his dad disowned him and we talk about that in the show and then he gives quite an inspirational speech, we sing together, and it's about hope at the end of the day. You can have all these things happen to you in life but if you surround yourself with good people and give yourself some confidence, you can become a shepherd and not a sheep, take control of things and not let other people dictate you.

“But yeah it covers a lot of a lot of stories and people coming along get to be quite nosy and find out what it's like to be someone off the telly, what's it like to be me every day, walking down the street as people shout ‘Hev! Hev! Hev! all the time.” It's the good things, the bad things and the ugly things but in real life, there are things that have happened to me, that have happened to many other people and I think if they can see somebody sharing that on a platform like I have, they can realise that it's alright to be like that, or it's okay to do this. So it's quite humbling to do this, but I’m also sort of hyper about doing it- I'm excited.”

Cheryl says she hopes people will enjoy finding out what it's like to be a person off the tellyCheryl says she hopes people will enjoy finding out what it's like to be a person off the telly
Cheryl says she hopes people will enjoy finding out what it's like to be a person off the telly | submit

If this is your first ‘evening with’ event, what prompted you to host one?

“Well, I did do one in London many years ago, and I learned from it that it was really difficult to do. At the time, I wanted to make it an experience, it was a bit like a Ken Dodd show, it went on and on for hours and hours. I had a raffle in, photo booths at the beginning, goodie bags at the end. I was trying to include all these things like a crazy woman to make it inclusive for everybody and I later realised the actual show itself is inclusive. I don't need to give them the world for them to have a great night out.

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“What I am giving them now is my stories, my time, my attention, and afterwards, we're continuing the party on. I'm going to be inviting them -I won't be paying for it mind! - to come to a restaurant that I know [Great Fortune House, owned by Cheryl’s friend Angela Lui], and we will carry on chatting away and having pictures taken. My son's also written a poetry book, so he'll be signing his book there.”

Great Fortune House in Cleveleys is owned by a good friend of Cheryl and it's where she will be hosting an afterparty!Great Fortune House in Cleveleys is owned by a good friend of Cheryl and it's where she will be hosting an afterparty!
Great Fortune House in Cleveleys is owned by a good friend of Cheryl and it's where she will be hosting an afterparty! | Google Maps

Why have you decided to do the show at the Blackpool Grand?

“The Grand Theater is one of the first theatres that I visited, I also bought shows there when I wasn't living here. I just think it's the most beautiful, beautiful venue inside. It's what I call one of the ‘old, old fashioned venues’ and there are not many of those around - with the tiered seating, beautiful paintings on the ceiling, the boxes - and these are the places we need to keep preserving.

“The Grand also has this little modern studio theatre at the back that community groups can use and people like myself who don't have to stand on stage and do it for hundreds of people there, because I'm not going to sell out an hundred person one woman show at this moment in time -hopefully next year! But it's using spaces that people don't really know much about. People are looking for tickets to see me and they go ‘where's the studio theatre’ so I have to explain where it is. It’s like a little hidden tardis and I think we need to useour little tardises more. 

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“We're also doing smaller venues because I like to have the audience almost at arm’s reach, so I'll be able to look in their eyes and think ‘oh my gosh, that story hit really well or they didn't like that one!’

“But the Grand is special to me. I love it. I'm waiting for the day that they say ‘yes, you're a patron, Cheryl’. Please because I bought the badges, got the stickers, got the t-shirt, go to the events. I'm just waiting for them to say you're an honorary Northerner now Cheryl, you can be a patron at this beautiful building.”

What sort of stories can audiences expect to hear?

“The first half tackles early life, student life -that's where the bit of audience participation comes in, which is done by sitting in their seats, they don't have to get up and do anything major, they just have to use their voices. Then it deals with my early theatre life and early television. 

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“The second half is kind of dedicated to EastEnders and in particular, there are two people that I do a tribute to, and that's Dame Barbara Windsor, and I call her Dame June Brown. It's my way of pointing out two amazing women who changed my life and I will be forever grateful for that. And there is, of course, a segment on the one and only George Michael, who was a friend of mine in real life and is sadly missed, not only by myself, but by millions of people around the world. So there's a segment about how important he was to me in my EastEnderscharacter Heather, but also to me as a person. 

Barbara Windsor (L) and June Brown (R) with the Special Award during the TRIC Awards 2017. (Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)Barbara Windsor (L) and June Brown (R) with the Special Award during the TRIC Awards 2017. (Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)
Barbara Windsor (L) and June Brown (R) with the Special Award during the TRIC Awards 2017. (Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images) | Getty Images

“And then there's a whole section with Alex in the second half, and that leads into a personal end to the show, which my son put together. We've just moved recently to Cleveleys from Warton and we went through all these photographs, and Alex hadn't seen some of them before. He asked for my permission to put a montage together and he did and he captured a story, so for the very last segment, I sing a song to this personal montage. I think out of everything, all the stories of the evening, the clips we've shown, the songs I've sung, the audience participation, it's literally the last moment that people go, ‘ah, that's Cheryl’. It ends on the total reality of ‘I'm just a person, I'm a mum, I'm a wife, I'm a dog owner and I live in Cleveleys. I thank you and good night.”

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What would you say to readers to get them to buy tickets to see you?

“I know that money is hard, I know.. [it] is difficult to make choices as to what to spend it on, we are going through a bit of a crisis financially but if you want to give yourself a laugh this year, if you want to hear some stories this year. If you want to be a little bit nosy about a celebrity who's going to be truthful this year, then I would say it's an expense [worth spending]. Just come out, have a good night out, have a couple of hours free from thinking about your own worries and maybe your own worries might be put in a little bit of perspective when you've come to see the show, and have fun and have a laugh!

“We're going to be there, not only as a group of people in a theatre, but it will be a small community there and like I said, you can come on and party with us afterwards and hear more stories, talk. I might even get the karaoke machine out at the restaurant … we might have a sing-a-long that goes on to the early hours of the morning, who knows?!

“It's certainly going to be a night, and it's the only night that it's going to happen. The other shows are just going to have the shows and I'll say ‘bye, I'm going off’, but this opening is literally going to be a grand opening. So that's it, yeah, just come along… and support live theatre, support local people and support Blackpool, Cleveleys, the surrounding areas!”

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