Saturday 23 January 2010 | Theatre feed

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Sheridan Smith: a West End star is born

Sheridan Smith talks about her leap from TV to the new hit stage musical 'Legally Blonde’ .

 

Legally Blonde: The Musical, like the Hollywood film, tells the story of an apparently ditsy blonde who surprises everyone with her talents, overturning prejudice along the way, and ends the piece universally beloved by friend and foe alike.

Down at the Savoy Theatre, life’s doing an impressive job of imitating art right now. Sheridan Smith is an actress best known for playing Janet, a pert “chav” (Smith’s word) in Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, the BBC Three comedy series whose remarkable longevity (eight series) perpetually confounds those critics who harbour the hope that the public might embrace better than fart and vomit jokes in their quest for entertainment. One simply called it, “the worst programme on television”.

It looked, then, like Smith’s taking on the role of Legally Blonde’s heroine Elle Woods, on stage practically throughout and with 18 numbers to belt out, was several steps too far for her. Or, as Sheridan herself succinctly puts it, “It would be like, 'Oh that girl off Two Pints is trying to do singing and dancing ’” But in the event that’s not quite how the reviews of her performance in the show, which opened a week ago, have run. Rather, a star’s been born. “The chief glory of the show is Sheridan Smith as Elle,” wrote Charles Spencer in this paper, “blessed with vitality, warmth, great comic timing and sudden moments of touching vulnerability. She is infinitely more likeable than Reece Witherspoon in the film.” Most other critics have been in a chorus of agreement, finding Smith a delight even when occasionally taking issue with the faux feminism of the story of a girl who goes to Harvard Law School purely so she can get back her high-school sweetheart, becomes a hotshot lawyer in the process but still predicates her identity on wearing pink.

Smith in the flesh, when we meet in her dressing room, is bubbly, artless, pretty and utterly endearing. Very like Elle in fact, without the bad taste.

I’ve barely waded through the congratulatory bouqets (all pink) at the doorway when I’m greeted by a hug and assiduous attempts to make me comfortable.

Smith, 28, declares herself “gob-smacked” by the reviews. “I’d set myself up that [the critics] might hate it, think it's all a bit of fluff,” she says.

“And I thought to myself, 'Well, all I can do is my best. The audience are loving it. I’m loving it. So the fact that the critics then enjoyed it, it’s just the icing on the cake really.” Every performance Smith is getting a standing ovation - she’s doing all 8 a week. Every performance the few sceptics scattered among the fuchsia-clad hen parties - Legally Blonde had taken £2 million at the box office before it even opened - are being won round by her charm. The Savoy Theatre has had to build a new temporary entrance to contain the fans with whom Smith spends an hour signing autographs every night.

“I keep looking behind me wondering who are they screaming at,” says Smith, with a trademark hearty guffaw. “It’s lovely: they’re all young girls. It’s nice they look up to me, though I think, ’Don’t! I’m the last person you should be looking up to [hoots with laughter again].’” What would she say to those detractors who say the show’s not quite the barnstorming piece of political correctness it could be? “People can get really deep and think about it too much but to be honest it’s two and a half hours away from the freezing cold. It’s the credit crunch.

“It’s the show people need. It’s not Chekhov; it’s not hard. It’s got a sweet message about not judging people too much and being true to yourself.

That may not be life changing message but people are going away happy and that’s enough.” Of course, Smith didn’t really spring from the booze-sodden, grubby Two Pints sofa a fully formed stage actress, although she does have no formal training.

Back in 1999, at the tender age of 17, two broadsheet newspapers earmarked her as a future star simply on the merits of her first professional role, in the Donmar Warehouse’s production of Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods.

She’d got that off the back of her performance in a National Youth Music Theatre production of Bugsy Malone, which had given her enough of the acting bug for her to leave her Yorkshire village and parents, a country-music duo, for a flat in the big smoke and an agent.

A slew of parts in sitcoms followed, including BBC One’s The Royle Family, BBC Three’s Grownups (written especially for Smith), ITV1’s Benidorm (most recently) as well as Two Pints. She has also become Alan Davies’s new assistant in BBC One murder mystery drama Johnathan Creek (she’s in an upcoming Easter special). And then there was her volatile relationship, much trawled over by the tabloids, with Gavin and Stacey’s James Corden (she also played his sister). They split up seven months ago (there’s no replacement) and it’s amicable now - “he called me yesterday; he’s coming to see the show.” But all that said, Elle Woods is certainly Smith's breakthrough moment. “All I wanted as a child was to be on the West End. This is my dream part.” She’s a dog lover, owning three, and Legally Blonde even features two live dogs - “as if this job couldn’t get any better!” She’s says she’s taken each of the five Chihuahuas trained to play Elle’s pet Bruiser home for a night to bond with them.

Does Hollywood beckon now she’s cracked the West End? Smith widens her eyes, and laughs the hardest yet. “Would I like to go to America? I don’t know if it isn’t all tits and teeth. They’re all so beautiful over there.

“But no, all I’m thinking about is doing this run as best I can. I’m signed up until October. Every job I think, ’Oh my god I’ll get found out soon and never work again.’ So, no, I'm not thinking beyond this.” Perhaps, though, she should be.

 
 
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