Norfolk


<p>Former <em>Loose Woman</em> and comedy gal Lisa Maxwell has played detective, lent her voice to Kira in <em>The Dark Crystal</em> (remember that?!), <em>The Secret Barrister</em> and Judy Garland in the UK tour of <em>Over the Rainbow</em>. Now she&#8217;s turning her hand to the baddie in <strong>Norwich Theatre Royal</strong>&#8216;s panto <em>du jour</em>,<em> <a href="https://norwichtheatre.org/whats-on/aladdin/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Aladdin</a>. </em>Muddy stole Lisa away from learning her lines to get <em>all </em>the goss on this year&#8217;s festive show stopper… and she doesn&#8217;t hold back!</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1000" height="1343" src="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/norfolk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2024/09/LISA-MAXWELL-HEADSHOT-.jpeg" alt="Lisa Maxwell" class="wp-image-57598" srcset="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/norfolk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2024/09/LISA-MAXWELL-HEADSHOT-.jpeg 1000w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/norfolk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2024/09/LISA-MAXWELL-HEADSHOT--596x800.jpeg 596w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/norfolk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2024/09/LISA-MAXWELL-HEADSHOT--745x1000.jpeg 745w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/norfolk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2024/09/LISA-MAXWELL-HEADSHOT--768x1031.jpeg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" /></figure>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-so-lisa-are-you-in-rehearsals-for-aladdin-already">So Lisa, are you in rehearsals for <em>Aladdin</em> already? </h4>



<p>Rehearsals don&#8217;t actually start until mid-November, that&#8217;s when I officially de-camp to Norwich which I&#8217;m really excited about. I love Norfolk. I don&#8217;t know it that well, but every visit has been a lovely experience. We&#8217;ve done the photoshoot for the poster already, so I&#8217;ve met Aladdin, Jasmine and Joe Tracini &#8211; who is playing <em>sooo</em> many characters it&#8217;s like he&#8217;s having an identity crisis! Everyone is up for a good laugh, which is what panto is all about, isn&#8217;t it? </p>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-it-certainly-is-a-mid-november-start-doesn-t-give-you-long-to-prepare">It certainly is! A mid-November start doesn&#8217;t give you long to prepare?</h4>



<p>No, not long at all which is why I&#8217;ve just started looking at the script! Come November, you step on that panto treadmill and you don&#8217;t get off until January. It&#8217;s absolutely relentless, but it&#8217;s so much fun.</p>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-are-you-excited-to-be-getting-back-on-stage">Are you excited to be getting back on stage?</h4>



<p>Yes I am, I turned 60 this year which has been really thought provoking, and that&#8217;s one of the reasons I decided to do panto after 25 years! This opportunity has been just perfect – playing a baddie, staying in Norwich which is a beautiful city, and embracing a new challenge to see if I&#8217;ve still got the energy levels for it. One thing I haven&#8217;t forgotten is how much hard work it is. I also love the tradition of panto, people often assume it&#8217;s just been thrown together, but it&#8217;s steeped in tradition. The baddie always enters stage left and breaking the fourth wall – it&#8217;s such a rare treat to be able to interact with your audience. Panto has everything for me and you can probably tell, I&#8217;m really excited about it. </p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1000" height="1464" src="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/norfolk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2024/10/Tarik-Lisa-1.jpg" alt="Lisa Maxwell and Tarik Frimpong" class="wp-image-57599" srcset="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/norfolk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2024/10/Tarik-Lisa-1.jpg 1000w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/norfolk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2024/10/Tarik-Lisa-1-546x800.jpg 546w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/norfolk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2024/10/Tarik-Lisa-1-683x1000.jpg 683w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/norfolk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2024/10/Tarik-Lisa-1-768x1124.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" /></figure>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-you-are-playing-the-evil-aunt-can-you-tell-us-a-bit-about-her">You are playing the Evil Aunt, can you tell us a bit about her?</h4>



<p>Yes the Evil Aunt, Professor Bellatrix Bottomborough. She&#8217;s a professor of archeology and wants to find the lamp, which is hidden in a mine that hasn&#8217;t been opened for thousands of years. She&#8217;s aspirational, a bit of a snob and doesn&#8217;t suffer fools, so she doesn&#8217;t get on with Joe Tracini&#8217;s characters. She&#8217;s got big ideas for Jasmine, her 18-year-old niece, who has ended up living with her by default. Naturally, she wants Jaz to marry somebody rich and successful, so she&#8217;s not keen on this Aladdin fella. Ultimately, she&#8217;s on a mission to get this magic lamp and become the most powerful being in the world. So that&#8217;s her. Oh, and she rides a motorbike.</p>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-a-motorbike-oh-wow-not-what-we-were-expecting">A motorbike? Oh wow, not what we were expecting?</h4>



<p>You&#8217;re telling me! I&#8217;m hoping they mean more of a moped but that&#8217;s how I&#8217;ll be making various entrances – as long it doesn&#8217;t conk out in the wings! She&#8217;ll have this biker gear that she wears as well. I think they were going for a sort Helena Bonham Carter in <em>Harry Potter</em> meets David Attenborough sort of vibe. Oh, and she sings as well, I&#8217;ve got a number halfway through which is a mash up of Shania Twain&#8217;s <em>Man! I Feel Like A Woman</em> and Madonna&#8217;s <em>Material Girl</em> which will be quite a jolly old song.</p>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-sounds-amazing-we-re-obsessed-already-you-mentioned-biker-gear-how-are-the-rest-of-the-outfits-looking">Sounds amazing, we&#8217;re obsessed already! You mentioned biker gear, how are the rest of the outfits looking? </h4>



<p>I don&#8217;t know, I haven&#8217;t seen what I&#8217;ve got yet. I like the dress I&#8217;m wearing in the poster but if I&#8217;m getting on and off a bike I can&#8217;t do that in a big, long, green frock so there&#8217;ll be some sort of biker gear for sure. As she is a professor of archeology, I&#8217;ve suggested she have little bones on a necklace or something which is more for me really &#8211; I like a bit of detail.</p>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-will-bellatrix-have-a-norfolk-accent">Will Bellatrix have a Norfolk accent?</h4>



<p>No way I&#8217;m not going anywhere near that! I think the Norfolk accent is one of the hardest accents to do, it&#8217;s so complex, and I don&#8217;t want to get it wrong and just sound like a country yokel so Bellatrix is going to be too posh and stuck up to have adapted the Norfolk accent. </p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1000" height="1226" src="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/norfolk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2024/10/Owen-Joe-1.jpg" alt="Joe Tracini and Owen Evans" class="wp-image-57761" srcset="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/norfolk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2024/10/Owen-Joe-1.jpg 1000w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/norfolk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2024/10/Owen-Joe-1-653x800.jpg 653w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/norfolk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2024/10/Owen-Joe-1-816x1000.jpg 816w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/norfolk/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2024/10/Owen-Joe-1-768x942.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" /></figure>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-has-it-been-working-with-funny-men-joe-tracini-and-owen-evans-any-funny-backstage-antics-yet">How has it been working with <strong>funny men Joe Tracini and Owen Evans? Any funny backstage antics yet? </strong></h4>



<p>We&#8217;ve only spent the day together so far when we were doing the photo shoot, but we had a really fun day. I was with Joe mostly and there was plenty of banter, we bounce off each other really well which felt natural. He&#8217;s such a lovely guy –I don&#8217;t need to tell a Norfolk audience that, you&#8217;ve seen him on stage plenty of times! His dad is actually an old mate of mine, I know Joe Pasquale from doing the<em> Les Dennis Laughter Show</em> and various other things, but I&#8217;m looking forward to getting to know Little Joe. I haven&#8217;t spent that much time with Owen yet but let me tell you, he&#8217;s put together some fabulous frocks!</p>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-which-do-you-prefer-serious-acting-of-the-bill-or-the-silliness-of-panto-nbsp">Which do you prefer: serious acting of <em>The Bill</em> or the silliness of panto?&nbsp;</h4>



<p>It&#8217;s a bit strange to say, but to me they&#8217;re the same thing. When you&#8217;re acting and you&#8217;re trying to be truthful and make people believe in your character and what you&#8217;re saying it&#8217;s no different whether you&#8217;re saying funny things or unfunny things. What I really love is being in front of a live audience and getting a reaction whether it&#8217;s a laugh, a cry, a hiss – it&#8217;s such a fantastic feeling.</p>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-do-you-have-a-pre-show-routine"><strong>Do you have a pre-show routine?</strong></h4>



<p>I always get into the theatre early because I don&#8217;t like to rush. I like to put on a bit of makeup, have a wee, check my phone, put on a bit more makeup, stick on a wig and then I&#8217;ll do my vocal exercises which really get my head in the game. I always do a vocal warm up, even if I&#8217;m not singing. I&#8217;ve got a voice memo from an old teacher which involves a number of different phrases said in different ways to help strengthen my voice. They make me sound a bit crazy, one of them is saying <em>&#8220;why have you stolen my ice cream?&#8221;</em> in like a high-pitched yodel. </p>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-is-there-anything-you-re-looking-forward-to-doing-while-you-re-in-norfolk">Is there anything you&#8217;re looking forward to doing while you&#8217;re in Norfolk?</h4>



<p>I definitely want to go to one of the beaches on New Year&#8217;s Day. I live right in the Gloucestershire countryside, and I normally try and have a nice walk somewhere on New Year&#8217;s Day so that&#8217;s what I&#8217;m looking forward to, a New Year&#8217;s Day walking on those gorgeous Norfolk beaches.</p>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-will-you-be-spending-your-christmas"><strong>How will you be spending your Christmas?</strong></h4>



<p>I&#8217;m relying on the trains on Christmas Eve to get me back to London where I&#8217;ll be staying with my daughter for the night. Then on Christmas Day we&#8217;re going to meet my husband, our mums, my auntie and uncle, cousins and their kids in Beaconsfield before coming back to Norwich to finish up the panto run. I won&#8217;t be going back home to Gloucestershire until it&#8217;s finished.</p>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-do-you-spend-your-downtime-when-you-re-not-on-stage-or-preparing-for-a-role"><strong>How do you spend your downtime when you&#8217;re not on stage or preparing for a role?</strong></h4>



<p>I absolutely adore dogs, I have three of them and love walking them in the countryside. I am actually a patron for the <a href="https://cotswoldsdogsandcatshome.org.uk" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Cotswolds Dogs and Cats Home</a> so I do quite a bit for them. I love gardening, I&#8217;m a bit of a slave to mine. I can&#8217;t leave the house without seeing something that needs to be done &#8211; and doing it! I&#8217;m also an ambassador for <a href="https://centrepoint.org.uk" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Centrepoint</a> which is the UK&#8217;s leading youth homelessness charity, so I often work with them. At the moment I am coaching two young people, who have been supported by the charity, with their public speaking which is incredibly rewarding. Prince William is actually the patron of Centrepoint, he&#8217;s such a lovely guy, so you never know, there could be some royalty in the audience at some point!</p>



<p><em>You can catch Lisa (and maybe Wills) at the <strong>Norwich Theatre Royal</strong> from <strong>Sat 7 Dec – Sun 5 Jan</strong> in <a href="https://norwichtheatre.org/whats-on/aladdin/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Aladdin</a></em>.</p>



<p></p>


She’s behind you! Muddy meets panto villain, Lisa Maxwell

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