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Diana Vickers on embodying Gwyneth Paltrow on stage: ‘Maybe I’ll burn a Goop candle and get my dressing room smelling like a vagina’

Claire Sawers caught up with a talented trio of  Fringe performers to find out the pros and pitfalls of portraying a living, breathing person

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Diana Vickers on embodying Gwyneth Paltrow on stage: ‘Maybe I’ll burn a Goop candle and get my dressing room smelling like a vagina’

No, Emma Sidi assures me, she did not have a crystal ball when she wrote a show about former civil servant Sue Gray. Character comedian Sidi had zero clue that a UK general election would be called for July, let alone that Labour would win. We’re chatting the morning that the election results are breaking. Gray is now chief of staff to the new Prime Minister; and suddenly Emma Sidi Is Sue Gray has added appeal. Gray isn’t the only person in the spotlight getting the Fringe treatment this year: alongside homages to Joan of Arc, Kurt Cobain and Frank Sinatra, look out for shows about still-living famous folks too, including Donald Trump, Dolly Parton and the drummer from Slade. 

Emma Sidi as Sue Gray / Picture: Matt Stronge 

Sidi, who performed in Steve Coogan’s Alan Partridge Live: STRATAGEM and will appear in the new Taskmaster, thought there was something inherently funny about Sue Gray, the enigmatic woman who found herself at the heart of British politics after conducting the Partygate investigation that helped oust Boris Johnson. 

‘She has this boring name, yet her career trajectory is bizarrely exciting,’ says Sidi. ‘My character is a loveable hun, a basic bitch who knows what’s bollocks and calls it out. But she’s also a heart-over-head person, a hopeless romantic, overly taken in by charisma.’ Sidi is very inspired by Steve Coogan’s writing and acting process and just spent the week filming Channel 4 drama Brian And Margaret with him. ‘He acts from the inside out, which is why he is so good at both drama and comedy. It has to ring true. He’d try eight versions of a joke before settling on a punchline. He’d say, “Alan wouldn’t say that”. He makes these fully formed characters that don’t exist.’ 

Sidi’s portrayal of Gray will not be an impersonation; it’s a satirised invention that she thinks Gray would approve of. ‘She’s like the office colleague you’ve known for years; followed all their ups and downs, their awkward romantic and sexual trysts. When Sue reminisces about Rishi Sunak, it reminds me of pointless ex-boyfriends I’ve had.’ 

An imagined scene where Gray finds it enchanting as Sunak pretends to make an office stapler talk will be safe from any libel claims too. ‘UK parody law is amazing. We have a fantastic, democratic set-up here: it’s why Spitting Image or Dead Ringers could exist,’ says Sidi. 

Adam Riches as Jimmy Connors

Over at Summerhall, Adam Riches will be darting about a court playing Jimmy Connors, the American former tennis number one. The comedian is making the shift into theatre with Jimmy, his one-man show about Connors, ‘raised by women to conquer men’. 

‘People like him fascinate me,’ says Riches, who watched an ESPN documentary about the sportsman and became drawn in by the story of an overbearing mother, ageing champion and historic comeback. ‘He’s a really unlikeable guy; crude, aggressive, fanatically competitive. His mother and grandma created this weapon, full of anger. He brought this fire to the court. But watching him struggle, feel humiliated, that’s when we can identify with him. I can’t play tennis but I know what it’s like to die onstage. To not feel simpatico with industry politics. There are chimes I could find in my life.’

Riches has famously lampooned Sean Bean and Daniel Day-Lewis in the past, but says this role is less about an exaggerated, comedic performance. ‘In a dramatic setting there is more responsibility to have some accuracy. But also the play is speculation based on my thoughts, my readings. My body shape isn’t the same, I’m taller, he’s stockier, so I have to adjust my physicality to stand more like him, more hunched. I think my version of his accent is respectable. It’s a challenge to keep all the plates spinning. I’m not an impressionist. I zero in more on his tough-ass attitude.’ 

Diana Vickers as Gwyneth Paltrow

Diana Vickers is choosing to put her own stamp on her portrayal of Gwyneth Paltrow in the musical, I Wish You Well, based on the A-list actor’s infamous court trial about a skiing accident (Awkward Productions are bringing their queer drag musical about the same trial to the Fringe, over at the Pleasance). Vickers found fame on X-Factor before starring in a West End version of The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice, where she impersonated Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garland. To prepare for playing the actor-turned-businesswoman, Vickers watched a lot of YouTube court footage and analysed Paltrow’s mannerisms. ‘She’s very minimal. Quite a smug smile, very slow and considered. She looks calm, confident and a bit exasperated, like “Why are we all here? This is ridiculous”. I speak with my hands! She keeps them in her lap. My energy is more manic. Maybe I’ll have to meditate before I go onstage. Burn a Goop candle and get my dressing room smelling like a vagina.’

With choreography by dance legend and former Strictly Come Dancing judge Arlene Philips and big singing numbers, Vickers is hoping the show will draw in her LGBTQIA+ fans. ‘The show is a big camp farce, so it’s silly and satire, me tarting about with my gay followers!’ She’d love for it to transfer to London after Edinburgh, and even New York, where she thinks it would go down well. As for celeb takes, Vickers is tickled at the thought of a Fringe show about herself one day (‘The Rise And Rise Of Diana Vickers, Please, Not The Fall!,’ she jokes). 

The singer has had her own tribute acts too; she loved it when she was sent up by drag act Bailey J Mills after her X-Factor fame. ‘I absolutely adore Bailey. I find them absolutely hilarious. Obsessed. We chat all the time now. They had the backcombed hair; they made it so ridiculous and funny.’ Reflecting on that period in her life, Vickers recalls: ‘I had the concealer on my lips; I was a caricature of myself. It was real hun culture, it was 2008. Now we all look back on that time and laugh.’

Emma Sidi Is Sue Gray, Pleasance Courtyard, 31 July–25 August, 4.15pm; Jimmy, Summerhall, 1–26 August, 9.30pm; I Wish You Well: The Gwyneth Paltrow Ski-Trial Musical, Underbelly George Square, 31 July–26 August, 5.45pm.

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