Blackpool actress on returning to the Winter Gardens for hit musical
Blackpool actress Lara Denning chats to our celebrity reporter about her upcoming role in & Juilet at the Winter Gardens and her advice for young actors!
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00:00So, I can't shout hard enough that it's not about Shakespeare and it's not Shakespearean
00:15at all. Basically, my character is married to William Shakespeare, Anne Hathaway, and
00:23I turn around to William while he's writing Romeo and Juliet and I say, what if Juliet
00:28didn't die? What if she created her own thing and she became independent? And from there,
00:33chaos ensues and all these pop songs come in and we meet all these amazing characters.
00:39The show is funny, it's warm, it's modern, it's super modern, it's got amazing spectacle to it
00:45and it is not Shakespearean at all. Like, me and Matt Cardle, who's a dream to work with,
00:53me and him are not William Shakespeare or Anne Hathaway in any way that you would ever know us
00:56to be. It's a fun night out and it's very, very worth seeing because it's a brilliant
01:02night and it feels like a rock concert at the end of the show. It's brilliant.
01:10I'm so excited. So, I've already talked to the cast and I'm taking them to the Pleasure Beach.
01:14We're going to do North, South and Central Pier. I'm taking them to Notoranis, which is the ice
01:19cream place, which I think is the best ice cream in the world and my husband laughs at me because
01:24I will not have any other ice cream but Notoranis. So, when I'm in Blackpool, I just like
01:28cane it. And yeah, I'm going to take like loads of sites, take them up to Lytham and yeah, I'm
01:35just going to try and cram it all in so they can see the Blackpool that I grew up in. But they're
01:39all really excited about it. A lot of the young ones haven't been to Blackpool, so it's really
01:42exciting. Yes, for sure, for sure. I think it's going to be mad but in a good way. I think they're
01:53going to embrace us and we're going to embrace them and it's going to be it's going to be a
01:56really cool week. I'm super excited about it. Obviously, it's my hometown, but I am genuinely
02:03really excited for them to experience it as well. It's a must see if you want joy in your life and
02:13you want to come out with a feeling of nostalgia, a feeling of fun, a feeling of warmth in your
02:20heart, I guess, and you're going to have the best night of your life. And that's no that's no lie.
02:27It's it is the best night and audiences come out buzzing and we need joy in our lives. Everything's
02:33a little bit rubbish at the minute. We need the joy. And Juliet brings the joy and fun.
02:44The biggest thing I've learned is be yourself. Don't try to be anybody else.
02:47I've had icons and people that I've admired and sometimes I've tried to sort of emulate them
02:53and it's never really worked. And actually, the moment that I turn around and went, oh,
02:56I think I just probably just need to be me and come at it from my angle. So I think you just
03:02need to be yourself and need to bring what you have to the table rather than anybody else.
03:07And I, you know, I went to dance school and then I went to Fowl College, did my A-levels there
03:12and did, you know, performing arts, A-levels, BTEC and then I moved to university. That's my
03:19journey, but I know other people do different things. There's so much there's so much online
03:22now that you can use and source that I think I think is available to everybody. So everyone has
03:29their own little journey. Don't give up. That's the thing. And the big one is learn to love the
03:34word no because it happens a lot.