The Guide speaks to comedian Jenny Eclair
Sally Stevens • Published 6 Nov 2012 09:30
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Chatting to Jenny Eclair is just like having a laugh with one of your best mates. You can bring up any subject and you've got experiences in common, from organising your home and family around a busy career, the emotional crosstide of children leaving the nest, coping with the stress of Christmas and what we like to watch on telly.
Translating this into a one-woman show might seem effortless to her audiences up and down the country but it has taken a lot of work.
The material Eclair first tried out at the Firestation Arts Centre in Windsor in early October is very different to the show audiences at the Newbury Corn Exchange on November 9 and Norden Farm, Maidenhead on November 29 will see.
In between shows, having coffee with her 23-year-old daughter and helping her pack up ready to move into her first proper flat, Eclair told The Guide: "I have completely rewritten the first half of the first half. I was experimenting with stuff that didn't quite take off. What's shocking is when you have stuff that you have quite a lot of faith in really refuses to make it off the page. It's really only now, 10 or 11 shows into the tour, that I've got the shape of this show.
"There's a lot of family content, a lot about my mother and the old man (partner Geoff) and a bit of the girl (daughter Phoebe)."
Eclair won over new fans to add to her comedy circuit and Radio 4 following when she appeared in TV jungle challenge I'm A Celebrity in 2010. Her audiences are mostly women around about her age or similar but increasingly more of their husbands are coming along and she gets a real kick out of seeing a gran, mum and teenaged daughter sitting together chuckling at the same jokes.
She says: "Men come in looking a bit tentative I always think they are the designated drivers and six minutes in you've got them, i know when the men start laughing that we're really flying."
Tickets for Newbury cost £15 from www.cornexchangenew.com or call 01635 582666. For Norden Farm, tickets cost £17.50 from nordenfarm.org or call 01628 788997Show suitable for over 16s
This article appeared in Bracknell News 06 Nov 12
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