Jodie's ready to whip crack away

Jodie Prenger shot to fame as the winner of I’d Do Anything on BBC TV, giving her the opportunity to play Nancy in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s West End revival of Oliver! Now she’s Calamity Jane at The Watermill... wearing buckskins and feeling like a kid again, she tells TRISH LEE
CALAMITY Jane – sassy, hard-drinking, bawdy-tongued, tobacco-chewing Rowdy Woman of the West, very firm in her opinions and handy with a gun...
How much of that is Lancashire lass Jodie Prenger? I didn’t even get to finish...
“That’s me. Yeah, take out the tobacco – that’s pretty much me,” says the fun-loving Jodie Prenger between rehearsals at the Watermill last week.
“There’s a great quote from the original Calamity Jane: ‘I figure if a girl wants to be a legend she should just go ahead and be one’.
“That’s original girl power, isn’t it?”
So this sounds just about the perfect part for Jodie.
“The real Calamity (19th century US frontiers-woman Martha Jane Cannary), was warm and caring, always taking people under her wing. She’s a brilliant character to play – I can’t wait for the opening.”
“The show’s full of beautiful music – The Deadwood Stage, Just Blew in from the Windy City... Secret Love has always been one of my all-time favourite songs, I grew up with it.”
The musical will be performed by actor/musicians on which the Watermill has built a mighty fine reputation, so what does Jodie play?
“I’ve not much chance to play anything because I’m always talking! But I do get to play the spoons... there’s one to add to the cv.
“But believe me, if I could talk and sing and play saxophone at the same time, I would.”
You had lasso lessons with whip cracking expert Alex Laredo?
“Yeah, it was brilliant, he’s been in all the films – I had to learn to crack a whip and Tom Lister who plays Wild Bill Hickok (the lawman and gambler who dated Calamity Jane), has to throw a lasso.
“It was great fun, we had a great laugh, the two of us and Alex outside on the lawn here – we took to it like ducks to water – a bit scary that. ” Another skill to add to the cv.
Jodie’s big break came in 2008 with I’d Do Anything, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s TV search for talent for the roles of Nancy, and three youthful protégés to play orphaned urchin Oliver in the Cameron Mackintosh West End production Oliver! The winner of the viewers’ vote, Jodie went on to star in the role at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, for 16 months.
“But it was the kids that were the real stars of the show.”
It’s been full-on ever since for the hometown girl from Poulton Le Fylde, near Blackpool – on stage in a run in the ensemble of Les Misérables to gain some West End experience for Oliver!; Lady of the Lake in the UK tour of Spamalot; One Man, Two Guvnors at the Haymarket, London; and on our television screens in guest appearances as a panellist, on the National Lottery draw, Let’s Dance for Comic Relief and Waterloo Road and sitting in for Paul O’Grady on his BBC Radio 2 show. And now the Watermill.
“I’ve enjoyed everything – it’s all been a lot of fun – and I’m happy as long as I can keep my dogs in chewsticks.”
Her Yorkies are known to be among the five things she can’t live without.
It’s a sunny day in the Watermill garden. “It’s beautiful here. A real home-from-home. We’re like one big family.
“It’s brilliant working with these wonderful creative people, singing all these beautiful songs.
“It doesn’t feel like a bit like work when you get to dress up in buckskins. I feel like a kid again.
Calamity Jane opens on Thursday at The Watermill, Bagnor, and runs to September 6, before going on a year-long UK tour.
Visit www.watermill.org.uk