Total Calamity

'OH, I’ve been a right Calamity,” says Jodie Prenger, the Blackpool-born singer who won the right to play Nancy in a London West End revival of Lionel Bart’s musical Oliver! in the BBC’s talent show I’d Do Anything. She’s explaining about her off-stage antics during a break from touring another musical Calamity Jane – home improvements involving a new roof and a lot of plasterboard.

Now after a few days refreshing the production in which she plays the buckskin-clad, sharp-shooting frontierswoman, she’s back on the road for the second leg of a five-month tour which brings the show to York, Sunderland and Darlington in coming months. “It’s a beautiful piece to take out. It’s fun. I’ve never done anything like it,” she enthuses. “We’re playing beautiful little boutique theatres and big touring theatres. On this leg we’re taking the show to the North. I love playing the North.”

When she spoke she was fresh from appearing on ITV’s Lorraine morning show and repeats what she told Ms Kelly – that people come to the production and don’t realise they’re going to have a starring role. “Audiences are joining in. I’ve never been part of a show like this, not even One Man Two Guvnors or even Oliver! It’s such a family show, such a warm piece and everyone knows it already. You can tell that by the way people join in the songs.

“In Oliver! we didn’t get people joining in as much as in Calamity Jane. They start clapping along with the Deadwood Stage as soon as you start. In Edinburgh they were literally dancing in the aisles. It’s unreal.”

Even wearing Calamity Jane’s trademark buckskins on stage doesn’t put her off. The costume’s comfortable and beats any other she’s worn in the past. The outfits are “a dream” and “what’s more I get to go blonde”. Prenger is clearly someone who enjoys her work. She’s also someone who worked hard to get where she is now, playing the cabaret circuit and cruise ships on the way up as well as winning ITV’s dieting show The Biggest Loser, although she decided she’d gone too far with her new slim-line body and that women should have curves.

She knew a certain amount about the real Calamity Jane – Martha Jane Canary or Cannary – before starring in the stage musical. “I knew she was an icon, a legend. I did research her, read her diaries and found out about the era. She was the original girl power, but if you read through her diaries you get a glimmer of a warm heart,” says Prenger.

“Most Northern women are like that. I liked the original Calamity – apart from the smoking and doing the alcohol. The film was written for Doris Day, who I absolutely adore, and just following in her footsteps was immensely daunting.

“I grew up watching the film and it’s such a delight to sing Secret Love, Windy City and Deadwood Stage. There are three or four songs in the stage version that were never in the film which is a great shame because they’re brilliant numbers.”

The production, directed by Nikolai Foster, uses actor-musicians in the cast on stage rather than musicians in the orchestra pit. Prenger gets to play the spoons, ukulele and “tinkle the ivories” as she puts it. “There’s no stopping me. I’ll be doing a concert tour, starting on the South Bank in London and just playing arenas”.

Day, now in her nineties, keeps out of the spotlight – concentrating on her work as an animal rights activist. “I’d love to write to her because she’s done what I dream of doing and that’s open an animal sanctuary,” says Prenger.

She has, I point out, worked with a famous canine performer – Britain’s Got Talent winner Pudsey. They did pantomime together in Manchester the other year. “When I did that, and certainly when we auditioned dogs to play Toto, in The Wizard Of Oz, I wanted to take them all home. Chickens, dogs, parrots, tortoise … I’ve got them all. I’m a bit of a crazy animal person.”

She’s happy to tour, the only downside being “lugging around suitcases” but seeing new places and taking a show to people who can’t get to the West End are positives. Being a friendly Northern lass, she enjoys meeting people who’ve come to see the show, sometimes spending as much as an hour talking to audience members who wait outside the stage door afterwards.

She can’t reveal too much about what’s on the cards after Calamity Jane. “We’re in talks about a couple of things, but there’s definitely another musical on the horizon. That’s all I can say.”

Her work in the six years since winning I’d Do Anything and starred in Oliver! alongside Rowan Atkinson’s Fagin has included appearances in Monty Python’s Spamalot and the National Theatre’s production of the comedy One Man Two Guvnors. “I thought I would do Oliver! and it would stop,” she says of how she viewed her career prospects. “I never thought everything that’s happened would happen. I still can’t thank enough whoever voted for me on the show because it’s given me the chance of doing everything.”

Calamity Jane on tour

York Grand Opera House, Feb 10-14. Box office: 0844-8713024 and atgtickets.com/york

Sunderland Empire, March 3-7. 0844-8713022 and atgtickets.com/sunderland

Darlington Civic, May 12-16. 01325-486555 and darlingtoncivic.co.uk