Three cheers for Chico (From The Northern Echo)

Three cheers for Chico

11:14am Thursday 26th November 2009

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Pantomime stardom, Christmas with Eddie Stobart and a son expected in 2010. Chico Slimani tells Viv Hardwick of his treble joy.

HE’S about to become a father for the second time, is really looking forward to his three-year-old daughter watching him in pantomime for the first time and wants to spend the next six weeks enjoying the North-East... Chico time, it seems, has arrived in Darlington offering more wishes than a magical lamp.

The man himself sits amiably in the bar of Darlington Rugby Club answering all questions on his first day of rehearsals for the title role of Aladdin.

“For me the last couple of months have been insane because I was in South Africa for my charity, the Rainbow Child Foundation, and we opened up a well over there. It was an incredible experience. Luckily, travelling all over the place gave me time to learn my lines and now we’re here to make them become reality,” he says.

The man born Yousseph Slimani somehow managed to reach the finals of the 2005 X Factor contest despite Simon Cowell walking out in disgust during his audition in the early rounds.

He changed his show-off style and won over Cowell, but eventually lost out to Shayne Ward.

Now he’s keen to stay in the North throughout Christmas and won’t even be returning south on the big day itself, and his one day off from performing in pantomime.

“I’m hoping that my wife, Daniyela, and beautiful daughter, Lalla-Khira, will be coming to stay with me. She’s gonna love seeing me in pantomime.

And I’m also going to be a dad again and I’m absolutely ecstatic. The baby is due in the first week in March and we’ve been told it’s going to be a little boy… a mini-me which I’ve been praying for. I’ve picked out the name Zachariah, the father of John the Baptist, because my wife heard the name in a dream. He’ll be called Zac of course. I feel blessed to be given such an amazing family.

“I’m staying in a house up here rather than a hotel so my family can stay as long as they want. On Christmas Day, because I’m not far from Carlisle where my friend Eddie Stobart (the haulage company boss) lives, I will be going to spend Christmas with him. I’d love to be with my family but it would take too long because it’ll take eight hours to go home and get back. So I’ll be spending the day with my other family, the Stobarts,” he says.

Chico’s friendship with the Stobarts started when he performed at a charity fund-raiser for them and refused to accept a fee.

“Obviously they are very wealthy people and most people would expect money from them but I said ‘if it’s for charity, don’t pay me’ and I hit it off with the family. Then they financed my single (in 2007) Curvy Cola Bottle Body Baby because they believed in me and gave me an obscene amount of money.

I was astounded by their generosity because they are the nicest rich people I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting,”

he says of his song which supported the eating disorder charity BEAT (beating eating disorders).

Asked about the demands on his time, Chico says: “I love it because my job is all about bringing a smile to someone’s face and I can’t think of a better gift than making someone smile.”

His 2006 No 1, It’s Chico Time, is high on the list of songs that the Bridgendborn 38-year-old, who has Moroccan parents, wants to perform in front of Darlington Civic Theatre audiences.

He also has to cope with the mischief-making of his co-stars, The Grumbleweeds, Robin Colvill and Graham Walker, who have already sneaked a thong into his first costume call and persuaded him to wear it over this tights.

“We’ve been working on the script and updating some of the jokes so everything is funnier and adding to the original. I don’t want to keep The Grumbleweeds under control, I want to let them loose and say ‘go and get them’. Control is not fun. I would say I’d like to see them have controlled uncontrollability.

“I’m supposed to be the hero but I couldn’t get serious if I tried and the words of my song say ‘you can get delirious, if you get too serious’. The great thing about Aladdin is that it talks to the child within. My character has childlike mannerisms and that’s what I’m going to play on and I will add a few funny bits in there,” says the singer, who reckons that Chico-time in Darlington is going to involve a few visits to the town’s Dolphin Centre gym.

The one wish he didn’t get was to sing at last week’s Christmas lights switch-on in Darlington’s Market Square. “It was fantastic and an incredible turn-out, but my only disappointment was that I didn’t get to sing. I told everyone that I was going to burn a CD and come back out but by the time I’d burnt it and come back out everyone had disappeared. I was gutted.”

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