Children’s TV presenter Katy Ashworth tells Steve Pratt why she’s looking forward to a highflying stunt with her title role in Peter Pan

CBEEBIES presenter Katy Ashworth will reach new heights when she plays the title role in Peter Pan, which marks the return of pantomime to Sunderland Empire. As the boy who never grew up, you’d expect her to fly about the stage. Ashworth will be doing that, but she’ll also be venturing further than she has done on the previous two occasions she’s played Peter Pan.

“Something I am really looking forward to is flying into the auditorium, which I haven’t done before. I’ll be landing in the upper circle,” she reveals.

Usually the children’s favourite keeps her feet on the ground. She’s best known for presenting one of the highest-rated shows on CBeebies, I Can Cook. She’s also one of the Bafta awardwinning channel’s regular presenters. She has a degree in drama, has trained in commedia dell’arte in Italy and is an accomplished actress and singer. “It’s going to be awesome flying. This is my third time as Peter Pan, I know him well,” she says.

“What I do on CBeebies is play a big kid anyway.

So Peter is Katy as a kid, but a little bit more boyish. I knew a little boy just like him growing up in the countryside. He was just like Peter Pan.”

She also remembers standing on a wall in the back garden as a child and trying to fly. She’ll have plenty of professional technical help to achieve that In Sunderland.

Playing Peter Pan wasn’t a particular ambition.

“It keeps falling in my lap,” she says. This year – her first for UK Productions – will be a very different production in a much bigger theatre than she’s played previously. “It feels like a real panto, a proper big panto with a spectacular cast,” she says.

Growing up in North Hampshire, Ashworth was taken to panto in Woking where she recalls it seemed as if Lenny Henry was in it every year.

“I used to love it and my nan said, ‘that will be you up there one day’.”

She’s taking a month off CBeebies to do panto and will then go travelling to Australia and New Zealand. “I lived in Australia for a while when I was about 19, in a little village called Rainbow Beach. I’m going back to see my friends and my partner lives in Australia, so I’m going to see him,” she says.

The I Can Cook series is filmed in one batch, usually during the summer, and she’s on presenting duty the rest of the year. “It’s an incredibly rewarding job, but it’s very tiring and it’s important to rest. You really do need that down-time.”

With two shows most days, Peter Pan won’t be much of a holiday, but she’s happy to be renting “the cosiest house” just a few minutes walk from the theatre. Sunderland and the North-East isn’t an area with which she’s familiar.

“It’s completely alien to me, although I have done a few shows up here. We film the CBeebies shows in Manchester. It’s so friendly up here. I’ve already been blown away by how friendly it is,” says Ashworth.

SHE got into children’s television by chance. She was finishing her drama degree, and planning on going to mime school in France, when she happened to see an advertisement in The Stage newspaper for CBeebies presenters.

“My forte was being a children’s entertainer, which I’d been doing for years, so I made a little showreel and sent that in. I had a giggle making it and didn’t really think about it that much.

But I got the job.

“My motto in life has always been just do it.”

She has some exciting new projects in the pipeline for 2013. “I love new challenges,” she says.

So what’s the biggest challenge about playing Peter Pan this time? “Singing and defying gravity while flying, “ she replies

  • Peter Pan : Sunderland Empire, Dec 13-Jan 6. Box Office: 0844-871-3022 and atgtickets.com/Sunderland