Viv Hardwick finds out that new Darlington Civic Theatre signer Faye Alvi is a woman on a mission when it comes to ensuring the deaf have a great show.

ALL eyes may not be on the Darlingon Civic Theatre actors when Faye Alvi does the signing, or sign language enhanced, performance of touring comedy Calendar Girls in May, because the Geordie is expecting a baby early in June and admits that this is one occasion when too much laughter might have her saying “ring an ambulance”.

“I’m pregnant at the moment and I’m going to be massive by the time I go to this one. Luckily, I’m over the sickness stage but nothing fazes me even when it comes to ladies stripping off on stage. When you’ve grown up in the deaf community – both my parents are deaf – so you just can’t be embarrassed about anything.

“Sign language is a very confident language so I don’t worry about anything.

Facial expressions are also very much part of the language and I use them to help with inflexions and songs especially to help getting the feelings across,” she says.

Her stage debut came on Friday and Saturday last week for Peter Pan having attended an earlier performance to plan out her own presentation for the benefit of a deaf and hearing challenged group from Middlesbrough.

“One of my colleagues, Tony Beckett, had been interpreting at the Civic for years but he’s decided to stick with his local area and he’s doing the Sunderland Empire this year.

“He asked me if I’d step into his shoes, so that’s how I ended up doing this,” says Alvi, who has been signing from an early age because both her parents are deaf. In one way she is achieving a dream of performing on stage, having studied Musical Theatre at Newcastle College of Performing Arts.

“I started off wanting to go into the acting profession and then I trained to be an interpreter and after I qualified I thought the theatrical side of the job was something I wanted to specialise in. So I’m really just starting off. I’ve done two pantomimes already at Middlesbrough.”

So how does she feel about being on stage doing what can only be described, for the majority of on-lookers, as a jumble of hand movements and strange expressions.

She laughs and says: “I love the challenge of it. It’s a very creative thing to do with it being such a visual language and you can express yourself more visually and you can be a lot freer with your sign language as opposed to the normal community work. You’ve got to be big artistic with the script as well but sometimes you find it quite a challenge to sign for the songs so sometimes it has to be a bit of Sign Supported English.

It’s such a fun thing to do really.”

Alvi agrees that you can’t please the whole deaf community with sign language especially when it involves interpreting on stage.

“I suppose you are being judged in a way you’ve got the deaf community who are strong British Sign Language users but there are various forms of communication and you make your choice. There are regional variations even between Newcastle and Darlington and that can be tough. Luckily it’s mainly things like numbers.”

So how does she cope in the world of panto which isn’t as carefully scripted as most shows and can be different every night?

“I suppose you just have to expect that things do go wrong and things can be improvised and some of the characters do start to interact with me which is a surprise. But you just have to make it look like part of the plan. I had a show in Middlesbrough where one of the comics asked if it was okay to get me to do words like poo and diarrhea and I said ‘yes, of course, that’s my job’.”

Alvi does enjoy seeing the faces of deaf youngsters light up engage with the rest of the audience.

Normally the deaf group are near the front which allows them to see Alvi’s interpretation more clearly.

“I’ll probably be standing stage left and it is like my ambitions are coming full circle and going back to where I started. The hardest things to do are actually jokes or puns because they don’t tend to translate well. And you tend to find a lot of them in panto because there is always that thinking time involved for the interpreter,” says Alvi who is aware that hearing members of the audience end up watching her more than the show. “People mention that they find it fascinating particularly if its the first time they’ve ever seen it and sometimes it gives them an incentive to learn,” says Alvi who will also be seen, if not really heard, during a tour of Horrible Histories at Darlington Civic during the week of March 8-12.

■ Peter Pan runs until January 16 and Calendar Girls is May 16-21.

Box Office: 01325-486-555 darlingtonarts.co.uk