Steve Pratt talks to former Page 3 girl Linda Lusardi and soap star and man of musicals Sam Kane about the chance meeting which has led to marriage and a long career in pantomime

PANTOMIME won’t be such a family affair for Linda Lusardi this year. She’ll be sharing the stage with husband Sam Kane for the 15th panto season but children Lucy, 16, and Jack, 13, will be absent this time.

Usually, they appear in the show but will be back home in Hertfordshire studying.

They’ll join the showbiz couple in Darlington – where they’ll be starring in Sleeping Beauty – once the school holidays begin.

“Both are at full-time drama school,” says proud mum Lusardi.

“Jack has been up for different roles and is doing a BBC radio drama Lord Of The Flies. Lucy’s singing is just amazing. She sang at a charity event at the O2 live in front of 15,000 people. They are very talented.”

The teenagers are well aware of the drawbacks of the profession. “They know there are things you go for and don’t get. They know it’s not an easy life, but from babies they’ve been in dressing rooms and on stage. They’ve been around it all their lives and got a good education,” she says.

She and Kane first met in the panto Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs at Darlington Civic Theatre 18 years ago.

She was Snow White, he was the prince. Their roles have changed in this year’s panto Sleeping Beauty – Lusardi is playing the baddie, Carabosse, and Kane, who also directs the show, is the Henchman.

“We just became good mates and had a good laugh,” she says of their first show together. “It worked out well and we’re still happy and enjoy working together. It’s the only time of the year we get to be together solidly.”

Asked about her children, she says: “They’re both going into their teens and need to do school. In previous years they’ve been in the show. Lucy has been a fairy and last year in Wolverhampton Jack was a dwarf because they were played by children.

“I’m going to miss them desperately because I normally have one or the other in the dressing room with me.

The dog’s in there too. It’s a real family affair.”

The schedule means she and Kane will miss seeing them in their school Christmas show, although they’ll be able to watch a film of the production.

It hasn’t always been easy fitting in an acting career with raising two children.

Former glamour model Lusardi quit her role in ITV’s Yorkshire soap Emmerdale because of them, despite loving the role.

“It was very difficult because the children were quite a bit younger and leaving them every Sunday was tearful, because I was going away for the week. I did it for just over a year. Sam had commitments and was away touring and I thought life isn’t always about work.

“If it had been EastEnders we’d have been all right because it’s just up the road from where we live. But I couldn’t guarantee having the weekend off. Luckily, they didn’t kill me off, I wouldn’t mind going back. I do miss Emmerdale, it was a great show and I made some great friends.

“Getting Emmerdale was a big leap for me career-wise. I was quite sad to leave really. But if you have children, there’s no point in being away from them all the time.”

ON stage in Darlington, she’ll have plenty of interaction with youngsters in the audience.

They’ll be booing her because Lusardi has now progressed from heroine to baddie. The switch from good to evil happened by chance. Son Jack was a month old and she knew she was never going to be able to get into the tight-fitting Snow White costume.

So, the producer suggested she turn nasty as the wicked queen. Apart from one year playing Fairy Godmother, she’s been on the dark side in panto ever since.

“I like to scare them and be rude to them,” she says of her audience. “I used to make my first entrance on a big carriage and they clapped and booed and cheered – and didn’t know quite what to do. So I abused them when I got off the coach, I’m quite clear that I’m there as the baddie and give them lots of insults.”

SHE and Kane work well together in panto, hardly surprising perhaps with 15 years experience behind them. “He knows the way I like to play and if he’s happy he lets me keep on with it,” she says.

Pantomime has become an important part of their year since she made the transition from glamour modelling – after finding fame as one of the early Page 3 Girls – to acting. The switch was accidental thanks to “other people seeing things in me I didn’t see in myself”.

“I did a panto and was offered Pygmalion with Philip Madoc. I said, ‘do you think I can do it?’. It was more lines that I had ever learned in my life, but I wasn’t going to say no to anything.

I did it and got great reviews.”

Having made her name in front of the camera, she’s now turned the lens on other people and has set up a photographic business. She has her own studio and works a lot with celebrities.

The panto poster picture is one of hers – at least she set it up and daughter Lucy pressed the button.

  •  Sleeping Beauty: Darlington Civic Theatre, Dec 8-Jan 20. Box Office 01325-486555 and darlingtonarts.co.uk