Singer Katherine Jenkins bagged herself a huge job for her first acting role – the Doctor Who Christmas special. Nathan Bevan talks nerves, high notes and backstage riders with the diva
KATHERINE Jenkins is telling me of something very strange which happened on the day of her audition for the Doctor Who Christmas special. It was a cosmic coincidence so odd it could have come straight out of the plot of one of the Time Lord’s very own adventures.
“I went along to the casting director’s office in London the day before my 30th birthday and ran through about four or five scenes with them,” chirped the world-famous Neath mezzo-soprano.
“Afterwards, I drove 200 miles away to a hotel in Somerset to meet with some family and friends and guess who was the first person I saw as I walked into the lobby? Only Matt Smith himself!
“I wanted to go over to him and yell, ‘I might be acting alongside you’, but had signed a confidentiality agreement not to breathe a word. I couldn’t even tell my mum where I’d been.
“What was he doing there though? I mean seriously, just how random is that?” she laughed.
Serendipity some might call it, especially since Jenkins got the call telling her she’d won the prestigious festive role alongside Smith’s 11th Doctor practically as she was blowing out the candles on her birthday cake.
But as the mega-selling classical singer was quick to admit, she almost didn’t go for the part at all.
“Well, I’ve never done acting of any kind, so I really wasn’t sure if I was up to it,” she cringed.
“And it’s the Doctor Who Christmas Special too, that’s one step down from the Queen’s Speech in the iconic stakes. The last thing I wanted was to be the one to ruin it.
“But then I thought, ‘Well, why not try? The worst they can tell me is ‘no’.”
She clearly impressed them though, though Jenkins confessed to initially thinking she was only hired because her character, Abigail Pettigrew, is called upon in the script to sing.
Surely though, I tell her, if they’d had any concerns they’d have simply got a trained actress in and asked her to lip-synch instead.
“I suppose so,” she smiled, suddenly perking up. “And I’m in it quite a bit – it’s not a cameo – so they must trust me.”
She was certainly made very welcome by some more than others.
Yes, Michael Gambon, esteemed Knight of the British stage and screen, we’re looking at you.
“Michael was so lovely. Me and Matt would sit around for hours in his trailer in between takes listening to stories about his time in Hollywood,” said Katherine, whose part took nearly a month to film on location in places like Cardiff Bay, Pontypridd and Newport.
“He was a hell of a practical joker too, mind.
“His character, Kazran Sardick, is supposed to be a bit Scrooge-like and has this long cane with a metal tip that he carries everywhere.
“In one place we were filming the crew had to wear hard hats and, Michael being Michael, he’d wander up behind them, whack them on the head with the end of his stick and then quickly turn away like nothing had happened.
“He let me take the blame for that on a number of occasions. He really is a wicked man,” she laughed, adding that she’s now caught the acting bug and would happily do more “provided it involved music in some way”.
And Jenkins added that Smith could easily have similar success if he ever tried his luck at her day job.
“I had a really good laugh with Matt between takes.
“He kept mucking around and singing to me and I couldn’t believe what a great bass voice he has. People really should hear him!”
Acting aside, Jenkins has never been a stranger to taking risks; the stage show for her latest Believe tour featuring nightly feats of daring which see her flying around arenas on a high wire with no safety net below.
“You can blame Tim Gavin for that; he choreographed Take That’s last tour and he wanted to make mine less an ordinary classical concert and more of a spectacle,” she said.
“He was like, ‘Why don’t we have an aerialist zooming around in the air while you’re singing?’ and I told him I loved that idea.
“Then he said, ‘He’s going to come down and grab you and you’ll go up into the air with him’, and I went, ‘You what? I can’t do that!’
“We needed to do it though because it was a perfect visual complement to all the rockier songs in the set, stuff by Evanescence and Queen.
“It would have looked a bit odd me twirling around in the rafters singing Pie Jesu or something.”
And, given that she named her previous tour, with ballet star Darcey Bussell, VivaLa Diva, is it safe to assume she doesn’t mind the ‘diva’ tag she’s become labelled with?
“When I think of a ‘diva’, I think of the kind of amazing women like Streisand, Bassey and Garland who inspired me to sing in the first place,” she said.
“I’m trying to reclaim the word from its current usage which seems to describe any stroppy upstart who’s had five minutes and thinks they’re the Big I Am.”
Prove it then, I say, tell us what’s in your rider.
“Nothing special really,” she SAID. “Clean towels, soap, tea making facilities, diet Coke, chocolate.”
Chocolate? You mean a barrel full of M&Ms with all the brown ones removed, just like the rock band Van Halen once famously demanded?
“No, just a bar of something to help me get my blood sugar back up after a show. No basket of puppies or dressing room full of white flowers, nothing like that.”
Hardly excessive then. More or less your average shop at Neath Tesco.
“I know! But maybe if this acting thing takes off...” she teased.
“Maybe then I can really start making some serious Hollywood demands.”
Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol screens on BBC One Wales on Christmas Day at 6pm.
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