Connie, Constance, Maria and Me
By Thom Dibdin
Up to the Edinburgh Playhouse last night to have a quick chat with Connie Fisher for the Edinburgh Evening News, after she had come off stage from her professional Edinburgh debut in The Sound of Music.
Although I’d seen her on the BBC’s Maria programme, I’d forgotten until today that I had actually seen her on stage before – back in 2001 when she performed with the National Youth Music Theatre in a production of Pendragon that toured to the Festival Theatre.
Looking back at what I wrote then, about this vaguely Dungeons and Dragons piece of musical theatre about the Arthurian legend, I said that “The scenes between Guinevere and Constance Fisher – as the lady of the lake – were a real high-point to the night.”
So it appears that Ms Fisher was getting it right long before she succeeded in winding that Mr Lloyd Webber – along with much of the nation – round her little finger.
None of this came up last night, of course. The chat was all about playing to the vastness of the Playhouse with its 3,000 and something seats, how The Sound of Music has evolved over the current tour and her finding a long-lost auntie Jeanette who now lives in Edinburgh. Apparently her family used to spend Christmases at one of Auntie Jeanette’s chalets up near Loch Ness.
It must be said that, up close and personal, Connie is as solid a performer as you could ever hope to chat to – although with a frame so slender you feal that the slightest puff of wind would blow her out of the door!
There’s no feeling of anything fake about her – and none of those tell-tale glances over your shoulder for someone more important to talk to. And while I have never been a Sound of Music fan after having the film inflicted on me at an impressionable age, I’m thoroughly looking forward to attending the press show tonight for a review in the blog later.
Fisher has no problem making Maria a hit on Playhouse stage
Published Date: 20 January 2010
By Thom Dibdin
CONNIE Fisher made a triumphant professional debut in the Capital last night as The Sound of Music arrived at the Playhouse for a five-week run.
Dubbed the “People’s Maria” after winning BBC1’s How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?, Fisher has returned to the role for the production’s UK tour, after making it her own in London’s West End.
Last night, after seducing a packed preview audience at the Playhouse, the 26 year-old revealed to the Evening News that … (continue reading in the Evening News here)
