THE BRIGHT SIDE OF LIFE
Bonnie Langford is back in the West End in Spamalot – and she couldn’t be happier. ‘It’s like putting on a pair of old slippers,’ she says. ‘Spamalot is such a joyous show and Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life can’t fail to put a smile on your face. Someone told me it’s the most requested song at funerals.’
After a spell living and working in New York, she’s pleased to be back in London where she lives with her husband, actor Paul Grunert, and their 12-year-old daughter, Biana, affectionately known as Bibi. Paul also has an adult daughter, Natasha, from his first marriage. Bibi would seem to be following her parents into the business and is currently being educated – like her mother before her – at an Arts Educational School not far from the family home.
‘She’s a very mature child,’ says Bonnie, ‘with an old head on young shoulders.’ She also has the example of her four cousins – Scarlett, Summer, Zizi and Saskia Strallen – the daughters of Bonnie’s elder sister, Cherida, each of whom knows what it’s like to star in West End musicals.
Like them, 48-year-old Bonnie feels completely relaxed centre stage. At the age of 12, she was a pupil at Italia Conti Theatre School where she also received her formal education. ‘I loved it because I wasn’t this weird child who went o and did things on television. Everyone at Italia Conti was doing the same. We weren’t like The Kids From Fame. It was the norm.
Bonnie was in the same year as Lena Zavaroni, the singer and presenter who, aged just 10, had become the youngest person to have a UK Top 10 album. ‘We were great mates. Even then, I could tell she was fragile. She’d moved from the family home in Scotland – she was brought up on the Isle of Bute – and was out of her comfort zone. We had a great bond.
‘But even allowing for the fact she went on to suffer from anorexia nervosa and clinical depression, it upsets me when people paint her as this tragic figure because that was very far from being the whole story. She was extremely funny and much naughtier than me.
‘After we graduated we kept in touch, although we didn’t see each other very often. The last time I saw her, I was appearing in Me And My Girl. She came to the show with her husband and we had arranged to go out afterwards, but she cancelled.
‘She had a wonderful singing voice but it was her illness that came to define her. She told me she was going to have some sort of operation that would cure her depression once and for all – or so she hoped. But she was so frail physically by then and she never really recovered from the surgery and then she developed pneumonia and it killed her. She was only 35.’
Bonnie won Opportunity Knocks when she was six years old and then rmly embedded herself in the public consciousness with her portrayal of Violet Elizabeth Bott who would ‘scweam and scweam’ at William in the TV adaptation of Richmal Crompton’s children’s books.
Her very first stage appearance had been at the age of four months in a production at her mother’s Babette Palmer School of Dancing in Richmond, southwest London. ‘She’s 82 now, still teaching, a totally inspirational and determined woman. Every year, she’d put on a show at the local theatre. She carried me on at the end to a round of applause. Apparently, I twinkled to the lights and was pretty much hooked ever since.’
Her first West End show, aged eight, was Gone With The Wind at Drury Lane. Then she was cast as Baby June opposite Angela Lansbury in Gypsy, both in London and on Broadway. ‘And she was wonderful. She never told me I should do things this way or that.
‘Quite recently, I played Roxie Hart in Chicago on Broadway with the actress who had been my understudy on Gypsy all those years ago, now playing Velma opposite me 35 years later. Angela was appearing in A Little Night Music and I took my mum backstage to see her. They chatted like old friends.’
Bonnie was in the film Bugsy Malone, with Jodie Foster. ‘It sounds as though I worked all the time as a child but that’s not true. It’s just that I was lucky enough to be in productions that became famous.’
She picked her television roles well, too, playing an assistant to two Doctor Whos: Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy. She was in her early 20s by now, having appeared in the West End in Pirates Of Penzance starring Tim Curry, and then opposite Wayne Sleep in the TV series Hot Shoe Show.
It was a period that proved the most difficult of what had otherwise been a charmed life. ‘At 16, I’d been lucky to be cast in the original production of Cats. That’s a tricky age for a child actor. Are you going to be able to make the transition into adult roles?
‘So I’d achieved that but, along the way, I’d lost sight of who I was. Although work was my salvation, I felt I’d got the work/life balance out of kilter. You can’t spend all your time being somebody else. It was as though I was good at being Bonnie Langford ‘the brand’ but I didn’t know who Bonnie Langford ‘the person’, was.
‘I was also exhausted. It was as though my body was saying: “Would you please stop and just let me catch up?” And I was partying too hard, which isn’t me at all. In the normal course of events, give me a coffee and a bar of chocolate and I’m happy.’
Bonnie as the Lady of the Lake in Spamalot
The remedy, in the end, was the purchase of a flat where she lived alone. ‘I allowed myself to chill. I had a fallow period, professionally speaking, but I needed that. I realised I had hundreds of acquaintances but very few close friends, so I made it my business to reconnect with the people who meant something to me.’
She’d known her husband-to-be Paul since they’d overlapped in Me And My Girl. ‘That was 1987 and then our paths kept crossing. The actress Dilys Laye, who was in 42nd Street with me and had been a good friend when I was going through a difficult time, was also a friend of Paul’s. Then she and I were both cast in a touring production of Oklahoma! And she told me that she’d recently seen Paul and that we should all get together. So we did, and romance blossomed. That was 1994 and we married the following year in Mauritius.’
Fast forward to 2006 and Bonnie’s successful time as a contestant on the first series of Dancing On Ice. ‘It was never on my bucket list to ice skate on national television. The show was going to be called Stars On Thin Ice. I think the producers were looking forward to a succession of celebrities falling flat on their faces. John Barrowman and I were the two show turns.’ She laughs contentedly.
So, am I looking at a happy woman? ‘Oh yes,’ she says, ‘and especially now that I’m back in Spamalot. It’s not only mood-changing for the audience, it has the same effect on the cast.’
No wonder Bonnie Langford is looking on the bright side of life.
Spamalot is showing until 2 November at The Playhouse Theatre, Northumberland Avenue, London WC2: 0844-871 7631, www.spamalotwestend.co.uk
Bonnie Langford is right about the joys of appearing in Spamalot – and I speak from experience. Picture the scene: the Knights of the Round Table are gathered on stage during Act One, when in walks a character called Sir Not Appearing (that’s me and for one night only just before last Christmas), dressed as Don Quixote.
He flourishes his hat, the knights round on him as one, with a cry of: ‘You’re in the wrong play.’ He gulps, says ‘Sorry’, and hastily exits stage right.
I was as nervous as a kitten, so perhaps I should have noted Eric Idle’s wise words. The architect of this fandango is on record as saying: ‘The ability to get laughs is like a drug. It’s addictive. It’s lovely, this huge affirmation from strangers.’
So did anyone laugh when I did my turn as Don Quixote? Well, as a matter of fact, they did, even if the loudest cheer came from my son and his girlfriend whooping their delight from seats in the circle. And it triggered a real adrenaline rush.
I can’t imagine why I’d been so worried. ‘Don Quixote suddenly appears alongside the Knights of the Round Table…’ said Stephen Tompkinson, who was playing King Arthur at the time, in a preperformance pep talk. ‘If that’s not funny, I don’t know what is.’
After a spell living and working in New York, she’s pleased to be back in London where she lives with her husband, actor Paul Grunert, and their 12-year-old daughter, Biana, affectionately known as Bibi. Paul also has an adult daughter, Natasha, from his first marriage. Bibi would seem to be following her parents into the business and is currently being educated – like her mother before her – at an Arts Educational School not far from the family home.
‘She’s a very mature child,’ says Bonnie, ‘with an old head on young shoulders.’ She also has the example of her four cousins – Scarlett, Summer, Zizi and Saskia Strallen – the daughters of Bonnie’s elder sister, Cherida, each of whom knows what it’s like to star in West End musicals.
Like them, 48-year-old Bonnie feels completely relaxed centre stage. At the age of 12, she was a pupil at Italia Conti Theatre School where she also received her formal education. ‘I loved it because I wasn’t this weird child who went o and did things on television. Everyone at Italia Conti was doing the same. We weren’t like The Kids From Fame. It was the norm.
Bonnie was in the same year as Lena Zavaroni, the singer and presenter who, aged just 10, had become the youngest person to have a UK Top 10 album. ‘We were great mates. Even then, I could tell she was fragile. She’d moved from the family home in Scotland – she was brought up on the Isle of Bute – and was out of her comfort zone. We had a great bond.
‘But even allowing for the fact she went on to suffer from anorexia nervosa and clinical depression, it upsets me when people paint her as this tragic figure because that was very far from being the whole story. She was extremely funny and much naughtier than me.
‘After we graduated we kept in touch, although we didn’t see each other very often. The last time I saw her, I was appearing in Me And My Girl. She came to the show with her husband and we had arranged to go out afterwards, but she cancelled.
‘She had a wonderful singing voice but it was her illness that came to define her. She told me she was going to have some sort of operation that would cure her depression once and for all – or so she hoped. But she was so frail physically by then and she never really recovered from the surgery and then she developed pneumonia and it killed her. She was only 35.’
Bonnie won Opportunity Knocks when she was six years old and then rmly embedded herself in the public consciousness with her portrayal of Violet Elizabeth Bott who would ‘scweam and scweam’ at William in the TV adaptation of Richmal Crompton’s children’s books.
Her very first stage appearance had been at the age of four months in a production at her mother’s Babette Palmer School of Dancing in Richmond, southwest London. ‘She’s 82 now, still teaching, a totally inspirational and determined woman. Every year, she’d put on a show at the local theatre. She carried me on at the end to a round of applause. Apparently, I twinkled to the lights and was pretty much hooked ever since.’
Her first West End show, aged eight, was Gone With The Wind at Drury Lane. Then she was cast as Baby June opposite Angela Lansbury in Gypsy, both in London and on Broadway. ‘And she was wonderful. She never told me I should do things this way or that.
‘Quite recently, I played Roxie Hart in Chicago on Broadway with the actress who had been my understudy on Gypsy all those years ago, now playing Velma opposite me 35 years later. Angela was appearing in A Little Night Music and I took my mum backstage to see her. They chatted like old friends.’
Bonnie was in the film Bugsy Malone, with Jodie Foster. ‘It sounds as though I worked all the time as a child but that’s not true. It’s just that I was lucky enough to be in productions that became famous.’
She picked her television roles well, too, playing an assistant to two Doctor Whos: Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy. She was in her early 20s by now, having appeared in the West End in Pirates Of Penzance starring Tim Curry, and then opposite Wayne Sleep in the TV series Hot Shoe Show.
It was a period that proved the most difficult of what had otherwise been a charmed life. ‘At 16, I’d been lucky to be cast in the original production of Cats. That’s a tricky age for a child actor. Are you going to be able to make the transition into adult roles?
‘So I’d achieved that but, along the way, I’d lost sight of who I was. Although work was my salvation, I felt I’d got the work/life balance out of kilter. You can’t spend all your time being somebody else. It was as though I was good at being Bonnie Langford ‘the brand’ but I didn’t know who Bonnie Langford ‘the person’, was.
‘I was also exhausted. It was as though my body was saying: “Would you please stop and just let me catch up?” And I was partying too hard, which isn’t me at all. In the normal course of events, give me a coffee and a bar of chocolate and I’m happy.’
Bonnie as the Lady of the Lake in SpamalotThe remedy, in the end, was the purchase of a flat where she lived alone. ‘I allowed myself to chill. I had a fallow period, professionally speaking, but I needed that. I realised I had hundreds of acquaintances but very few close friends, so I made it my business to reconnect with the people who meant something to me.’
She’d known her husband-to-be Paul since they’d overlapped in Me And My Girl. ‘That was 1987 and then our paths kept crossing. The actress Dilys Laye, who was in 42nd Street with me and had been a good friend when I was going through a difficult time, was also a friend of Paul’s. Then she and I were both cast in a touring production of Oklahoma! And she told me that she’d recently seen Paul and that we should all get together. So we did, and romance blossomed. That was 1994 and we married the following year in Mauritius.’
Fast forward to 2006 and Bonnie’s successful time as a contestant on the first series of Dancing On Ice. ‘It was never on my bucket list to ice skate on national television. The show was going to be called Stars On Thin Ice. I think the producers were looking forward to a succession of celebrities falling flat on their faces. John Barrowman and I were the two show turns.’ She laughs contentedly.
So, am I looking at a happy woman? ‘Oh yes,’ she says, ‘and especially now that I’m back in Spamalot. It’s not only mood-changing for the audience, it has the same effect on the cast.’
No wonder Bonnie Langford is looking on the bright side of life.
Spamalot is showing until 2 November at The Playhouse Theatre, Northumberland Avenue, London WC2: 0844-871 7631, www.spamalotwestend.co.uk
‘The day I starred in Spamalot’, by Richard Barber
Bonnie Langford is right about the joys of appearing in Spamalot – and I speak from experience. Picture the scene: the Knights of the Round Table are gathered on stage during Act One, when in walks a character called Sir Not Appearing (that’s me and for one night only just before last Christmas), dressed as Don Quixote.
He flourishes his hat, the knights round on him as one, with a cry of: ‘You’re in the wrong play.’ He gulps, says ‘Sorry’, and hastily exits stage right.
I was as nervous as a kitten, so perhaps I should have noted Eric Idle’s wise words. The architect of this fandango is on record as saying: ‘The ability to get laughs is like a drug. It’s addictive. It’s lovely, this huge affirmation from strangers.’
So did anyone laugh when I did my turn as Don Quixote? Well, as a matter of fact, they did, even if the loudest cheer came from my son and his girlfriend whooping their delight from seats in the circle. And it triggered a real adrenaline rush.
I can’t imagine why I’d been so worried. ‘Don Quixote suddenly appears alongside the Knights of the Round Table…’ said Stephen Tompkinson, who was playing King Arthur at the time, in a preperformance pep talk. ‘If that’s not funny, I don’t know what is.’