Each week, The Press and Journal’s Your Weekend supplement features words direct from the mouths of the actors, comedians and artists who bring the cultural scene of the north to life. Sometimes weird but always wonderful, our interviewees are a joy to chat to, but sometimes they can go on a bit.
So, with 2014 drawing to a close, here’s a selection of what you didn’t read in the supplement this year, but were too good to hit the cutting room floor.
Jack Whitehall on reading his reviews:
“Anyone who said they don’t is lying. You read all the bad ones and then beat yourself up about them and ignore all the good reviews.”
Matt Healy of The 1975 on why the band didn’t make it to an Aberdeen gig:
“We did a tour and played in places like Stornoway, Aviemore and loads of random places in the Highlands, and on a tiny stage in Belladrum. We were leaving Belladrum on our way to Aberdeen for our last gig and our little van, which we had for so long, packed in and we couldn’t make it.
“We had to pull the gig, and all four people who bought a ticket were devastated I think.”
X Factor contestant, Nicholas McDonald, on what happens after cameras stop rolling each night of the TV show:
“After Xtra Factor, you meet your family and then go back to where you’re living and chill out. Then everything starts up again on Monday. It’s crazy.
“You’re always working, doing interviews or something. You don’t really have time to think. Which is good, because you would get too nervous or lose focus.”
Marcella Evaristi, writer of The Friends of Miss Dorian Gray, on the inspiration behind her play:
“The two particularly Wilde-ian quotes that have hovered above me while writing this are ‘youth is wasted on the young’. There’s another one too: ‘everybody over 25 years of age, is really the same age’.
“And I’ll throw another one at you: ‘the tragedy is not that we are old, but that we are young’.”
Tiffany Graves, principal cast member of Rod Stewart musical, Tonight’s the Night, on performing in National Theatre’s 50th anniversary performance:
“I was in Jerry Springer the Opera scene, wearing a huge red beehive wig. My fiance was absolutely delighted because the last frame of its broadcast on BBC2 was me pulling my skirt down.
“This was because my onstage trailer trash husband was slapping my butt and my skirt was moving up and up.”
Lorna Luft, Judy Garland’s daughter, talks about being diagnosed with breast cancer:
“I ran from it for three weeks, and that’s a pretty normal thing to do. But it’s really taking the devil, looking him in the eye and saying ‘I’m going to kick you in the ass’.
“You have no choice. You’re either going to curl up and have a pity party – and that’s going to truly hinder your recovery – or you’re going to fight. And I fought.”
Comedian Hardeep Singh Kohli’s top love life tip:
“By best advice is, come to the show. Everything I’ve done, don’t do it.”
Kate Adie on finally deciding to step away from journalism:
“It stepped away from me in a sense. But that’s life. I had a marvellous run. A fascinating, interesting, varied time and I wanted to do something else as well.
“I had been reporting for a long time, and I wanted to move into writing. It was time for a change.”
Comedienne Shappi Khorsandi on being booed off stage in Belfast in the 1990s:
“Being booed off stage tests your mettle. In some ways having people act with indifference is more painful. But being booed, it was really something. You felt alive and beaten up.”
Gavin Spokes, star of One Man Two Guvnors, on HM Theatre and its architect, Frank Matcham:
“Is HMT a Matcham theatre? Aw, Matcham theatres are beautiful. And I remember now, Aberdeen’s is one of the most beautiful. In a Matcham, you don’t need to try hard to be heard. Nobody made theatres better.”
Russell Watson, on the backlash he gets from the UK classical music community:
“I can go to Austria, Italy, Germany, America, Japan – all of these places, where I get treated exactly the same as anyone else. It’s only here that there’s a stigma attached because people have this misconception that I haven’t done any hard work to achieve what I have. And it’s not correct.”
Sharon Corr on going solo:
“When you work with other people, it can be incredible magic that you create, but it can also be in a direction that you wouldn’t have necessarily gone by yourself. And I was very curious where I would go musically by myself.”
Twin Atlantic’s Barry McKenna on meeting a lifelong hero:
“When I met Tom DeLonge from Blink 182, he really took his time to share his own story and experience and give us some advice. I mean, his band defined a whole genre, American Pop Punk. So when he’s sitting down giving you advice, that’s a pretty special thing to do.”
Daniel Sloss on freedom of speech:
“We’re one of the very few countries in the world to be lucky enough to have free speech. Yet we’re the only ones to complain about it. I mean, do you know how lucky we are to live somewhere that you can hear multiple opinions?”