Eastbourne resident and former Blue Peter presenter Mark Curry is serving up a weekly Backstage Curry, his new podcast which goes behind the scenes not just in the theatre and on TV but at all kinds of big events.
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00:00Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. What a pleasure
00:06to speak to former Blue Peter presenter and noted Eastbourne resident and now podcast
00:12star Mark Curry. Mark, you have launched, well, brilliantly named Backstage Curry, and
00:18this is you taking us backstage, not just theatre, but backstage events. Why is what
00:25happens backstage so interesting to people, do you think? Is it our nosiness? What is
00:29it?
00:30I think it is a bit of that. It's just this fascination. You go and see a show, or you
00:35go to an event, and surely everybody thinks, what's it like backstage? What are the dressing
00:41rooms like? How did they get those roles? How do they prepare? If you go to a massive
00:47tennis tournament, what does it take to stage a tennis tournament? How much does it cost?
00:51Who's in charge? How many people? That's the kind of thing that I'm fascinated in.
00:56And I think a lot of people are, and it's something that we don't see enough of. I think
01:01we don't see enough documentaries showing you how a show is put together. I think people
01:07are fascinated by it. It doesn't get rid of the magic, really. It actually enhances the
01:12magic because you realise the work that goes into it. I think it makes you appreciate just
01:17how good these performers are, or these shows, or these events. So I'm fascinated by it.
01:22And it's not about the celebrities, the big names. It's about that process, isn't it?
01:27It is more about the process. Obviously, some of the people I've interviewed are known,
01:32but it's not a career chat with them. It's about a certain aspect of their life. So talking
01:39to Harriet Thorpe, who plays Elaine in EastEnders, about what it's like to be in EastEnders on
01:44a weekly basis. How does it take over your life? Talking to Louise Jamieson, who's in
01:49Emmerdale at the moment as a regular. What's that like being up North, uprooting yourself,
01:53going up North? Debbie McGee, what was it like on Strictly, working with Giovanni? Bonnie
01:58Langford, what's it like to be Bonnie Langford and to prepare? How do you prepare for a show?
02:03So it's just taking somebody, but not doing a career chat, doing a focus chat on a part
02:08of their life.
02:09That's fascinating. And you're getting a good response from the people. Some of them are
02:13your contacts, your friends.
02:15Some are. Yes, some are, but some people are not. And people are just very happy to talk
02:23to me and they're interested because nobody really asks them those questions. They don't
02:28ask about the detail about what goes into it, but also they're happy to help something
02:35that's doing a lot for theatre workers, like acting for others, which is why I'm doing
02:41the podcast series and acting for others is a, is a, an organization which looks after
02:4614 member charities and it helps all theatre workers in times of emotional crisis or financial
02:54crisis, or sometimes both. If you're in that situation, you can call acting for others
02:58and they will try and point you in the right direction. So that's the reason I wanted to
03:02do it. Really. I wanted to do it for other performers and theatre workers who are not
03:07as fortunate as I am to be working and have a pretty good career, you know.
03:11And it's a lovely way for you to exploit and capitalize your newfound love of podcasts,
03:16which you discovered when you had this daily hour and a half wait to go on as the wizard
03:22in Wicked.
03:23Exactly. How do you wait? Yeah. How do you sit in that dressing room and you can hear
03:30the show going on and you think in a minute, I've got to go on when everybody else is,
03:35their energy's high and they're ready. I've got to go on as the wizard. And there's lots,
03:39a lot of people have talked about the wizard and then suddenly it comes on. How do you
03:43kill that time? I personally didn't want to watch television or get too taken away from
03:49what I was doing. And I found that by listening to podcasts, which were often about theatre
03:55or show business, but also about tennis, which I'm crazy about, I found that motivating.
04:01That got me ready for the show. I'd switch them off about 15 minutes before my first
04:06entrance, but sometimes I couldn't wait to go back to them. And I thought these are great
04:10chats because they, they last a long time. It's 45 minutes sometimes, or an hour of detailed
04:16chat. And I just found that absolutely fascinating.
04:19By the stage, Karen, it's a brilliant name, but it's also a genius idea because it's pretty
04:23infinite, isn't it? You can take that concept almost anywhere, can't you?
04:28Yeah. There's so many other things to discover and every performer or person who's involved
04:34in an event has their own story. And so long as you, so long as the story is interesting
04:39and so long as it's something that people are interested in, I think, you can, you can
04:45talk about anything really with them. There's, there's, as long as it's behind the scenes,
04:49as long as we're going behind the scenes and you're finding out something that you didn't
04:53know, hopefully we can really continue this, keep it going.
04:57That's good. Well, you've done, did you say 23? Good luck with the rest stretching infinitely
05:02ahead of you. Lovely to speak to you again, Mark. Thank you.