HAIR AND NOW

Simon Stabler chats to Angela Bruce, a recognisable face from the world of television

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The opportunity for an aspiring actor to be invited to get up from the audience to join a production on stage, and then go on tour with it, sounds like a dream come true. For Angela Bruce, it was reality, even if she hadn't previously harboured an ambition to act.

“I was raised in a mining village and my mother expected me to be a nurse, follow in my sister’s footsteps. But I didn’t do well in the exams for that. Like most students, I took the opportunity to party,” explains Angela.

“I was working in catering in a hospital, and I came back home, and saw a commercial for Hair. I'd never been to a theatre before, and what I saw was a lot of faces from different countries on a screen, which, obviously, I was the only black kid in the mining village, so... wow.

“I quickly wrote down the address of the theatre to buy a ticket. And I sent off a postal order, and then I had to invent a boyfriend, because I knew you couldn't go to the theatre on your own. And, after work, I headed on the train from Durham to Newcastle, I had to find the theatre, so I was late going in, and the show had started, and I was in the middle of a row and everybody would stand up, it was really cool. And I sat, just mesmerised, all the dancers, all the singing, I just sat there. Even in the interval, I couldn't move out of my seat. And at the end of the show, they invited the audience up on stage to dance.

“I left footprints on people’s knees; I was that fast out. And I went up on to the stage, I just went mad. I just danced like an idiot around the stage. And a member of the cast, Kimi Wong, came up to me, and said: ‘Would you like to audition for the show?’ And I went: ‘Yeah, yeah!’