Jill’s surviving Milligan

Aug 19 2008 by Sam Wonfor, The Journal

New mum Jill Halfpenny is combining motherhood with a full-time theatre schedule north of the border. Sam Wonfor finds out how she’s surviving

AS I wait to meet up with Jill Halfpenny in the foyer of Edinburgh’s famous Assembly Rooms, I try to remember what I was doing when my now year-old son was 14 weeks old.

I know I was still wholeheartedly congratulating myself whenever I remembered to put nappies AND muslin squares AND spare clothes in the baby bag; I know the thought of getting into a pair of jeans without resembling a denim-clad cow was still ways off; and I can’t be sure, but I think I recall getting out of the house before noon on one occasion.

My nostalgic concentration is broken by the sickening sight of the 33-year-old Ms Halfpenny sauntering through the bustling foyer in a fitted pair of jeans and a cropped leather jacket … all the while sporting a frustratingly fresh face.

She doesn’t know it, but if we’d had our baby boys at the same time, I’d probably have been gearing myself up to slap her before crying my way through a mini Victoria sponge from Mr Kipling.

Luckily for her, I’m 38 weeks further on in the motherhood stakes, so can (almost) be happy that she looks so bloody good while maintaining a seven-performance-a-week theatre diary and her full-time duties as a mum to the lovely Harvey.

“It wasn’t an easy decision to make,” she says as we settle down for a cold drink in the oasis of the Freemantle Media Club Bar at the back of the venue. When they first approached me to do this run (at the Edinburgh Fringe), my first reaction was, ‘you’ve got to be joking’.”

“I was waiting to have Harvey and the thought of being up here when he was 12 weeks old seemed absolutely ridiculous – crazy. I just didn’t think it was possible.

“Of course with Harvey being my first baby, I didn’t know what to expect really, or how I’d be feeling. Work couldn’t have been further from my mind.

“But then after speaking to family and friends who had children of their own, I started to think it might be something I could do – with the right support.”

Surviving Spike, the on-stage interpretation of Norma Farnes’s (Spike Milligan’s manager) memoirs is the play which was tempting Jill out of maternity leave … along with the support that she couldn’t have done without.

“Craig (Conway, her actor husband of a year-and-a-bit) was able to come up with me and my mam has been up here too which has been fantastic. There’s no way I could have contemplated this if I’d had to leave Harvey at home.

“But this way, I leave him at half past three and we’re back together by quarter past six. He usually sleeps through most of it!”

After seeing the play, I’m betting that the role wouldn’t have been an option if Jill had had to learn the script from scratch. As Norma, the piece’s narrator, she’s only off stage once in two hours and doesn’t stop talking for a minute.

“There was a ridiculous amount of lines to learn,” she admits, “it’s pretty much one continuous piece.

“But I’d done most of the hard work when we did the production before.”

Surviving Spike, which puts Jill opposite Michael Barrymore’s Milligan, ran for two weeks in Windsor when Jill was just over halfway through her pregnancy.

“That was strange too,” she says. “Once I’d got to being five-and-a-bit months pregnant, I didn’t expect anything to be coming my way workwise until after the baby was born. I was preparing to put my feet up.

“So I was really surprised to get offered the part. It’s not a role I would usually expect to be thought of for – she’s older and it’s really character-led – so it intrigued me for that reason. Also, Spike Milligan was such an interesting person of course and this woman who was in his life for such a long time – 36 years – had such stories to tell.

“I still don’t know why they thought of me, but I’m glad they did. I want to do more varied roles.

“As an actor, as you get older, you either stay all your life in the sort of more glamorous roles or you branch out and try to play the more interesting roles.”

Jill certainly counts herself as someone who wants to try the latter of the two options.

“I don’t think I will necessarily be a character actress as such, but it’s great to be playing a woman who is so much her own person.”

As we pause for the swapping of birth stories (which will forever remain private, although I will divulge that my offspring’s birth weight of 10lb 4oz did produce a loud, attention-enducing gasp), Jill’s co-star, the aforementioned Mr Barrymore says hello.

“It’s great working with Michael,” she says as he disappears to get into costume.

“The play hangs so much on the relationship between Norma and Spike … we would have to get on for it to work and thankfully we do. We both want to make it the best it can be.

“It’s a tough play to do … but we’re prepared to listen to each other and work very hard to help each other, which is why it seems to work I think.”

Work it does indeed. I can firmly concur with all of the four and five star reviews which were pinned up outside the theatre … and that’s not just because I admire anyone who can get dressed once with a new baby … never mind twice.

“It’s working out really nicely,” says Jill of moving her new family to Scotland for a month.

“And I’m loving being a mum. I think I was waiting for this big feeling to rush over me when he was born … but it’s a more natural feeling than that.

“He’s just here and he’s amazing and I sometimes still can’t believe he’s mine.”

Sounds like she’s more than surviving the whole working mother conundrum and manages to be more than likeable enough for me to be genuinely happy for her … without a gritted tooth in sight.

I still don’t know why they thought of me, but I’m glad they did. I want to do more varied roles