Kate's at home in Mamma Mia!

Dec 12 2009 by Gordon Barr, The Journal

North East actress Kate Graham makes her Mamma Mia! debut as the hit show opens tonight in Newcastle. Gordon Barr meets her.

DRIVING into Newcastle earlier this week, actress Kate Graham was full of excitement and a bundle of nerves.

She had stopped off at her parents home on Teesside, had just passed Penshaw Monument and the Angel of the North, and now she was driving over the Tyne and her heart was in her mouth.

There it was, to her left, in huge lit-up letters for all to see: ‘Mamma Mia! at the Metro Radio Arena’ – and she has a pivotal role in it!

“As I came across the bridge I saw Mamma Mia! across the Metro Radio Arena and it brought it all home to me,” she tells me.

“I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry from fear. I still have family up here and when I told them I’d got the job, they had all bought tickets anyway.”

Kate, who grew up in Seaton Carew, has just joined the cast of the hit ABBA musical in the feisty role of Tanya, one of the Dynamos.

It means the actress will be spending Christmas back home with family for the first time in a decade. “Mum and dad are beside themselves,” she laughs.

Kate joins the international tour of Mamma Mia!, which opens a five-week run in Newcastle tonight, fresh from playing Mrs Wilkinson in Billy Elliot in London’s West End.

“I was performing in Billy Elliot and rehearsing for Mamma Mia! during the day for one week.

“I am very excited and very scared. I've always been cast in comedy roles throughout my career, and it's always the same, you don't know if it is funny in front of an audience until you actually do it.

“You do it so many times in rehearsal and you wonder if it is fun at all as you have heard it a million times.

“There is always that fear that this time it isn’t going to be funny. It is a lot of responsibility.

“People come to see the show because they know it so well and love it so much and you don't want to let them down.

“ You want it to be as good as they want it to be when they come in.

“I saw the stage version in its first week of preview in London 10 years ago as I had a friend in it, but I haven't seen it since.