Wicked pleasures (From Croydon Guardian)

Wicked pleasures

9:25am Friday 6th November 2009 in

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Letitia Dean is looking forward to being booed again this Christmas when she heads the star-studded pantomime cast in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs at Fairfield Halls.

The former EastEnders actress, who played Sharon for 14 years across three spells in the soap, will play the Wicked Queen to Keavy Lynch’s Snow White and Richard Cadell’s Muddles, alongside lovable children’s characters Sooty and Sweep.

It is the third time the 41-year-old has played the evil role and it is something she revels in.

“It is much more fun playing evil characters,” she says.

“It is the only job in theatre where you actually want to get booed. I can’t imagine any other play where you want that.

“I particularly like playing the Queen – this is my third time doing it.

“It is good fun because you get heckled but you can just turn to the crowd and say, ‘oh, shut up!’ and be a right old moaning hag.

“My opening line is also my favourite line of anything I have ever done, ‘greetings low-lives, bow down and grovel’.”

The majority of the cast, minus Keavy, were together for the production in Dunstable last year and Dean is looking forward to working with them all again, including her brother, Stephen, who plays Prince Charming.

“I am really looking forward to it but the time has gone so quickly since last year,” she says.

“We have all worked together and, I know it sounds silly, but Sooty is so popular. Sweep as well, he does this wonderful song, this Nessun Dorma thing that is very funny.

“They are very unpredictable, though, and I have never worked with anyone like them.

“I have done loads with my brother before, though we don’t actually have any scenes together, which is probably a good thing because we giggle a lot.

“Years ago, when I played Snow White, he was the prince and we had to kiss – that was a bit weird.”

As Sharon in EastEnders, Dean was married twice, engaged another two times, saw the murder of her father only for him to come back from the dead, then be murdered again, had a love triangle with Grant and Phil Mitchell, was held hostage by her lover’s psychotic wife, saw her terminally ill fiancé die in an explosion, and had a secret affair with her adopted brother, Dennis Rickman, whom she married before he was stabbed to death while she was pregnant with his son.

She still owns Walford’s bookies, though, leaving the door open for a possible return to the show.

“I still get recognised wherever I go because of EastEnders,” Dean says.

“You are in people’s living rooms three times a week or even more now.

“I don’t watch it all the time, just now and again, but it has been so long since I was in it.

“I did miss it at first but I have been back a few times and I don’t think I have been killed off. I think Sharon is in Texas.

“As for going back, it has been such a while now and I always say that awful cliché, never say never.

“We will just see what happens.”

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Fairfield Halls, Park Lane, December 4 to January 3, various times and prices. Call 020 8688 9291 or visit fairfield.co. uk for details.