Clare Grogan Delirium

FEATURES I loved the opportunity to play someone on the edge. That kind of intensity doesn’t come along for me very often Clare Grogan is relishing a movie role as a woman on the brink, largely because real life couldn’t be more different for the sunny actor and singer – soon to tour with Altered Images. By Janet Christie. Portraits by Debra Hurford Brown determined to enjoy the good things There’s no point asking Clare in life without wasting a moment Grogan about her performance stressing the small stuff. in her new film Delirium because This couldn’t be more of a contrast watching herself makes the singer to her latest role as the wife of a and actor come out in a cold sweat. classical composer whose past Just talking about it prompts nervous comes back to haunt him. Myriam giggles. is a former 80s singer, but that’s “No, no, no, no! I haven’t seen it and where the similarities with Grogan probably never will. No, I tend not to end. She’s a woman on the edge, who watch things that I do. I stay for the has been eclipsed by her husband, first five minutes then go and pace played by Gareth Jones, who is also outside. You can only ever see your the director of the film. Appointed faults. I just irritate the life out of head of a prestigious university myself. I’d love to be sitting in a chair music college he’s running out of going ‘god I’m good’, but you just don’t time to compose a requiem for the do that.” institution’s centennial celebrations As for the reaction to the film, and is similarly close to breaking which was shown at the Moscow point, while Myriam has lost her Film Festival, promoted at Cannes voice and confidence at the bottom and is now on UK release, how has it of a whisky glass. Throw in infidelity gone so far? “I genuinely don’t know,” and past lives that explode into the she laughs. “You’d have to ask the present, and you can see why the film producer.” Grogan in conversation is earns its title of Delirium. fizzy and fun, most sentences ending Grogan has relished the with her dissolving into laughter as opportunity to play a character who she talks about the new film and her is spectacularly unravelling, a far cry life, lived in and out of the spotlight. from her sunny persona as the lead Now 55 she still has the skittish singer of a band best remembered for enthusiasm of the pop pixie with their upbeat hits like Happy Birthday the spiky hair and flippy skirts who and I Could Be Happy and the comic topped the charts with new wave roles she’s been cast in since Gregory’s band Altered Images in the 1980s and Girl. She readily admits she knows starred in 1981 hit comedy Gregory’s next to nothing about classical music, Girl. She comes across as someone but felt privileged to be filming at the 4 The Scotsman Magazine The Scotsman Magazine 5 FEATURES University of London’s spectacular being in a hit film and band straight Royal Holloway campus with its out of school is a hard act to follow. gilded chapel. However, Grogan has been busy over “I loved the opportunity to play the past three decades. As well as someone on the edge. I just wanted parenting her daughter Elle, acting to be as honest and vulnerable as and gigging as Altered Images, I could, and I hope that worked. I Grogan and her husband run two just let myself go. I think all of us go restaurants in London, serving up through a phase where we unravel tapas and majoring on Scottish and it’s about whether you’ve got the seafood. Bar Esteban is in Crouch I can’t ever imagine growing out of in 2008. Grogan’s own experiences strength to put yourself back together End, not too far from their London that. I never know what’s going to in the pop world inform those of again.” She laughs. home, and then there’s the more happen next, that’s the truth. My Tallulah Gosh. “I do a lot of comedy – I’ve just done recently opened Escocesa in Stoke ambition in life is just to keep going “I really wanted a way of trying to radio comedy with Josie Long – and I Newington. “Yeah, it’s been busy, in terms of my work and it’s worked explain to Elle how I feel about things love that, but playing somebody who Spanish food with a Scottish twist, out not too badly for a long time now because when you’ve got a daughter is really on the brink was great. My especially lovely Scottish seafood; and I just think I’ve found… a very you want to give them some tools for husband said ‘not much of a stretch that’s a passion of my husband’s. weird niche for myself. The things I life. I was in a tricky position because I really for you Clare!” She giggles. “I’ve found a really comfortable get asked to do are always kind of out literally left school and became a pop Grogan’s husband is Stephen Lironi, place for myself,” she says, “and there and I just hope it continues like star and made a film. So when she fellow Altered Image member, who sometimes I want to break away from that. I’ve no desire to analyse it too was younger I wanted to find a way of went on to become a record producer that, but my working life has got to much. I just hope the opportunities making her think about the dreams and is now a restaurateur. suit my private life and home life. It’s keep coming and if I can make them you have and that they can come “It was nice because that kind of well documented how long I waited to work, I’m even more delighted.” true, but also that you have to work intensity doesn’t come along for me become a mum and it just didn’t make Born in Glasgow in 1962, to Patricia, really, really hard and make a lot of that often,” says Grogan. “I thought sense to me to take myself off for a hairdresser and Patrick, who sacrifices, whatever it is. yes, I’d love the chance to be this Clare Grogan outings include Rita in Educating Rita weeks on end when that happened.” worked at Glasgow fish market, the “Although I say I don’t care what serious.” Cue another giggle. today, main; with at Dundee Rep. After several miscarriages and teenage Grogan was still at school people think, I care about what I “I think my face lends itself to Gareth Jones “I really identified with Myriam failed IVF over ten years, Grogan and and working in a restaurant in the do and want to get it right. People comedy, I really do, I’m kind of goofy. in new film because you get to a certain point her husband, adopted their daughter West End when she got her big break. underestimate how hard it is to stay I remember a director saying to me Delirium, top; in in your life where you think ‘is this Elle in 2005, now 12. In between shifts sshe was jumping in this business for 35 years and I’ve ‘Clare, if you could just stop moving Altered Images it?’ and feel that you’re running out “You really have to know where in transit vans and travelling through kind of clung on for dear life because your face around so much’. But that’s in 1982, above; of time. She couldn’t quite let go you’re needed sometimes in life. I the night to do John Peel sessions in I’m not going to do anything else. never going to happen. Over the years in Gregory’s of who she had been and she has think that’s a decision a lot of working plan, literally everything is on a arrogance of youth I started off not people to enjoy what I do, but see if London with Altered Images. When I’m probably unemployable in the I’ve done lots of different things but Girl with John become invisible to her family and mums make, particularly when you whim.” giving a s*** in a weird way and when they don’t, that’s not going to impact Gregory’s Girl director Bill Forsyth real world. So I’ve found something I’ve found a wee spot within the world Gordon Sinclair, everyone else. That’s why I suggested work in something where you have Grogan is keen to point out there people started having their opinions on me at all. When I was young I had asked her if she’d like to be in a film I love doing and I’ve had to create my of comedy that I love. But like all 1981, opposite everything she wears should be white to be away from home. For me, I just are no original members apart from about you, you start taking that on this real need for everyone to get it he was making and could he have her own luck, and kept moving to keep actors, I love to be stretched and this top; in TV drama or beige because she was fading away.

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