PANTOMIME INTERVIEW: Poppy Jhakra in Aladdin at Worthing Pavilion Theatre

POPPY Jhakra says she’s fulfilling a childhood dream at Worthing this Christmas when she steps out on stage as a panto princess.

She will be Princess Jasmine in Aladdin at the Pavilion Theatre until Sunday, January 2 – her second panto outing.

“Lots of girls long to be a princess and wear fancy dress and fall in love with a prince,” says Poppy who, surprisingly experienced her first-ever contact with panto when she made her debut last year in Windsor.

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“I didn’t grow up in a traditional theatre-going family. I think probably live music was more our medium,” she recalls. “It’s strange, really.”

The first panto call came through when she was out in America: “My agent just said that they had come through and offered me the part.

“My instincts just told me that it would be exciting and I said yes. It’s a big challenge but it’s a lot of fun.”

To do it well, you have got to enjoy it, Poppy believes: “You have got to be happy in it and have fun. It’s a wonderful story that will go on forever – a great love story, and with it being set in the East, it is also very colourful and bright with the sights and the costumes. It’s lovely.”

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Poppy’s background was an American Theatre Arts course at Rose Bruford: “All the plays we studied were by American playwrights and for the second year of the course, the class got taken out to Texas where we lived for a year.

“At Rose Bruford they believed that in order to understand what we were doing, we had to actually go and live and breathe it. At 19 years old and with a student loan, you can imagine we all agreed!

“It was brilliant. It trained us in lots of different mediums. I learnt how to direct as well as to do lighting and about stage management.”

But work brought her back to the UK: “This is home. My loyalties for the most part are here.

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“You understand the sense of humour in the place where you are from. You know more about the mentality.

“It’s the culture. I am British, and I belong here.”

Tickets on 01903 206206 and www.worthingtheatres.co.uk.