With a move towards a new independence referendum already starting to divide Scotland, Debra Stephenson will tread carefully when she mimics Nicola Sturgeon at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
The Coronation Street and Bad Girls star felt it was “too frightening” to get involved in the debate on the country’s future.
The 50-year-old, of Hull, has been doing impressions since appearing on Opportunity Knocks at 14.
She has been impersonating the First Minister on shows such as Dead Ringers and Newzoids and will do so again when she does her first Fringe run in 30 years next week.
But she won’t go for the jugular and won’t mention the IndyRef2 debate. She said: “I’m aware from Twitter that the moment Nicola Sturgeon is mentioned you have to tread carefully because from one side or the other somebody will be annoyed.
“I’ve found a way of doing Nicola Sturgeon in the act which doesn’t really put me on one side or the other of the debate.
“I know it sounds like I’ve wussed out but I don’t care, it’s far too frightening.
“But it would be remiss to come to Scotland and not do her.
“I’ve stuck with something that I feel safe with and that’s not divisive.
“I haven’t stuck my neck out and not offended her or any of her followers but at the same time I feel my job is to always tease, at least. Be a bit cheeky. Because it’s boring otherwise.”
James Duffield, who she married in 1999, is Glaswegian and she has visited his native west coast for 30 years – ever since they got together at the Edinburgh Fringe.
And while her children Max, 19, and Zoe, 15, could represent Scotland at sport, Debra explained her reluctance to get too political in her Fringe show, The Many Voices of Debra Stephenson, with her Sturgeon impression.
She said: “I don’t have the audacity to profess what’s good or bad about Scotland.
“I know it’s very divided and because I’m not Scottish I don’t think I’m qualified to have an opinion about it.
“I do think these things ought to be discussed. As a collective we need to fathom out what we want and where we’re going. But it has become a tricky landscape.”
She can’t wait to return to Edinburgh, the city where she fell in love with her husband.
While she had known James through mutual friends it was only when she was at the Fringe doing her first impressions show, aged 20, that they got together.
She said: “He’d said I should ring him when I was doing the Fringe. I did, from a red telephone box in Plockton where I was on holiday with my parents, and told him I was doing a show and put his name on the guest list.
“He came over from Glasgow and we fell in love drinking in Greyfriars Bobby’s Bar. We went on a bit of a pub crawl 30 years ago. I love Edinburgh. For me, it’s our Paris.”
While Max works and probably won’t come up for her new show, she’s hoping James and Zoe will.
“My daughter is 15 so it would be nice if she could come up because she doesn’t know Edinburgh very well. When we go up to Scotland we are more Glasgow area.”
While she met her husband in 1992, the year of her first proper Fringe show, her debut trying out impressions was in 1990, aged 18. It could have gone pear-shaped.
She said: “The audience were throwing matchboxes, cigarette boxes and if they really hated you, they’d also throw ashtrays.
“I was on before this Geordie girl and we were in the wings watching this guy dying a death and being pelted with objects. It was my first time at the Fringe. You are less shocked at things at that age. You are braver. I was a bit scared but I didn’t get anything thrown so in my book that was a success. I thought I’d triumphed. I lasted the full 10 minutes.”
While she did her own impressions show two years later and has been to the Fringe to record an episode of Dead Ringers, she’s not been back with her own production.
After her early appearances on BBC’s Opportunity Knocks, Debra took her talking and singing impressions to Blue Peter.
While she has gone on to have a successful acting career as Shell Dockley in Bad Girls, Frankie Baldwin in Coronation Street and mostly recently as Jeni Sinclaire in Holby City last year, she always returns to her impressions.
She starred with Jon Culshaw on The Impressions Show and worked on Newzoids, Spitting Image and continues to be a regular on Radio 4’s Dead Ringers.
She made a return to the Fringe because of the pandemic and as it’s the 30-year double of her first solo show and meeting James.
She said: “I did five months on Holby City during the pandemic but when that first lockdown happened I didn’t take it for granted I’d ever be able to get back on stage again.”
While she will be doing some of the voices she did 30 years ago, her new show will be different.
She said: “Thirty years ago I was trying to be as alternative and outrageous as possible.
“I was mainstream and had been on Opportunity Knocks at 14 doing impressions of Shirley Bassey. So I was trying to find things that were more offensive and edgy.
“Now it’s completely the opposite. You are walking on eggshells and don’t want to offend anybody, which is tricky with impressions as the whole point is to take the mick. I have to pick people who can take it.”
Her singing voices will go from Billie Holiday to Billie Eilish, Shirley Bassey to Kate Bush, Lulu to Britney Spears.
She will also have fun doing voices such as Maggie Smith, Julie Walters, Davina McCall and her favourite, Lorraine Kelly. But she said: “I have an audience requests part in the show and don’t think I have enough Scots.
“I need to do Annie Lennox, I think, and I’m working on Kirsty Young who, if I could choose a voice it would be hers. It’s so calming. But I don’t think there are enough Scots on TV.”
Nicola Sturgeon would no doubt agree with that, at least.
● Debra Stephenson: The Many Voices of Debra Stephenson is on at the Assembly: Studio Three from August 6 to 28
(not 16). Tickets from www.assemblyfestival.com or 0131 623 3030.
