Harry Visinoni and Jasmine Armfield, two of the nation’s most popular young soap stars, are set to make their stage debuts together in the World Premiere of Jumping the Shark, which comes to Edinburgh’s Rose Theatre in March for its only Scottish dates.
Coronation Street actor Visinoni, who played murdered Seb Franklin in the long-running series, and EastEnders’ favourite Jasmine Armfield, best known as Albert Square’s Rebecca ‘Bex’ Fowler, will take to the stage in front of live audiences for the first time in the hilarious new comedy and 23-year-old Harry can’t wait, despite admitting to nerves.
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Talking exclusively to Edinburgh Live, the actor who appeared in Corrie from 2016 to 2021 reveals, “I’m not nervous yet but am fully aware that when it comes to performance time I’ll be wracked with nerves. I tend to hover around, shadowboxing, before I do anything. I don’t know why, but I have a lot of jittery energy and it seems to channel that in some way, so you’ll see me knocking out some shadows in the wings before I go on.
"But I love Edinburgh. It’s my favourite city in the British Isles. Friends went to university there and I have put in some shifts in Edinburgh's nightlife with them.”
Written by David Cantor, whose TV credits include My Family and Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, and Michael Kingsbury, who also directs. Jumping the Shark, runs at the Rose Theatre from Tuesday 7 to Saturday 18 March. It’s described as a ‘celebration of the TV sitcom’ and has been inspired by comedy writing legends such as Only Fools and Horses’ John Sullivan, Cheers’
Tom Anderson, and Brian Cooke, who penned episodes of the hit Seventies ITV sitcom Man About The House.
It finds five strangers gathered in the conference room of a small hotel. Despite character differences, one thing links Pam, Gavin, Morgan, Dale, and Amy... they all want to realise their dreams through comedy. Frank Donohue, the finest sitcom writer of his generation, has flown in from Los Angeles to conduct a seminar teaching his five lucky disciples how to write the perfect sitcom, but as he reveals the tricks of the trade, their everyday lives are exposed, leading to mix ups, farcical revelations... and gut-wrenching tragedy.
Like Visinoni, 24-year-old Armfield will be harnessing her nerves to make the most of what she describes as "a dream come true".
“I am so excited. I have always dreamed of being on stage. Having the time to explore a character in depth in a world where you have to raise your voice a lot more, to project, is really different from doing TV where I’ve had seven years doing things small and naturalistic. Suddenly, I’m having to be big and bold while playing the truth at the same time.”
Armfield was only 14 when she landed her role in Eastenders but says that, although she could bring much more experience to her character now, she is proud of what she achieved in the role, which saw her nominated for Best Soap Actress at the 2017 TV Choice Awards. “Given my age and experience at the time, I’m really proud of what I achieved with no professional training. If I was playing that role now I’d have so much more knowledge and could delve into the character a lot more, but to my 14-year-old self who got the part, I say, ‘Go Jas, you did a good job’.”
Visinoni, whose Weatherfield character was killed off in a harrowing gang attack, admits it’s good to be able to walk away from a day’s work and not be in tears. He explains, “This is the perfect job for where I am in my career. It’s a light-hearted piece and not emotionally exhausting so it means I can tour the country, play a lot of beautiful theatres, and go home each day laughing and not in tears as I often did on Coronation Street.”
He continues after a moment’s thought, “It’s apples and oranges though, in the sense that doing more emotionally exhausting stuff is extremely rewarding. Some of the things I did on my exit from Coronation Street, the flashback scenes where I had to crawl, battered and bruised, to Nina’s lifeless body, really were rewarding to see on screen.”
And now that they both have a taste for the live stage, they can’t wait to do more.
“If you gave me any role in A View From A Bridge, I’d be quite happy,” says Visinoni, Armfield adds, “One day I would love to play Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire, that’s my ultimate goal. I just get such a buzz from being on a stage.”
Visinoni agrees, “It was quite funny when we realised we’ve had parallel careers so far, and it’s nice being in the trenches who someone who knows how it feels to be making their debut, but we are also blessed to be working with a cast that have some pretty muscular credits and are great mentors.”
That six-strong cast includes Sarah Moyle, best known for playing receptionist Valerie Pitman in BBC’s Doctors, a role that won her Best Comedy Performance at the 2019 British Soap Awards, David Schaal, best known as Taffy in The Office and Terry Cartwright in The Inbetweeners.
The title, Jumping the Shark, is taken from the expression used to describe the moment when a long-running TV series breaks its viewers suspension of disbelief with an outrageously unbelievable storyline and was born out of an episode of Happy Days which saw The Fonz, dressed in his trademark leather jacket, jumping a real shark on water skis.
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