| Girls Night | Milton Keynes Theatre 17-19 April 2007 Tue & Wed: 7:30pm Thurs: 6:00pm & 9:00pm |
At just 14-years-old Shana Swash was thrust into the limelight when she took on a role in one of the biggest shows on TV and ended up pregnant and on heroin - artistically speaking that is! She played feisty teenage mum Demi Miller in EastEnders for two years alongside her real brother Joe Swash who played her SCREEN brother Mickey as well - and still does!
 | | Shobna Gulati and Shana Swash |
Still only 16, she is currently in the middle of her first theatre tour in the musical comedy GIRLS NIGHT by Milton Keynes writer Louise Roche, which is a 'tell-it-like-it-is' look at the lives of a group of female friends. She is joined by Shobna Gulati (Coronation Street, Dinnerladies) in a production which follows five friends as they re-live their past on an hilarious karaoke night out - and you’ll recognise every one of them. Carol was born to party, Anita says it like it is, Liza has ‘issues’ and Kate is boring but very handy for driving! The songs include every girlie anthem you can think of including 'Dancing Queen', 'I Will Survive' and 'It’s Raining Men'. Shana told us all about the role and how much she is enjoying being on the stage after her TV experiences. Can you tell us a bit about the part you are playing in Girls' Night? Shana: I'm playing a 17-year-old dead angel! When I [my character] was younger I got run over and I had a daughter when I was 16. Now it's 22 years later and all my friends have got together and are having a night out and I watch over them and tell a little bit about everyone. It's just a way of me watching over them because it's my daughter's wedding anniversary. So you've been watching over your friends and your daughter all this time? Shana: Yes I have - it's a really good part to play. So what else happens in the play - is there lots of singing and stuff? Shana: Yes there's a lot of singing and dancing and a lot of drunkeness but really all the secrets come out about what happened when we were younger - how I slept with one of my friend's boyfriends and was pregnant with his baby. You just have to sit and watch and listen to see what's going on! It's all good fun as well though is it? It's not really too serious? Shana: It's hilarious, when I got the script I read it and I was pissing myself laughing and thought this is going to be great on stage if you can imagine what I'm like now! And this is like your first piece of theatre isn't it? Shana: We'll I've done panto but Girls' Night is the first real theatre tour I've ever done! So how are you finding it? Shana: I'm really enjoying it, I'm loving it. I love the response you get from the audience and the applause. It's completely different to telly, completely different. In TV you can start again if you make a mistake, has it been difficult to do theatre where you just have to start and keep going?
 | | Girls' Night |
Shana: Yes it has! I've got like a two page monologue to do. It's OK now because I've been doing it for so many weeks but when I first started doing it I couldn't remember any of it and I'd be standing there and thinking 'god, I'm going to have to walk off in a minute because I don't know what I'm going to say next'. And you know when something goes really badly wrong and you can't redeem yourself so you just have to make it up as you go along - that's happened a couple of times but it's alright now! You're still quite young at 16. Did you always want to act? Shana: I always wanted to dance really and then my brother did acting and he got me into the drama school which was just like an hour once a week after school. It was fun, it wasn't anything to take seriously but from then I realised that I really enjoyed it actually and I would like to do that instead. So it was your brother Joe that got you into it? And then he got a part in EastEnders and you followed him - bizarrely playing his sister?! Shana: Yeah - people say 'was it weird?' but it wasn't really, it was just like I was at home with him and we'd fight and we'd argue on set and we did get told off a lot when we used to play fight with each other - but it was just all fun. You had a very demanding storyline the whole time you were in it didn't you? Shana: Yeah I did, I was pregnant and on heroin and my boyfriend died. When I found out I was going to be pregnant I though 'oh god, will I be able to do that?' I was only 14. Then I thought 'go for it' because you're going to learn so much from it. Then the heroin came up and I was thinking I don't know anything about drugs. I didn't have a clue what I was doing but luckily enough we had a drugs advisor with us but it was scary and a bit daunting. So did you do research for the part? Shana: Yeah - when I was pregnant I had a midwife come and talk to me and she said what it was like to give birth and then I got a couple of videos of women giving birth and it scarred me for life! So you do get quite a lot of support in that sense? Shana: Yes - I wasn't left to my own devices to try and make it up, I had people helping me. What about personally - you're 14 and going into one of the biggest shows on TV - how did that affect you?
 | | Shana with her screen family in EastEnders |
Shana: It was quite hard because I was at school as well and it was difficult trying to fit in going out with my friends and having my time and doing all my school work and all my course work and my GCSEs and then doing EastEnders. But in the end I did it and did my GCSEs and I came out with good results and my friends were always going to be there for me and they always stuck by me and helped me. And EastEnders was just a job, it wasn't 'oh you're going to be famous'. It was a job with me earning my money. Did you get people talking to you in the street? Shana: Yeah I get a lot of that. At first I didn't mind but now it's kind of a bit embarrassing but it comes with the job, you expect it. So what would you like to do now - more theatre or more TV? Shana: Oh I 'd like to do a bit more theatre - I'm enjoying this. It's much harder than doing TV and it's something that you really can learn from. I'm just enjoying it more than I did TV. Do you get more free time? Shana: Yes but it's also the fact that when you're in TV it's kind of like a chore - you have to go and do all these things and you've got to retake. But when you're doing theatre, once a night you go on and you enjoy yourself. It's just like going out and having a good time. You're with the people that you love and everyone on the tour is just brilliant - it's like we're a big group of sisters. Why should people come to the show then? Shana: I would say get all your mums, your grans, your aunties, your friends and your sisters - get them altogether, dress up in pink, get really, really drink and come and enjoy yourself! | 
