HEY, BIG SPENDER
Barbara Dickson says her life is weird and wonderful and a bit of a juggling act. Nadine Bateman talks to the singer who is starring in Spend, Spend, Spend at The Mayflower...
Money can't buy you love, sang The Beatles, neither can it bring you happiness, and if there's one person who is living proof of that cliché it's pools winner Viv Nicholson.
She and her husband Keith won the jackpot in 1961 and joyously vowed to `Spend, Spend, Spend'.
Before that they had lived a life of abject poverty, raising their young family on £7 a week. From having only two dresses - one for work and one for `best' - Viv suddenly found herself with enough cash to buy several shops full - £150,000 - that's nearly £3million in today's money. She went wild, living a Champagne lifestyle, which included buying huge houses and numerous cars, including a Rolls Royce, fur coats and holidays abroad, until eventually she ended up penniless and right back where she started.
Along the way, despite being generous, she faced jealousy and hostility from friends, neighbours and colleagues, she also had to cope with the death of Keith and she married a total of five times.
Viv Nicholson's gripping story is the subject of a musical at The Mayflower this month called , appropriately, Spend, Spend, Spend, which stars Barbara Dickson.
"It's such a moving show, so real, that's what's marvellous about it," says Barbara.
"Unusually for a musical it's the story of somebody who is still alive. If she hadn't been it would have been so easy to glamorise her, but that hasn't been done. She is somebody who has suffered a lot and that comes across."
Barbara is one of two actresses in the role of Viv Nicholson. She plays her later in life and the younger Viv is played Rachel Leskovac.
"Rachel and I both find that playing Viv requires massive amounts of soul, love and humour. And, as actors, we have to lay it on with a trowel, especially as we have to encapsulate a very full life in just two hours!"
Barbara and Rachel sing a moving song called Who's Gonna Love Me Now You're Gone, which is about Keith who tragically died after crashing one of the cars bought with the couple's winnings.
"There is a line in that song that is sung by my co-star, Rachel, which goes `I search for traces of you on the pillow, the smell of you, an eyelash, or a hair'.
"When I heard that I cried," admits Barbara.
"You can imagine if it was your husband or your lover who had been snuffed out, you would search the bed for something of him, wouldn't you?
"I know it's sexist but I had to ask the writer of the song, Steve Brown, how a man could possibly write those lyrics, especially those two lines, because they seem to me more the kind of thing a woman would think. He told me he got them from Viv, that she has written them in her book."
Barbara draws comparisons with Spend, Spend, Spend and another show in which she played the lead Blood Brothers, for which she was given the Society of West End Theatre's Award for Best Actress in a Musical.
"Both musicals have great emotional depth - they make people laugh and cry. The audience doesn't come out of the theatre and go `Right, okay let's have a drink'. There is that moment of silence when the shows finishes that leaves a lasting effect on you."
Barbara Dickson is probably best remembered for the video in which she sang the housewive's anthem I Know Him So Well, a duet with Elaine Paige.
"That was from Chess, but I never actually appeared in the musical I just sang the song!"
Born and brought up in Dunfermline, Fife she started singing in folk clubs at the age of 17 and then appeared in Willy Russell's musical John, Paul George, Ringo . . . and Bert, in Liverpool and the West End, during the seventies.
In the 1980s Barbara Dickson achieved chart success with the melodic tunes January, February and Caravan, appearing on Top of the Pops playing the piano and sporting an unruly mop of curly, hippy-chick hair.
These days her style is more sophisticated, with her sleek blonde hair and understated wardrobe she looks every inch the successful, mature actress and singer who has tackled a variety of roles including a spell as a prostitute in the television drama Band of Gold.
