Ben will be our Prince Charming on the Eastbourne stage

SussexWorld

Ben Tyler heads to Eastbourne this Christmas for his first professional panto on the back of three years in The Book of Mormon.

Transcript

00:00Good morning, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. Lovely this

00:07morning to speak to Prince Charming no less, Ben Tyler, who will be Prince Simon in Snow

00:12White in Eastbourne this Christmas. Lovely prospect. What are you going to bring to the

00:16role of Prince Simon?

00:20Hopefully a lot of fun, a lot of laughs. I really want to try and bring myself and my

00:24own personality to it and make him, yeah, make him memorable and hopefully something

00:30a little bit different to maybe what people have seen before.

00:33You were saying that what you don't want to do is the generic Prince Charming and that's

00:37where your personality comes in.

00:39Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. I want to, I just, I think it's always important to try

00:44and bring yourself to a role and particularly in a role that's so, you know, so well known

00:50and so well done, it's nice to try and bring sort of a slightly different spin and bring

00:55myself and my personality and my sense of humour to it. I'm always one for a sort of

01:00panto joke and a dad joke and hopefully I can bring that sort of sense of fun to it.

01:04Fantastic. Are you honing those jokes? Have you got some jokes in mind?

01:07Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. I've got some of them underlined and circled already that

01:12I'll be making the most of.

01:14Fantastic. And the really interesting thing is this is your professional panto debut.

01:17You did panto as a child, but this is the professional debut. Why now? What makes you want to do it?

01:23Honestly, I've always wanted to. I've always wanted to be able to give panto a go. I always

01:28loved sort of going to panto as a kid and it's been my first opportunity to be in a

01:36panto professionally. So, yeah, when the opportunity came up, I jumped at it.

01:41And the opportunity hasn't come before now largely because you've had three years in

01:45the Book of Mormon.

01:46I have, yeah.

01:47Loved it.

01:48Yes, absolutely loved it. It's such a great show to work on, amazing people to work with.

01:53And it was a real, a show that's very close to my heart since it was one of the reasons

01:58that I sort of got into performing and acting in musical theatre. So, yeah, it was great,

02:04great to be able to work on it.

02:05And three years sounds a long time, but the fact is you had such variety of swing.

02:10Yes, yeah, absolutely. I covered nine roles in the show. So, I did the seven ensemble

02:17Mormon boys, Elder Price and the mission president and Joseph Smith. I covered all of them. So,

02:22I was always on my toes. It was, yeah, difficult to get bored.

02:26And you found it difficult to leave. Would you ever go back, do you think?

02:30Yeah, it felt like the right time to leave after three years. But it's one of those,

02:36it's one of those buildings they always say that you never really leave. I imagine I'll

02:39be back in some capacity at some point if it's sort of covering for illness, if they're

02:44a little bit short or something like that. I'm sure I'll find my way back there at some

02:49point.

02:50For another three years?

02:51I don't know about another three years, but maybe for a little stint, who knows?

02:56Fantastic. Well, lovely to speak to you. Have a great time in Eastbourne this Christmas.

02:59And thank you.

03:00Thank you very much. Thank you. Lovely to speak to you.

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