​​Shameless Plug is a new series where we turn things over to creatives. In exchange for plugging their project, they have to spill their guilty pleasure, biggest inspiration, personal motto and a few other secrets. Today, an actress shares memories from 1987 and the reasons why she loves being on stage.

Ellie Smith was born in Auckland and grew up in Panmure, though she has been based in England since 2009, and Wellington before that. She’s an award-winning actor, with leading roles in the original London productions of The Rocky Horror Show and Chicago under her belt, as well as starring roles in New Zealand productions, and you may remember her face from a Lotto ad, though she hasn’t been on a stage here for 17 years. This will reset on 11 November when she performs her critically acclaimed play Life on a Loop in Auckland.

She first moved to London when she was 20 in 1971, returned to New Zealand when she fell in love during a visit back home, and then moved back to the UK because her daughter is there. In Brighton, she started singing in care homes – Judy Garland, Doris Day – with a mic and an amp she would bring along herself. Life on a Loop is about those experiences.

Here’s Ellie’s Shameless Plug:

The most fun I’ve ever had on a project was in 1987. I was in a production of Roger Hall’s The Share Club at Downstage Theatre. The dream cast included Bruce Phillips, John Callen, Jennifer Ludlam, Helen Moulder, Lloyd Scott, Stephen Lovatt, and the late Michael Haigh. The play opened on 5 October with champagne flowing. The financial world was on a high and the jokes in the play about investing $1 in shares brought howls of laughter. We were a rather misbehaved cast, finding each other terribly funny with lots of awful over-acting, and generally having the best time ever. The house was full every night with a rapturous crowd. 

Within two weeks the share market crashed and suddenly it felt like we were in a tragedy. Audience reaction was very subdued, and you could almost imagine people sobbing at lines that were hilarious the night before. As stage actors none of us had enough money to have shares in anything, so I guess we didn’t really feel the effect of the crash, but we certainly felt the effect of comedy falling flat. Despite that, The Share Club remains one of the most fun productions I’ve ever been in.

My personal motto is: You’re a long time looking at the lid. I have a dear friend who has forever said it whenever there’s a choice to be made. When I was younger, I thought that was terribly flippant and funny, but now I’m in my seventies and I can see what the lid’s made of. Should I go on holiday to a Greek island? Well… “You’re a long time looking at the lid, so…!” Open another bottle of wine? Well… It’s a no brainer! Taxi or bus? Well…buy the bus! It’s a great motto as it leaves the window open to every possibility. Seize the day! Take a chance! What’s there to lose? All those sayings that mean live life to the full which I try to do each day. I always think of my friend and think of her joie de vivre when I say it.

The moment I knew I wanted to be an artist was when I was about 11 years old and taking part in a school production at Tamaki Intermediate. The play was called Pip and the Convict based on Great Expectations and I had auditioned for the comedy role of Mrs Joe Gargery. It was the first time I had acted and when I heard the laughter from the audience I was hooked. I could always make my family or friends laugh but this was different. It’s a bit of a cliché but you can get away with things if you’re funny – when you’re young I mean. After that my mother started taking me to the theatre as much as possible. In the 1960s there wasn’t a great deal of choice but my love of theatre grew from there. 

My biggest inspiration is television writer, producer and director, Sally Wainwright. From a Northern working-class family and now in her 60s, she started working life as a bus driver to support the years of writing for no reward. She eventually found work writing on The Archers and Coronation Street where she honed her craft. Sally Wainwright constantly draws on her own life experience and those around her for inspiration, almost always on the lives of women as she finds their experiences more “interesting”, more “heroic” she says. When asked why she likes writing about old people she said, “because old people dare”. Isn’t that a remarkable and brave thing to say in an industry fixated on the young?

I admire the determination she’s shown in getting to the top of a male dominated industry and is now in total control of her projects, from writing the scripts to directing and producing them. She has carved a niche for women actors in television drama and created work for so many.

My all time favourite album is Blossoming, a jazz album by my daughter Madison Westwood. I love it so much and am so proud of her for making it. Maddy studied music in London and although she plays the piano beautifully, her real love is singing. We have both always loved Blossom Dearie, an American jazz singer who died in 2009 aged 84, and so I was thrilled when Maddy said she was going to record her songs. She hired an arranger, musicians and a producer and invested in herself with her savings. The album is very gentle with excellent instrumentals and great interpretations of some songs that have lasted through many decades. 

The best thing about being in the arts is the people you get to work with and the stories you share with an audience. I have always loved theatre the most of all and think that will be so until I take my last breath, with luck, sitting in an audience or saying the right line (not as easy as when I was young) onstage. The most appealing and frightening thing about theatre is the fact of it being in the moment. There are no re-takes, no going back. The audience is on the journey with you in real time and the shared experience is what makes it exciting and unique. All arts are vital to our wellbeing and understanding of the world and I am so grateful for having the opportunity of being involved for so many years.   

My shameless plug is my play Life on a Loop which is opening on Tuesday 11 November at Q Theatre in Auckland. It’s directed by Jesse Peach and will run for seven shows until Sunday 16 November.

Life on a Loop is based on my own often very funny experiences of singing in care homes in the south of England. I sang in homes that were very poor and some that offered a sweet sherry at six o’clock, but all were predominantly filled with people who would rather be somewhere else. My play is about those people; from the stories they shared that were funny and sad, resentful and forgiving. It is told through the character of Grace, a care worker with an easy sense of humour, who has spent thirty years looking after the elderly and those with dementia.