Browse Sections

• Magazine 
• Food and drink

Swept off her feet

Carmel Thomason
3/ 9/2007

SUE Devaney talks excitedly about how she's met the man to make her heart fly, quite literally.

"This chap came up to speak to me and I thought, 'He's not stopped talking - that's usually me'," she smiles. "I couldn't get a word in edgeways which is very unusual. He was just doing all the talking and that was it."

In 42-year-old, Adrian Matthews, the chatty actress seems to have finally met her match - a man who can not only talk as fast, but who also shares the same warm-hearted zest for life that has made Sue a TV and stage favourite.

And, as always where the Dinnerladies star is concerned, the comedy element is not far away as she tells how the pair met in unlikely circumstances - the opening of a children's nursery.

"My friend said, 'Do you want to come and open this new kiddie's nursery?' So, I went to cut the ribbon and the guy whose nursery it was, his best friend is Adrian.

"He's a pilot and was all on a high because he'd flown up that day from London to Leeds in a Mustang. He was chuffed to bits." Adrian also told Sue about his charity, Tigers For Kids, which arranges adventure flights for children with serious illnesses.

He got the idea while he was being treated for a rare bone cancer at Manchester's Christie Hospital.

"When he was in Christie's he would see a lot of kids much younger than him and think, 'I've got an old Tiger Moth sitting there not doing anything apart from when it's being used for films'. And that's how it started.

Inspired

"It really inspired me - the enjoyment Adrian was giving to these kids and their families. So I told him if there was anything I could do to help I would.

"Later he rang me and said, `I know you are saying you want to help but do you want to come and see what I do first? It took me three dates before I even got up in one.

"There were all these old planes and we couldn't go up in one so I thought, 'He's lying I bet he just cleans them really,'

"The first time he took me up it was in one of those that does all the aerobatics and we were going over and over and round in circles."

That was a year ago and Sue's heart has been in a spin ever since. So, it's fitting her latest project, Girls Behind, is a real rollercoaster of an emotional ride with a feel good ending.

The comedy musical is a new show from Louise Roche, the writer behind hen night favourite, Girls Night.

Like Girls Night it is packed with dancefloor anthems, such as Aretha Franklin's Think, Shirley Bassey's Big Spender and Shania Twain's Man I Feel Like A Woman.

But Sue says that this latest tale is more than a girlie night out, delving further into the lives of three main characters with a poignant storyline which also packs a real punch.

"It's about three girls who are mates from school," Sue explains. "They set up a singing act and perform in a club every Friday and it's about their lives, their loves, the friendship, the insecurities, their ambitions, their dreams. The play spans 15 years and after that time they are still in the Star Club so it's about what they've become."

GIRLS Behind is at The Lowry, Salford Quays, from September 3 to 8. £12 - £20. For tickets call 0870 7875790. For details of the charity adventure flights visit www.tigersforkids.org .