Career Chronicles – Susie Blake

Susie Blake is playing the grumbling Gallic housekeeper, Berthe in Boeing Boeing
at the Theatre Royal in Glasgow. Her career has included comedy with
Victoria Wood, Russ Abbott and Jim Davidson, soap-operas as Beverley
Unwin in Coronation Street, and theatre as a favourite cast member of Sir Alan Ayckbourn. She has recently played Madame Morrible in Wicked and Mother Lord in High Society.

What inspired you to start a career in the theatre?
Performing as an Easter chicken at the tender age of three.

Describe your job.
The most fulfilling, exhilarating, difficult… and trivial – lets be honest!

What’s the best thing about your job?
The audience.

And the worst?
The audience.

What’s the proudest achievement in your career?
Hearing my mother say “I didn’t recognise you!”.

Most embarrassing moment?
All the time – not remembering names and faces.

Who in the industry do you most admire and why?
An out of work actor – it’s so hard.

What would you do if you didn’t work in the theatre?
I like to draw and I’d like to teach – so an art teacher!

– Joseph Pike