Actor Clive Rowe: ‘Panto gets more people into theatre than Shakespeare, Ibsen and Chekhov’

Clive Rowe caught Covid-19 in February, before he had been vaccinated. He lives alone in south-east London – “So when I was isolating, I was truly isolated,” he says. It was “horrible”, and although he was not hospitalised and recovered quickly, the experience had a profound affect on him, and his approach to life and work.

“I don’t mind saying it: I’m a 57-year-old, very overweight, Black man with diabetes,” he says. “My clock is ticking faster than anyone else. I can’t do anything about my age, but I can do things about my weight and my diabetes, and I am. I can also make sure I enjoy myself, because time is short. I only do jobs now that I think I will enjoy. My outlook is very much about being in the moment.”

Rowe was born and raised in Oldham, Lancashire, and started performing in community theatre as a teenager. At 20, he moved to London to study at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and made his professional debut while still a student. His subsequent career has included dozens of roles in projects on stage and screen, from CBBC’s much-loved adaptations of Jacqueline Wilson’s Tracy Beaker stories, to a Doctor Who Christmas special opposite David Tennant, to a score of acclaimed musicals at the National Theatre and in the West End.

In 1993, he was nominated for an Olivier award for his performance as Enoch Snow in Carousel at the National Theatre. Four years later, he won one for his performance as Nicely Nicely Johnson in Richard Eyre’s legendary revival of Guys and Dolls at the same venue. Twelve years on, he received another nod, this time for a part he has now played, on and off, for over 30 years – the pantomime dame.

“Some people look down on pantomime, but that’s their business,” says Rowe. “The unquestionable truth, though, is that more people come into theatre through contact with pantomime than through watching Shakespeare, or Chekhov, or Ibsen, or whatever. More often than not, it is the first theatre show a child sees. That is why it is so important.”

Rowe first played the dame at Nottingham Playhouse in 1989. He has now done it 13 times at the Hackney Empire – it was his Mother Goose there in 2008 that earned him the Olivier nomination – and is preparing to put on an extravagant frock for the 14th time in Jack and the Beanstalk. This year, for the first time, he is also co-directing, alongside fellow cast member Tony Whittle.

“It feels like home,” he says, when asked why he keeps returning to pantomime at the Hackney Empire, year after year. “Tony and I are used to the stage and the audience, and the audience is used to us, and their children are used to us – and now their children’s children are used to us. It’s like one big family.”