Devon


<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1500" height="1500" src="https://devon.muddystilettos.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2022/05/Wayne-Sleep-Steve-Ullathorne-Photography-4.png" alt="" class="wp-image-43237" srcset="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/devon/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2022/05/Wayne-Sleep-Steve-Ullathorne-Photography-4.png 1500w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/devon/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2022/05/Wayne-Sleep-Steve-Ullathorne-Photography-4-800x800.png 800w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/devon/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2022/05/Wayne-Sleep-Steve-Ullathorne-Photography-4-1000x1000.png 1000w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/devon/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2022/05/Wayne-Sleep-Steve-Ullathorne-Photography-4-400x400.png 400w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/devon/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2022/05/Wayne-Sleep-Steve-Ullathorne-Photography-4-768x768.png 768w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/devon/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2022/05/Wayne-Sleep-Steve-Ullathorne-Photography-4-525x525.png 525w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/devon/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2022/05/Wayne-Sleep-Steve-Ullathorne-Photography-4-500x500.png 500w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/devon/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2022/05/Wayne-Sleep-Steve-Ullathorne-Photography-4-1100x1100.png 1100w" sizes="(max-width: 1500px) 100vw, 1500px" /></figure>



<p>He&#8217;s Britain&#8217;s best-known ballet dancer, famed for working with Rudolf Nureyev, Morecombe &amp; Wise and performing a surprise dance with Lady Diana at the Royal Opera House. More recently he was runner-up to Tuffers in <em>I&#8217;m a Celebrity</em>, competed on<em> Celebrity Mastermind</em> and spent time in India for <em>The Real Marigold Hotel</em>. </p>



<p>Closer to home, Wayne was born in Plymouth and trained at the Devon&#8217;s Geraldine Lamb School of Dance? Us neither! The ballet legend is hoofing it to the Palace Theatre, Paignton with his with new tour, <em><a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="An Audience with Wayne Sleep (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.palacetheatrepaignton.co.uk/shows/an-audience-with-wayne-sleep/" target="_blank">An Audience with Wayne Sleep</a></em> (who else?!).</p>



<p>High time for a Muddy chinwag&#8230;</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Hello Wayne! Half a century in dance! I&#8217;m shattered after half an hour. How do you stay so fit at 74 years young? </h2>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="750" height="938" src="https://devon.muddystilettos.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2022/05/wayne-5.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-43240" srcset="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/devon/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2022/05/wayne-5.jpeg 750w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/devon/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2022/05/wayne-5-640x800.jpeg 640w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/devon/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2022/05/wayne-5-420x525.jpeg 420w" sizes="(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" /><figcaption>Pic credit: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/wayne_sleep/?hl=en" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="@wayne_sleep (opens in a new tab)">@wayne_sleep</a></figcaption></figure>



<p>Oh well, I&#8217;m not really. Not after two and a half years of enforced hibernation. I used to be hopeless at relaxing but Covid meant I&#8217;ve had to learn. I have my Pilates mat by my bed, and now I&#8217;m so relaxed it&#8217;s always, &#8216;I&#8217;ll do it tomorrow.&#8217; I put on a lot of weight, then I think I&#8217;ve reached the bottom of the barrel, better do something.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Bet your bottom is way higher than ours&#8230;</h2>



<p>I wouldn&#8217;t be so sure. I do a big tap number at the end of the show &#8211; ooh, mustn&#8217;t give too much away! &#8211; so I have to be fit for that. </p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">What else can we expect from the new show?</h2>



<p>It&#8217;s me chatting about my dance career, how I became principal dancer with the Royal Ballet, founding my own dance company, touring the world with my show&nbsp;<em>Dash</em>. Plus, some dancing of course, live and clips of when I was younger. Plus, there&#8217;s a chance to ask questions &#8211; I did my first show last week and the audience was lovely BTW. </p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Should we bring along our little ballerinas?</h2>



<p>Yes, it&#8217;s great for kids because among other things, it&#8217;s about dance as a career, and overcoming adversity. </p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Have you had to overcome adversity?</h2>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="780" height="807" src="https://devon.muddystilettos.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2022/05/wayne-1.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-43241" srcset="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/devon/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2022/05/wayne-1.jpeg 780w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/devon/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2022/05/wayne-1-773x800.jpeg 773w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/devon/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2022/05/wayne-1-768x795.jpeg 768w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/devon/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2022/05/wayne-1-507x525.jpeg 507w" sizes="(max-width: 780px) 100vw, 780px" /><figcaption>Pic credit: Wayne Sleep</figcaption></figure>



<p>A male dancer needs to be 5ft7 to get into the Royal Ballet School but I made it at 5ft2. Eight years in training and I thought I&#8217;d never make it in. I even thought about taking hormone therapy to grow, but it wasn&#8217;t an exact science at the time, you might get too tall or outgrow your strength. My boss, Dame Ninette&nbsp;<em>De Valois</em>, (founder of the Royal Ballet) heard about it and told me not to, saying &#8220;You&#8217;re just going to have jump higher, twist faster, and get on with it.&#8221; And that&#8217;s what I did. As Margot Fonteyn once said to me when I asked her what she thought had made her, it&#8217;s all about &#8220;tenacity&#8221;.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Any advice for parents of kids who want to dance professionally? </h2>



<p>It&#8217;s a harsh discipline but it&#8217;s a wonderful career, and people need to remember it&#8217;s not just the dance jobs, it takes a whole huge team to run a place like the Royal Opera House. It&#8217;s not just about dancing, you need to be a good actor.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Can we talk about Lady Di? What did you think of the guy who played you in Netflix&#8217;s <em>The Crown</em>? Was it an accurate depiction of your famous dance?</h2>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1000" height="563" src="https://devon.muddystilettos.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2022/05/wayne-6.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-43242" srcset="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/devon/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2022/05/wayne-6.jpg 1000w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/devon/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2022/05/wayne-6-800x450.jpg 800w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/devon/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2022/05/wayne-6-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/devon/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2022/05/wayne-6-900x507.jpg 900w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" /><figcaption>Pic credit: Netflix</figcaption></figure>



<p>Netflix didn&#8217;t get in touch, you know, to ask me about it. But I thought the actor (Jay Webb) did well, although I&#8217;m not that camp! I was really pleased he did a pretty good job of the dancing &#8211; though not as good as me naturally&#8230; Of course, in reality it was at Christmas, not for Charles&#8217; birthday. And Diana blowing the kiss, that was all nonsense.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Tell us all the gossip about how it came about.</h2>



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<iframe loading="lazy" title="Dancing with Diana: Princess wowed audience in surprise appearance" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pmf-P0xkd9A?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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<p>Well, you see, it was a compete surprise &#8211; all hush-hush, a three-minute dance at The Royal Opera House for a charity gala. She chose the music, and she knew exactly what she wanted &#8211; <em>Uptown Girl</em> by Billy Joel &#8211; and of course she summoned me to the studio to choreograph and teach her a dance. Which I did, although I couldn&#8217;t come straight away as I was on tour, and sometimes even she was away so we even had to talk it through over the phone. </p>



<p>On the night, I was worried she might be affected by the bright spotlights and 2000 people watching &#8211; and that I might drop her. But she took to it like a duck to water. She wrote to me afterwards and said, &#8220;Now I know why you perform because of the reaction and the buzz you get from a live audience&#8217;.</p>



<p>Later, I was working in Munich, and it was a Sunday morning, and I was exhausted because of course you have to create fireworks every night. The phone went and the caller said, &#8220;This is your early morning call&#8221;, and I said, &#8220;Who&#8217;s this, it&#8217;s my day off.&#8221; The voice said, &#8220;It&#8217;s Diana.&#8221; &#8220;Diana who?&#8221; I said. And she said, &#8220;WALES!.&#8221; </p>



<p>Half an hour later I went to the hotel where she was staying and she welcomed me at the door of her suite with two huge jugs in her hands and the words, &#8220;Tea or coffee?&#8221; That was just what she was like, you see.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">If you could dance with a young Royal now, who would it be?</h2>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="750" height="938" src="https://devon.muddystilettos.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2022/05/wayne-3.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-43243" srcset="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/devon/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2022/05/wayne-3.jpeg 750w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/devon/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2022/05/wayne-3-640x800.jpeg 640w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/devon/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2022/05/wayne-3-420x525.jpeg 420w" sizes="(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" /><figcaption>Pic credit: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/wayne_sleep/?hl=en" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="@wayne_sleep (opens in a new tab)">@wayne_sleep</a></figcaption></figure>



<p>The grandchildren, of course, they&#8217;d be my size.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Where do you keep your OBE?</h2>



<p>It&#8217;s in my mother&#8217;s desk which I inherited. With my other medals. I have a few, though I don&#8217;t like to brag.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Yes, and the Guinness World Record holder for the fastest <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="entrechat-douze (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/69625-fastest-entrechat-douze" target="_blank"><em>entrechat-douze</em></a>. Whatever that is?</h2>



<p>How very dare you! Great French accent by the way&#8230; It&#8217;s a leap in the air from a standing position and crossing and uncrossing your legs twelve times. </p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Visiting any old Devon haunts when you&#8217;re here?</h2>



<p>I love Dartmoor. We used to put up tents there in the summer. I made a huge mistake though once, and asked the guy in the ice cream van for a Cornetto. He looked at me very sternly and said, &#8216;This is Devon, we do the ice cream!&#8217; </p>



<p>My sister lives in Plymouth, and we always used to get the little boat over the River Tamar to Cawsands in Cornwall from The Barbican. It&#8217;s a lovely thing to do.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">What are you up to for the rest of the day? Heading to the bar, or the barre?</h2>



<p>Neither, darling! I&#8217;ve got a book to write, an autobiography for Hodder &amp; Stoughton. I just need to decide what to call it: <em>A Good Night&#8217;s Sleep</em>, <em>Sleep with Friends</em> or <em>Precious Little Sleep</em>. I prefer the last one but I&#8217;m worried people will think it&#8217;s a self-help guide for people with insomnia.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Want more twinkle-toed tales from Wayne? </h2>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="750" height="1124" src="https://devon.muddystilettos.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2022/05/wayne-2.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-43244" srcset="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/devon/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2022/05/wayne-2.jpeg 750w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/devon/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2022/05/wayne-2-534x800.jpeg 534w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/devon/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2022/05/wayne-2-667x1000.jpeg 667w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/devon/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2022/05/wayne-2-350x525.jpeg 350w" sizes="(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" /></figure>



<p>Book your seat for <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="An Audience with Wayne Sleep (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.palacetheatrepaignton.co.uk/shows/an-audience-with-wayne-sleep/" target="_blank">An Audience with Wayne Sleep</a> at Palace Theatre, Paignton on Sunday 29 May (<strong><em>NB date has now been rescheduled, check website for date TBC</em></strong>). Tickets £25pp.</p>


Muddy meets Wayne Sleep OBE

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