Sara Crowe can remember her first – and until last week only – appearance at the Edinburgh Fringe. It was 40 years ago, and it involved leotards and loo rolls – two things which definitely won’t feature in her portrayal of Queen Victoria for her . “I was here in 1984 or ’85, with my friend, Ann Bryson.
It was the first thing we did after leaving drama school, a show we wrote and performed on The Mound. I remember travelling through Edinburgh on a bus and wearing a leotard, which I wouldn’t be seen dead in now,” she laughed. “We didn’t know how to get a crowd.
We did things like put loo rolls in a circle and asked people to stand on them, but that didn’t go very well and half of it blew away. The Vicious Boys [comedy duo Andy Smart and Angelo Abela] helped us learn how to get a crowd. Eventually we learned and passed the hat round for pennies.
“It was a complete grassroots way to start, but a lot of fun as well. It was the start of a cabaret act that Ann and I did for a few years, kicking us into that alternative comedy world.” Sara and Ann, also known as The Flaming Hamsters, would go on to star in a long-running series of adverts for Philadelphia Cheese in the mid-90s, as well as a film, The Steal, and sitcom Sometimes Never.
Sara’s other past roles include Four Weddings And A Funeral, EastEnders, Martin’s Close, and on the West End stage, Private Lives, Twelfth Night, The Constant Wife and Hay Fever. She has returned to the after four decades a.