Posted July 25, 200618 yr FROM S CLUB TO THE WEST END HANNAH SPEARRITT TURNS UP THE HEAT IN “SNOW!†If you were to bump into former S Clubber Hannah Spearritt, it’s just possible you wouldn’t recognise her. Gone are Hannah’s girl-next-door looks, with her sleek blond bob and teen band attire. Instead, the star of West End’s Snow! The Musical, for which she’s been hailed as “impressive†by the critics, has gone all platinum and spiky, with punky togs to boot. With her new theatre role, a TV sitcom and two films behind her, the 24-year-old former child star has finally broken free from those S Club days, her old image and the punishing schedule that went with it all. Still firmly there, however, are her love for her ex-bandmate and boyfriend Paul Cattermole, and, as she admits here for the first time, the food problem she was forever hinting at in the S Club 7 in Miami sitcom. Her confession of this, coming two-and-a-half years after S Club split, comes as something of a shock. “I know readers will hate me saying this, but I have to make sure I eat weight-inducing food otherwise I will waste away. “So I’m mad about gravy dinners and all the meat and veg that goes with them. And my fridge is full of cheese, every different kind you can imagine. I’ve become a cheeseaholic!†It’s quite an admission. Sitting in her theatre dressing room just off Leicester Square nursing a takeaway coffee and a plate of cheese sandwiches, she admits, “I’m 5ft 4 and I weigh just seven stone – less than I should be for my height. People say how lucky I am but I’d love to have more of a bum and to have boobs.†She’s turned up dressed for the cold in baggy combat trousers, brown suede trainers and a black leather jacket with the collar pulled up to her ears, even though the room is like a hothouse. And she is thin as a stick insect. Scrutinising her features in the mirror, she sighs, “I just wish I could pile on the pounds and be a bit more curvy.†There are subjects which can distract her from the food problem which dogs her. One’s her work – “It’s great to be back doing live theatre,†she enthuses. “It’s a lot of fun: a sort of thigh-slapping panto-meets-pop-musical. I play Jilly who gave her heart to Jack last Christmas, but this year our families are determined to tear us apart. It’s basically good-versus-evil, with Father Christmas as a bit of a rogue.†And the relaxed atmosphere of Snow! couldn’t be further from the intensity of S Club. “We were completely exhausted throughout the whole experience,†she claims. “When we went out to Florida to do the series S Club 7 in Miami, we had 15-hour days with just one day off in the two months we were out there.†Then, in spring 2003, following the release of the film Seeing Double, the band decided to call it quits. “We’d been together for five years and we really wanted to go out on top. It was our idea to disband and do our own thing. Paul left first, then I started to get itchy feet. Jon was also set on going, but Rachel and Bradley wanted to say on a bit longer. Manufactured bands like ours don’t last forever, and so we did pretty well.†Something else which distracts her from her food problem is talking about Paul, her boyfriend of five years. Her talk becomes noticeably more animated when his name crops up and she brings out the tiny photos of him she keeps in her purse. She’s clearly potty about him still, over a decade after they met in a National Youth Music Theatre production of Pendragon. Paul was 17, she just 13. “It’s really crazy to think I’ve known Paul for 11 of my 24 years,†says Hannah. “I have memories…I know in my head what he was like when he was 17. He was so charismatic when we were doing Pendragon.†Can we expect to hear wedding bells soon? “Oh God no…I still feel like a baby!†she gasps. Time’s up – Hannah has to get ready for the evening’s show. Pausing at the door, she adds: “What I wouldn’t give for an hour-glass figure…†And with that she disappears down the corridor with bangers and mash on her mind.
