Kym Marsh knows she’s been lucky. Just over 24 years ago, when she was introduced to the world as a twentysomething singer from Merseyside on the reality competition Popstars, there were no guarantees that her career in entertainment would last.
Hear’Say, her group that was put together on the show, was successful but short-lived – as was Marsh’s solo career, which culminated in two top 10 singles before coming to an end in 2003 when she was dropped by her label. But in 2006, a guest role on Coronation Street extended into a 13-year stint on the cobbles. After that came presenting jobs, a spot in the revival of school drama Waterloo Road, opportunities on the stage, a turn around the dancefloor on Strictly Come Dancing and more. “Not everyone’s allowed the scope in their careers that I’ve been allowed,” Marsh says now at 48. “I’ve been very fortunate to be able to do all of these different things.”
This brings us to Marsh’s latest endeavour: tackling one of the most iconic roles in British theatre, Beverley Moss, hostess with the mostest in Mike Leigh’s Abigail’s Party. The production, currently playing at Manchester’s iconic Royal Exchange Theatre, has already scored rave reviews from critics. Not that Marsh is too bothered either way. “I find reviews really funny,” she says. “I get why they’re important, but at the end of the day it’s the people that are coming to watch that matter. And every audience we’ve had has just been wonderful.”
When we meet, it’s an unseasonably warm day and a breeze is seeping in through the open windows upstairs at the Royal. It’s a stark contrast to the claustrophobic, cigarette smoke-filled setting of Abigail’s Party, which takes place during a gathering hosted by the domineering Beverley and her husband Laurence for their neighbours, including Abigail’s mother, Sue. As alcohol is served in copious amounts, the evening begins to unravel, and before too long Beverley’s little get-together descends into the drinks party from hell.
When it debuted in 1977, Leigh’s comedy of manners about dissatisfied and drunk suburbanites offered up a funny and subtly dark send-up of the aspirational and consumerist middle classes. The play was an instant hit, but it was thanks to the BBC television adaptation later that year, which starred Alison Steadman as Beverley, that Abigail’s Party became truly embedded in British culture.
Marsh knew about the play growing up and remembers her mother talking about it. She watched it for the first time after stumbling across the BBC version on a streaming service. “Then two weeks later, I was asked to come and read for the part, which is crazy,” she says. Since then, Marsh hasn’t revisited it. “It felt like the wrong thing to do. Alison Steadman was incredible playing that role, but I think it’s really important for any actor to take a role that’s been done before and make it your own.”
The setting of this production is also different, transplanting the action from a nondescript suburb in the south of England to just outside of Manchester. Marsh, who grew up in Wigan, says her version of Beverley reminds her of her mum and “those aunties that aren’t really your aunties but your mum’s friends”. Marsh adds, “I mean, my mum and her friends are nothing like Beverley, but she’s in some of their mannerisms, the ways that they speak and the language that they use to shield gossip.”
While performing, Marsh leans heavily into her broad Mancunian accent as she delivers barbs to Sue, snarls at Laurence, and foists drinks on her guests. Her depiction of Beverley is tougher than Steadman’s, as she delivers lines with a calculated callousness. But there’s vulnerability, too: at one point, as Beverley excuses herself to fix her makeup, the facade slips and the audience gets to see a woman who is deeply unhappy.
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“She’s not a monster,” Marsh says. “While she might come across as being this dictator, if you scratch below the surface, you see that it’s all a big mask. There’s a real sense of loneliness to her. She’s very much a caged bird.”
Part of this stems from Beverley’s unhappy marriage to Laurence. “I don’t think they’ve ever been in love,” Marsh suggests. “They probably liked each other and thought, ‘Oh, well, this is all right.’ It’s convenient. But you were expected to get married back then. It was almost a little girl’s dream.”
She laughs. “But not for Kym Marsh. I’ve been married three times, and three times it’s not gone well – so no more for me. Three strikes and I’m out.”
The ins and outs of these marriages – to Eastenders star Jack Ryder, Hollyoaks actor Jamie Lomas, and army major Scott Ratcliff – have filled the pages of gossip mags since she was in Hear’Say. “I can’t do anything quietly,” she says. “For example, I put something on my Instagram about celebrating my daughter’s birthday, and the next thing every paper was reporting about how I’d reunited with my ex-husband at her birthday party.”
This fervid interest in her personal life continues now. When she broke up with actor Samuel Thomas earlier this year, Marsh remembers reading one story in a tabloid about how she had left her job on Waterloo Road “because I’m heading towards 50 and I broke up with my ‘toy boy boyfriend’”.
“Sorry,” she says, “you think that the decisions in my life are based on how old I am and who I’ve broken up with?” She laughs again. “I mean, even when I’ve been doing interviews for jobs, people have asked me about my love life. I actually said to somebody once, ‘Tell me about your love life.’ It’s just nonsense.”
Graziano was nothing but a gentleman with me – he and I still talk
She thinks the media’s appetite for her personal life could be a hangover from her Hear’Say days. Either way, it hasn’t hardened her. In conversation, it’s clear that while she’s serious about her work, there’s a playfulness, too – she’s funny and warm, cracking jokes about her old music videos and her love life.
Still, she tries her best to protect her three children and her grandchildren from the scrutiny of the press and the public. Although her 14-year-old daughter Polly seems yet to have learned of her mother’s ability to turn the other cheek. “She was having a full argument with this person in the comments section of my Instagram like she would on the playground. And these people were retaliating!” Marsh says. “I said to her, ‘Babe, gorgeous sentiment but please just delete all those.’”
Most recently, and salaciously, Marsh got dragged into the press last year when her former Strictly partner, Graziano Di Prima, was fired from the show following allegations that he kicked former Love Island star and presenter Zara McDermott when they were paired together in 2023 – allegations that he has since admitted to.
When asked about it now, Marsh responds without hesitation. “I haven’t got involved in any of that because I can’t comment on anybody else’s experience,” she says.“All I can comment on is my own and nothing like that ever happened between me and Graziano. He was nothing but a gentleman. Yes, we got heated in arguments, but you do; you’re under pressure. Everybody that takes part in Strictly will have moments with their partner where it’s intense, but it was never physical. And he and I still talk.”
Despite the ongoing press attention, Marsh believes things have improved since the early 2000s. “I mean, magazines like Heat used to circle people’s cellulite,” she says. “And when I was in Hear’Say, I remember people running after us trying to get pictures of us getting out of a cab so that they could take pictures of our knickers. That would never happen now.”
Still, the years have brought other challenges. At 48,she finds the ageism she’s encountering horrifying. “I posted something on my Instagram and someone commented, ‘Too much Botox and fillers.’ And I said, ‘Well thank you, but I don’t have any.’” She laughs. “You’re basically saying I look young, so thank you very much. Or someone will say, ‘Oh, her neck gives away how old she is.’ I’m nearly 50 years old and you’re probably 20. Don’t bring that to me.”
In fact, Marsh is embracing her forthcoming 50th birthday wholeheartedly. “I’m very happy with my life,” she says. “I have three beautiful children and amazing grandchildren. I’ve been pretty successful in my career and continuing to make moves there. I feel good about where I am. I don’t look too bad, although my neck is a giveaway, apparently. And yes, I don’t have a significant other, but actually, I’m quite happy with that. I’m doing all right.”
She does wish that her dad, who died last year, could have seen her in Abigail’s Party, but she’s happy that her mum got to see it. “She said she’s not laughed like that in a very long time,” Marsh says. “And I know my dad would have loved it. He was my biggest supporter, and he said to me before he died that I’ve brought him so much joy because it was his dream to be in the entertainment industry, but it didn’t happen for him. I think he was able to live out his dream through me. That’s something that I will take with me.”
What comes after Abigail’s Party remains to be seen. Marsh is not against returning to Corrie, although there are no immediate plans. “My dad always used to say, ‘You never know what’s around the corner,’” she says. “And he’s right. I’m very much flying by the seat of my pants and seeing what happens.” It’s an approach that, so far, seems to be working.
‘Abigail’s Party’ is at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, until 24 May
