Learning Curves

WHETHER Abi Titmuss will be able to get away from being ... well, Abi Titmuss is anyone’s guess.

But Abi herself is determined to be taken seriously as an actress and put her past behind her.

Because let’s face it, Abi was notorious for several years as the nations’s favourite glamour girl, with 38 cover shoots under her belt, three best-selling calendars (which managed to out-sell Kylie Minogue, Jordan and David Beckham), two best-selling books and more tabloid inches than her celebrated bra size.

Her break, as John Leslie’s girlfriend during his Ulrika court case launched her career, and Abi seized the opportunity with two hands, “a great pair of personalities” and an online threesome thrown in for good measure.

But that was then, and Abi has changed, she tells me in all seriousness.

Clearly though she is as aware as anyone how hard it is to convince the public - and especially the media - that this is indeed the case.

But typically, she’s refused to let that put her off, having woken one day and decided enough was enough.

She was going to keep her clothes on and go out and earn her living as an actress.

Which is why we are here now, snatching a chat before she’s back on stage during her tour with A Naked Truth, where she plays a pole-dancing teacher/single mother with a dark secret.

“It was a conscious decision to concentrate on my acting,”Abi tells me “because I had become a glamour model and it’s not what I’d ever intended to be.

“And I’m not going to talk about that in a negative way because I had such a good time in those years and was very successful at what I did, and I’m very grateful for that.

“But I seemed to have gone so far in another direction that it had all got a bit lost and blurred. I remember looking at one photograph of me in a magazine and thinking who am I?

“I was always in my underwear and that began to strike me as being rather odd.

“The caricature of Abi Titmuss got a bit out of control and the media wrote about what they wanted which had little relevance to me.”

But then you were the one on the magazine covers, I point out.

“Yes, but that’s why I had to take control of the situation. Besides that was a few years ago and I’ve moved on since then. I mean I was in my 20s then and I’m in my 30s now, and I really think I’ve grown up.”

See what I mean? But getting accepted by the acting profession wasn’t easy.

A part in a West End Arthur Miller play gained Abi great reviews, but then the phone stopped ringing.

“Yes the knives were out. When I landed the part in Two-Way Mirror, The Stage ran a piece about how outrageous it was I got the part. They were out to destroy me. But I have laminated the resulting piece which says ‘she can act’ once we’d opened.”

“But I was naive because I thought all the doors would open after that, but they didn’t and I had a really hard year.

“So I went brunette, cut off my hair and just decided to sit it out. And over the past three years that’s what I’ve done, taking small parts in independent films and treading the boards, to prove that I’m serious.

“So when I got a part in this I just jumped up and down. It was wonderful.”

So has acting lived up to expectations?

“Well, Naked Truth isn’t highbrow theatre, but it just works. And being an actress is really tough and relentless, but the audiences often give us standing ovations and they lift us.

“So while I don’t have the same experience as the rest of the cast, I just want to get out there and show people what I can do.

“But ultimately what I really want is for people to come and see this and enjoy themselves.”

Abi also appeared on several reality TV programmes such as Celebrity Love Island, Hell’s Kitchen and Celebrity Come Dine With Me, while waiting for a good part to come along.

“They served a purpose and I can’t complain. I got to live on a Fijian island for two months and work with Gordon Ramsay one on one. I’ve still got my knives and my recipe book, actually. It was a wonderful experience,” she says.

“But what I want is to carry on acting.

“Ultimately, I’d love to play Lady Macbeth or Helena in Midsummer Night’s Dream. But generally I just like parts in which I don’t look like me.”

No pole-dancing then! So after all this soul-searching, does Abi have any regrets?

“I do wish I hadn’t allowed myself to become so sexualised by the media. But I was just doing my best with the tools I had at the time. But everything happens for a reason and generally I’ve been very lucky.”

And just when I thought Abi was getting a wee bit too serious, she adds. “Oh and I’m in Hotel Babylon next Friday – playing a nun, which was unbelievable fun.

“I always wondered what I would look like in a nuns habit ...”

You and half the population!

Naked Truth opens on Monday at the New Theatre. Box office on 0844 8471588.