One Coronation Street star wasn’t fazed by stripping naked for a role in the raunchy stage play The Blue Room.
Tracy Shaw was best known for playing Maxine Peacock in the ITV soap from 1995 until 2003, starring in a whopping total of 665 episodes during her tenure on the show. But that year, she left Maxine behind to be brutally murdered by Richard Hillman.
Being killed off for good didn’t seem to faze Tracy, either, as she went on to quickly land a role in the Dartford-based theatre play, which originally starred Nicole Kidman in its original 1998 debut. The role required Tracy to strip naked for “five or six minutes” while one character does a cartwheel across the stage in the buff.
READ MORE: Coronation Street’s Graeme star unrecognisable 13 years after quitting ITV soap
READ MORE: Click for more brilliant Daily Star showbiz stories
Put simply, the play depicts ten sexual encounters between five women and five men, with one actor and one actress playing the roles of each. Tracy confessed at the time: “Everybody knows it for its nudity but it is much more than that. It is an incredible piece of modern day theatre. It doesn’t really bother me. Everyone goes on about me going naked but no one seems bothered that Jason does as well.”
(Image: Mirrorpix)
While the controversial nude scenes might not have bothered Tracy, they did cause a stir in Northern Ireland, where the play took its tour to Londonderry. Protestors and church leaders condemned the raunchy play and called for it to be banned, with former deputy mayor Alderman Mary Hamilton fuming at the time: “I do not think we need to be shown these kind of things in a theatre. It could give young people the green light for all sorts of things.”
Entry was restricted to adults-only, and her co-star Jason Connery – who starred opposite her in the production – confessed the “fuss” around nakedness got to him a little. He explained to the MEN: “I have to be perfectly candid with you, when they offered me the part, I knew as much about it as the man in the street probably does. You know, all that `Nicole Kidman is pure theatrical Viagra’ rubbish…
(Image: Ken McKay/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)
“Then I had a bit of a think about it and I thought ‘Well, I’ve never done a two-hander play before, I’ve never done nudity onstage before, and I’ve never sung onstage before, and how often do you get a chance to take a leap in the dark like that? I’ll do it!’
“I was, though, a bit unprepared for all the fuss that Tracy and myself being nude in parts of the play seems to have caused […] I mean no disrespect to her and we’ve become good friends on the road but I had no idea how large Coronation Street seems to loom in the minds of some people!
“On the first night, I think it was, some photographer creep just stood up in the middle of the stalls and started taking photographs while we were trying to perform!” he admitted.
(Image: ExpressStar)
For more of the latest showbiz news from Daily Star, make sure you sign up to one of our newsletters here.
Adele Lynch later took over the role from Shaw, speaking of the nudity: “I am naked for literally 15 seconds. Nicole Kidman was a little bit less but Tracy Shaw was about five to six minutes which is very brave. A bit of a flash is okay but that length of time gives the audience the chance to really scrutinise.
“You have to be confident otherwise you look a bit foolish. I was nervous the first time but it’s fine now. Very few people have a perfect body and I am just a normal person portraying five normal people. It has made me a lot more confident with my body.”
Follow Daily Star on Threads here.
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
