Comedy

Viewers of prime-time Saturday night TV will know that Jan Ravens did surprisingly well in the recent series of ‘Strictly Come Dancing’. She said at the time she was usually one of the first to hit the floor at a party. But why expose herself to public scrutiny in a discipline way outside her normal trade? ‘As a 48-year-old mother of three, going to work each day to learn how to dance was my idea of heaven. I suspect that I was edited to look the neurotic, menopausal woman. Which, of course, I am. But that series was the most exciting and nerve-wracking thing I’ve ever done.’ Feature continues

Ravens was the first female president of the Cambridge University Footlights club. She’s an impressionist who’s best known for the uncanny accuracy of her work on ‘Spitting Image’ and ‘Dead Ringers’. Her vast repertoire runs from Meryl Streep and Anne Robinson, through Nigella Lawson and Ann Widdecombe, to Madonna and Beyoncé. It’s a strange and, in some ways, frustrating talent, she admits. ‘It’s a very peculiar skill. If you’re a mimic, you’re a mimic. It’s a weird thing to be able to do. I feel that I can’t really take any credit for it.’

At the same time, she says, any successful impersonation is about more than just imitating the voice. ‘The best impressions capture the comic essence of a person. It’s about interpretation. Rory Bremner and Alistair McGowan can do Tony Blair and they’ll both be very accurate impressions but each will do something different. When I do, say, Meryl Streep, it’s my take on Meryl Streep. It’s what I think of her. It’s what I’m saying about her.’ In the end, Ravens argues, it’s an impossible task. ‘There’s the pressure of being judged because everybody knows what Meryl Streep sounds like. But the bottom line is you can get close to her. As close as possible. But you can never be her.’

Clues to capturing the subject, she explains, range from a vocal inflection to something in the way they behave. ‘With newsreader Fiona Bruce it was the feeling she was like a caged panther. Always smouldering. The untouchable goddess. She’s not a bit like that in real life. Which is why she likes the impression. Ann Widdecombe has quite a tremble in her voice. With Anne Robinson it’s that slightly twisted mouth and her Liverpool-gone-posh accent. I hook onto all those characters from the north-west, like Victoria Wood and Thora Hird, because I come from the Wirral.’

Which of her subjects does Ravens feel she’s got closest to? She hesitates for fear of sounding arrogant. ‘But most of them, to be honest!’ She’s had some problems on ‘Dead Ringers’ with playing fictional characters. ‘Someone like Maid Marian is difficult because she’s just a fairly well-spoken young wench and there’s not a lot to get hold of. Lovely bland young people are the worst.’ Judi Dench wasn’t easy: ‘I think that I was intimidated because she’s such a brilliant actress. It was always my ambition to be a Shakespearean actress myself. It all worked out. I’m fine with her now.’

She gave up on Ruby Wax: ‘But Ronnie Ancona came up with a really good one of her.’

On Thursday Ravens joins up with Jo Brand and many others in a ‘Funny Women Stand Up’ show at the Hammersmith Palais. She reckons she might well do Helen Mirren. She’ll aim for some new ones, too: ‘Jane Fonda, for instance, after those skin-care product commercials she’s been making. But I’ll look to work in some chat as well. Just to mix it up. It’s what I like and admire about stand-ups. In effect people are sayng this is the way I see the world. Otherwise it’s one impression, then another and another. In a string. There’s nothing worse than that.’

‘Funny Women Stand Up ’ is at Hammersmith Palais on Thursday.