Claire begins rehearsing for 9 to 5: The Musical (Image: PA Pictures)
At this point, Claire – who will soon star in the touring production of 9 To 5: The Musical – sang in public for the first time. Her incredible career, from Brookside to West End stage, all started with a leg of lamb at the Montrose Social Club in Liverpool.
“It was retirement night on a Tuesday,” she recalls. “And my father, who was a butcher, bribed the concert secretary with a leg of lamb to make me sing.
“I came out in my bridesmaid dress and my introduction was, ‘She’s only 14, shut up and give her a chance,’ followed by ‘By the way, the bingo tickets and sandwiches are served in the back.’ So everyone rushed to Baconbutts and I sang to a line of people waiting for their bingo tickets. It was real Phoenix Nights stuff. “
Claire, 50, a fun doer with a big heart, remembers the first set. “I opened with Somewhere Over The Rainbow, then Pal Of My Cradle Days so they could waltz, then Andrew Lloyd Webber and Ella Fitzgerald … so it was pretty ambitious.
“When I got better, I got £ 25 a gig. I’d spent the summer working in Dad’s butcher’s shop doing really hard manual labor; So to make the same money with one sentence that I made in a week … it was a piece of cake for me. “
The Sweeneys lived in Walton, near Everton’s Goodison Park. “It was a working class background, rough and ready, but everyone was watching out for each other,” says Claire, whose older brother had left the house to join the army.
Her rise to fame was the perfect cocktail of talent and application. At eleven, her parents paid to send her through Elliott Clarke Stage School; She later visited the London Italia Conti. “It was a fight for her,” she says. “But they worked hard and I never wanted anything.”
She lives with her son Jaxon (7) in London’s Pimlico – Claire separated from his father in 2015. “I love it,” she says. “It’s a little hidden gem.” Her father Ken died on Christmas Day 2017; her ex-barmaid mother Kathleen still lives in the house where Claire grew up. “She really enjoys Jaxon,” she says.
Claire finishes her pantomime at Cinderella in Southport today and yells when I ask if she’s playing Cinders.
“There are three age groups from Panto for women,” she says. “Main boy, glamorous main actress and after all you know that you will get ahead if you become the fairy godmother …”
From tomorrow Claire will rehearse for 9 To 5: The Musical. “I play Violet Newstead, who has steel balls. The show is happy and glamorous. I always thought Dolly Parton was a genius. I had seen the movie and the TV series in the 80s, but the message is still relevant. Glass ceilings have not disappeared. “
Claire made herself fit for the role of “matchfit” by cutting back on alcohol and returning to Bikram Yoga. “The weight is increasing and decreasing, it is a daily struggle, but I’ve bought a good corset, that will help! And a pair of spanks – passion killers! “
Not that there is a lot of passion in their life. “I’m single, babes,” she says. “I go on a couple of dinner dates and they’re nice, but it’s hard. I get all the love I need from my son; On stage, I get all of the affection I need and the male company I need from my gay pals. So everyone else would have to be very special …
“I’d rather spend a night with Jaxon than go on a bad date.”
Friends like Tony Monarch, aka DJ Fat Tony, keep her laughing, and she admires John Bishop “one of the nicest men in the world and a great storyteller.”
Brookside followers aside, a significant number of fans love Claire for stage roles like Velma Von Tussle in Hairspray and Baroness Bomburst in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
Chicago was their first major West End musical. She played Roxie Hart and seductive posters of her in fishnet stockings were taped all over the tube. “It was quite a while before I got to the poster at the bottom of the escalator and someone blackened my teeth and stuck ‘Mary’ on my gum. That brought me to the floor with a bang! “
Claire plays Violet Newstead in 9 to 5: The Musical (Image: PA Pictures)
Growing up, Claire became obsessed with the TV comedy drama The Love Boat and auditioned for P&O Cruises at 18 – around the same time she played Jimmy Corkhill’s daughter Lindsey on an episode on Brookside.
“I got this one episode and then got on the ships. They asked me to come back for an episode or two, but I said, ‘I’m not giving up six months of work for two episodes.’ “
It wasn’t quite The Love Boat. “I got off the cruise ship in Bombay and children lived in cardboard boxes. I went back to the ship and emptied my closet. I got everything, golden leather hips, a rare skirt, and gave everything away on the quay. It was heartbreaking.
“My Goan cabin steward was completely protective because I was still a virgin – I had never had a boyfriend. In Goa he arranged that his family would pick me up and bring me to their village … Grandma made a big stew and served me the meat, and the women made me a sari. “
After four years on the ships, she contacted the Brookside producers when they took the Corkhills to the finals. “Timing is everything,” she laughs.
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Claire was 26 but says, “I looked 16! It was brilliant. I was financially stable; I was at home and I was on TV! But I was scared. I had never acted before, I was a singer and I was always waiting to be caught and released. “
She learned her craft while playing Dean Sullivan and Sue Jenkins the dysfunctional Corkhills, and soon had great storylines. “I would sit on the make-up chair at 8 o’clock in the morning and still shoot at 8 o’clock … and then you would have to go home and learn ten scenes for the next day.”
The fame came like a shock. Attracting looks made her feel like “I opened my bow ties,” she giggles.
Her TV highlights include the first series of Celebrity Big Brother and Strictly, but Claire prefers acting roles. She was a “hideous airport worker” Maxine in Benidorm and “vampic and brazen” Hayley in Scarborough.
She presented ITV’s 60 Minute Makeover for two years but quit in 2005 to play the glamorous Miss Adelaide in Guys & Dolls alongside Patrick Swayze. “That was the icing on the cake,” she laughs. “Working with Patrick Swayze and smooching him every night, slipping his tongue …”
Claire got the musical virus after watching Willy Russell’s Blood Brothers when she was ten and eventually worked with him when she played Shirley Valentine on a two-hour one-woman show. “It was ready just before the lockdown. Imagine learning 50 pages of script and getting canceled! Willy said to me: ‘It’s a mountain that you have to climb, but the view is beautiful when you reach the top’. “
She is the patron of the Claire House Children’s Hospice near Wirral and is involved with Queenie’s Christmas Charity, which helps disadvantaged children in Liverpool.
Claire attributes two bad traits to “Hormones!” and “Forgetfulness – went to the ATM the other day and left money in.”
What’s next, I ask? “I have a good gig for later this year,” she says. “A really good performance.” She will definitely not forget that.