​ The Rocky Horror Show comes to Southsea

You certainly couldn't imagine a role more different to the one she is playing now – Columbia in The Rocky Horror Show which plays the Kings from Monday to Saturday, July 24-29. She's been with the show for two years now, her first big job since graduating into the blank pandemic summer of 2020.

“I went to Mountview and did a foundation year and then a three-year degree in musical theatre. I was in my third year and we were literally rehearsing for our third musical at the end of March. Obviously everyone knew something was brewing, that something was going on but then we got an email telling us not to come in – and that was the last time we went to drama school. It took a long time to process. It’s your dream to go to drama school and do your three years and graduate and start auditioning and we had none of that. There was a period of self-pity really when you are just thinking ‘Why me?’ but you just had to get out of that mindset and you just had to realise that everyone in whatever industry was in the same position. It wasn't just the performing arts industry. It really was everyone and you just had to use that time to better yourself, to practise, to make yourself a better performer, to build on your strengths.”

And finally the professional debut came, nearly a year and a half after the pandemic hit, in July 2021 when she joined the company for the Rocky Horror Show, spending a year as a phantom and as a cover before graduating to the role of Columbia: “ And I love it. I just feel so much fun and joy every time and to be part of a show like this I'm just so grateful. It doesn't matter how you feel at the start; you'll always feel incredibly uplifted by the end. It's a fantastic show.”

For Darcy, the Kings Theatre date is effectively a home-town show. She's from Whiteley: “And I've been in the same house my whole life.” As for performance, dance came first: “I used to go and watch my older brother do his dance lessons and I just loved it. I got the bug. My mum had no choice! I started when I was about three. I think I've always just been someone who can't sit still, who has a very low boredom threshold and just has to be on the move the whole time, just moving and wriggling and jiggling. My parents had done amdram my whole life and I was exposed to the theatre world pretty much from the start. They were doing a production and I begged my mum to let me audition and that was great. I did drama at school but my mum made sure that I was still doing my proper subjects alongside it but then when I went to college I did drama at Barton Peveril (Sixth Form College) and I took part in productions there. It was the first time I was surrounded by people that really loved doing it and were my age. When I did amdram, it was usually all the adults and me, but it was great to be at college with people a similar age to me all loving theatre.”