PERFORMER

As a performer Megg has starred in four West End Musicals; BUDDY, BLOCKHEADS, I’M GETTING MY ACT TOGETHER AND TAKING IT ON THE ROAD plus SPIKE MILLIGAN AND FRIENDS and supporting roles in others.

Megg Nicol meets Prince Edward at Buddy, Victoria Palace TheatreMegg was in the first cast of the show BUDDY that ran for twelve years in the West End, London and it a was a real energy busting roller coaster of a show. At the audition she was asked if she could play any musical instruments and she told them guitar and violin... however she hadn’t in fact played violin since she was at school. Then on the first day of rehearsals she was told to bring her ‘fiddle’ to discover she was being featured as a fabulous fiddle playing country artist with a country band.

Megg says: ‘A good fiddle player I am not so I was totally freaked to have a solo in the number and at my first attempt to play it the cast roared with laughter’ I had to practice a lot... and in the end I played on the cast album too.....which incidently happened to go Platinum...probably no thanks to me’

BLOCKHEADS was the story of Laural and Hardy and Megg played Stan Laurel’s mistress Mae Daelburg. Life was never easy with Mae.

Megg in Getting My Act TogetherBlockheads at The Mermaid TheatreMegg played Alice twice in I’M GETTING MY ACT TOGETHER AND TAKING IT ON THE ROAD. Once in at the Apollo Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue with Ben Cross and Diane Langton and then at The Edinburgh Festival with Gretchen Cryer the writer and original Broadway star.

SPIKE MILLIGAN AND FRIENDS started as a tour of the country that ended up in the West End with Megg playing second on the bill to Spike.

Megg says: ‘ This experience is actually worthy of a chapter in itself I first met Spike doing a recording session for a musical he was writing with Ed Welsh...and we got on really well, thus leading to the show. I learned a lot from Spike about ‘how to improvise ‘ on stage. He used to announce me by saying ‘ Brought up by the Nuns and brought down by me.....’

And at the Royal Command performance we did of the show he called Prince Charles ..’Trainee King’

Before moving to London from Scotland Megg acted with PITLOCHRY FESTIVAL THEATRE, ROYAL LYCEUM, PERTH REP , DUNDEE REP and she also did various Folk tours as a singer/songwriter working with Scottish Folk bands such as FINN MACUILL and hosting and singing on TV series like STOVIES with Alistair Mac Donald also SOUNDS OF SCOTLAND that featured acts like RUNRIG, THE MACALLMANS or BARBARA DICKSON.

Megg Nicol - Spike Milligan and Friends However she did not want to be totally defined in that genre and eventually she moved to London to try her hand at musicals.

Her first major break through on arriving in London was to land an understudy role in FIRE ANGEL which was a multi –million pound rock opera of THE MERCHANT OF VENICE choreographed by ARLENE PHILIPS and directed by BRAHAM MURRAY. This lasted for exactly six weeks in the West End but in that time Megg’s understudy role turned into a major part when the star dropped out. It was during one of these performances she was spotted and asked to audition for a show that went into rehearsals just after the closesure.

Ironically it was a gig singing in Gaelic as a solo performer at the LONDON PALLADIUM for an amazing Celtic ice ballet with JOHN CURRY ; so the Scottish Folk connection was perfect for that.

 At the time she was also in a couple of bands 'FLICKS' and 'GIRL FRIDAY' which was Megg’s attempt at being a punk and as she says...

‘ We had a single out that John Peel loved ‘ TUNING IN’ but basically I looked too wholesome to pull it off ...’

However the wholesome image plus a great interest in pop music and songwriters led to her Presenting and singing on various network TV series of the time ..POP QUEST being one. This was a quiz program that was recorded at Yorkshire TV as live. Megg Presented it with MIKE READ.

After that came GET IT TOGETHER that she presented with ROY NORTH and OLLIE BEAK..one of her favorite owls.

Plus others BEST DISCO IN TOWN, STOVIES, GATHER ROUND, MUSICAL JOURNEY plus guest spots on several others, POP GOSPEL, SONGBOOK, POP THE QUESTION and a few TV specials such as GIRLS FOR GERSHWIN, GRETCHEN CRYER SPECIAL.

VOICE ARTIST & ANIMATION

Megg says:

“Having the chance to ‘do’ animation voices is like most things in the business and depends on lots of luck and being in the right place at the right time plus also having the ability to actually do the job.

My chance to do ‘ Voices’ came while I was performing in the West End. A good friend from BUDDY had hooked up with a musician and producer who specialsied in voice–overs and just happened to need an actress who could play ‘crazy’ American kids and Moms in a cartoon series called BAMBOO BEARS.

I was given a ‘try-out’ gig but I was strangely qualified to do the job since I had been born in Canada and lived in the US as a child...so I had a good ear for the accent....”

Interestingly this was just at the start of the Canadian and US animation companies recording their voices in the UK because it was cheaper. ( UK companies often record their voices using American accents too for the world market )

Even the popular UK series 64 ZOO LANE was redubbed in US accents for FOX TV and Megg was one of the two actresses that revoiced it.

Cut to the present day and Megg has now voiced hundreds of animations.

As part of a team of four voice-artists KATE ROBBINS, BOB SAKER and DAN RUSSELL of CHARACTER DEVELOPMENTS... (all songwriters and musicians by the way) Megg voiced MEME’S GANG and the series MEME AND MR. BOBO playing her regular characters OLGA and BIG MIKE plus MEME’S MOM and others as necessary.

Since most cartoon series are done in huge batches the scripts are sight read and the characters are dished out on the spot depending on what’s needed...

Megg says:

“It’s brilliant fun but not for the faint hearted.... I’ve discovered silly things like my ‘dog’ barking skills are more suited to being a terrier rather than a labrodour for instance....and you must feel completely happy swapping from one voice to the other as you will certainly end up at some point ‘talking to yourself “

Her animation series include fifty–two episodes of TITEUF playing EDDY and other characters such as Titeufs Mum and some of the other kids.

NINI’S TREEHOUSE playing OOPAGOGO was a very tricky series to voice’.

Megg says:

The scripts did not sync with what was on screen so I used to have to watch the sequence through..... get the gist of the script and improvise the voices and reactions watching the screen.... No wonder OOPAGOGO was green. So was I by the end of 84 episodes.

It should also be mentioned that Megg did some voices on THE WILLOWS IN WINTER narrated by VANESSA REDGRAVE.