My Cork panto days with iconic TV ad star 'Sally O'Brien'

When I recently visited the Cork City Library and viewed the exhibition of Cork Opera House memorabilia currently on display there, my eye was immediately caught by a poster. My name was on it, as an actor.

This plunged me back to over 40 years ago and my first appearance in a pantomime at the Opera House.

When Harp lager mounted a TV advertising campaign in 1982 and enlisted a then unknown 33-year-old London model to appear in it, they had no idea they were launching a phenomenon.

In the ad, a voiceover establishes an Irish expat writing a letter home from some scorching tropical location and yearning for the rain and the greenness and the pint of Harp.

Meanwhile, we see the interior of a pub, which happened to be The Blackman Bar in Dublin Pike, and regulars arriving, but suddenly among them is a smiling, sylph-like presence which the voiceover explains as being: ‘Sally O’Brien, and the way she might look at you.’

This tag-line about Sally O’Brien became a national catchphrase and a milestone in pinning down the early 1980s in Ireland. The country was sailing into choppy economic waters and there was a nostalgic yearning to the ad which perhaps evoked more innocent times.

Vicki Michelle was the model who became this iconic Sally O’Brien. She would eventually find international stardom in the BBC comedy series ‘Allo ‘Allo! in which she played the character Yvette in all 85 episodes.

Remembering Sally O’Brien in an interview many years later, Vicki described her as “sweet and shy as well as sexy, the type of girl men would like to marry”. Amen to all that, say those of us who may have forgotten about those things!

There was a little bit of controversy when then Taoiseach Charles Haughey declared his surprise that Sally O’Brien was being played by an English lady. When presented with this, Vicki Michelle quickly asserted that her grandmother was Irish.

In 1983, the Cork Opera House had the brilliant idea of casting Vicki Michelle as the female lead in Jack And The Beanstalk. She played Jill opposite a Jack played by the American performer Roger Kugler, who was well known to Cork audiences through his appearances in many musicals produced by Eileen Nolan and The Montforts.

Billa O’Connell played The Dame of course and the show also featured Paddy Comerford, Jim Queally, Noel Barret and Pat Sullivan.

I played The Giant in that production. Despite my 6ft 5in height, I had to master wearing a form of stilts which added another 3ft or more to me.

The Giant kidnaps Jill in an attempt to lure Jack to The Giant’s Castle and eliminate him and the goodness and virtue he represents.

My scenes with Vicki Michelle were quite fraught with tension to say the least, aided and abetted by hundreds of screaming children at every performance who would try and bring the Opera House roof down in trying to help Jill escape The Giant.

Vicki had very little stage experience at that time. But she was determined to develop her acting craft and she threw herself into the show with enthusiasm.

Even then, her flair for comedy, showcased so brilliantly later on in ‘Allo ‘Allo!, was evident. With her sultry looks and flirty eyes, the qualities that defined her as Sally O’Brien, she could beguile with a smile and find laughs with the lightest touch.

I remember her being exceptionally down to earth and generous and she was liked enormously by everybody on and off stage, not to mention by the many thousands who attended the show.

After her massive success with ‘Allo ‘Allo!, Vicki went on to make appearances in Emmerdale and EastEnders. She had a very long run on tour in the UK and Ireland in the farce Don’t Dress For Dinner.

In 2012, she began to produce films and she was instrumental in getting the Ray Cooney stage farce Run For Your Wife adapted to the big screen.

In the 1980s, pantomimes usually started their runs on St Stephen’s Day with matinee and evening performances and would run often until the end of January.

Jack And The Beanstalk played to.capacity audiences with the entire run sold out. For me, it was a huge thrill to appear in panto on the vast Opera House stage for the first time alongside the likes of Billa and Paddy Comerford.

But it was also an immense pleasure to work alongside Vicki Michelle… and the way she might look ‘UP’ at me!