Advertisement

Sheridan Smith wants to play Dusty Springfield

Sheridan Smith leaving the BBC Radio 2 studios credit:Bang Showbiz
Sheridan Smith leaving the BBC Radio 2 studios credit:Bang Showbiz

Sheridan Smith would love to play Dusty Springfield.

The 40-year-old actress wants to add another 60s star to her resume - following her National Television Award-winning title role in the 2014 ITV three-part series ‘Cilla’, playing Cilla Black - and take on the role of the iconic singer.

According to The Sun newspaper's TV Biz column, Sheridan performed Dusty's classic song ‘I Only Wanna Be With You’ at a Warner Leisure Weekend in Cricket St Thomas, Somerset, south west England, when she told the audience: “We are going to get dancing again and we’re going to do a Dusty Springfield number. I love her. I’d love to play her.”

After she pointed at a pretend beehive - Dusty's iconic hairstyle - Sheridan joked: “She was a lot taller than me though, wasn’t he?”

Dusty tragically died in 1998, aged 59, from lung cancer. Her passing came after a 35-year career, which featured hit songs such as ‘You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me’ in 1963, and ‘Son of a Preacher Man' in 1969.

As well as declaring her interest in playing Dusty, Sheridan - who has played Barbra Streisand’s classic 60s role Fanny Brice in ‘Funny Girl’ on the West End stage - shared a story about when she met late 'Blind Date' host Cilla, who died in 2015, aged 72.

Sheridan said: “Actually she did shut me down. I went to meet her.

“I’d researched her for three months and I went to meet her and I was dead nervous.

“I went, ‘Cilla, I loved that bit in the 1963 interview when you said this, and I loved that bit in the book where you did that and you said that about Bobby, and I loved it' ... And she went, ‘What are you talking about?’.”