Fair City star Maclean Burke has told how he lost a stone and a half rehearsing for his starring role as the outrageous Dame Polly in the Olympia Panto and vowed never to be fat again.
The Dublin actor told how performing opposite Dancing with the Stars finalist, Ryan Andrews put the pressure on to keep in shape and since Lockdown the actor and his four kids have become Ireland’s Fittest Family.
Maclean, 42, told the Irish Mirror: “I’m back on the panto diet, when I came off the panto last year I was lighter and I’m still down a stone and a half and feeling fit.
“It’s such manic energy on stage and keeping up with Ryan was gruelling.
“I thought 'OK Maclean you can stick with this and keep going or just go back to being fat'.
“So I just started training and when lockdown kicked in, I bought a load of equipment and put it out the back as we live on a farm.
“As a family we’ve been training, Ava and Jude my daughters are now fit as fiddles.
“We’re now a fit family.
“This panto is mental, they’re trying to do a Disney number on it, five cameras, it’s nuts but great.
“We’re saving the Christmas pantos, in this hour-long production, we save Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk, Aladdin and ourselves.”
Opening up on his starring role as Damo in Fair City he said: “I’ve been in Fair City for 23 years, in a blink of an eye it’s gone, when you look in the mirror you realise it’s been that long.
“Damo and himself and Mairead I think they’ll sort it out but he’s in the wars with Mairead.
“Mairead has OCD, there’s still unfinished business between Christiano and Will, there’s a massive court case still to come.
The Covid regulations have been strange: “When I was getting engaged to Mairead they couldn’t put me anywhere near her, they were supposed to be romantic moments, there was no tenderness it was really strange.
“If anything it’s been a good learning curve for everyone.
“The very day you open the page and it says, Damo is in good form you need to rush to the end of the script to see if he gets run over by a bus or he falls down a manhole.
“There’s nobody safe and it’s the nature of these soaps that everyone has a sell-by date.
“People say to me, but you’re a stalwart on the show, but I just never take it for granted.
“I’ve had friends on the show who “moved to Galway” which is the Bermuda triangle of RTE.”
The Olympia Panto presents ‘Once Upon a Panto ’, An original fairytale brought to life online from Wednesday, 23rd December 2020 – Sunday, 3rd January 2021.
Maclean will also sing his heart out with his daughter Beau on Donncha’s Two Talented Christmas Special which airs on RTÉ One, Saturday 19th Dec at 18:35.
