"Love It or List It" Hilary Farr joins the cast of the theater play Ross Petty's panto "Sleeping Beauty" with the former comedian Paul Constable. They will both play villainous roles in the theater play.
Farr is an interior designer and co-host of HGTV's "Love It or List It," also has major boos to fill. She is taking over the role of the pantomime villain of the "Sleeping Beauty" story after Ross Petty retired from it last year. Over the past 20 years, Petty's antagonists grew so legendary that they drew hisses from the audience at every entrance.
"I've chosen not to be in any way daunted, worried, overwhelmed, nervous or any of that. I just have to make it on my own," Farr says. She added that she is different from Ross Petty because her evil is so purely evil.
While Ross Petty always seemed to be in on the joke and reveled in the boos from the audience, Farr is not afraid to earn the audience's loathing. Farr knows how she can charm the audience when she wants to like what she did with her off-the-cuff banter with "Love It of List It" co-host David Visentin.
Returning to the stage for the "Sleeping Beauty" after spending so many years on the small screen, Farr had to get used to memorizing lines of the play again. Despite the pressure, Farr is surely getting excited for her comeback.
Paul Constable says this is the biggest bang-for-your-buck stage show he is ever being in. He and Farr are tasked with managing between the visual effects, while dancing, singing, making sure they are doing their predecessors justice and also inhabiting their own roles in their own unique ways in the "Sleeping Beauty" play.
Even Farr admits that she underestimated what she was agreeing to when Petty asked her to take over for him in the "Sleeping Beauty" play at last year's pantomime closing night party. Both Constable and Farr are eager to get in front of the pantomime's young audiences for their respective cheers and jeers.
"I grew up with pantomime, it's an English tradition," says Farr who was born in Toronto but grew up in London, England. "But I think what's different about this one is that it's so completely over the top. It's huge and it has nothing to do with reality and it's fabulous."
Petty has already chosen to do a comic take on the fairy tale "Sleeping Beauty." The show, which runs from November 25 to December 31, will be at the Elgin Theatre.
