EXCLUSIVE - The Fabulous Baker

Bobby Baker , copyright Andrew Whittuck

Bobby Baker dons a white coat and tells us How to Live a sane, worthy life. Well, if you

Bobby Baker isn’t the sort of woman that you’d expect to dress up as a pea.
She’s ever so well spoken, middle class and lives in a large, comfortable house in North London that’s filled with cats and photos of her kids Dora and Charlie.
But beneath the respectable and very approachable woman is a performer with strength, observation and drive.
And this production of How To Live, her successful show that commenting on the world of psychoanalysis – created with Dr Richard Hallam - sees Bobby sorting out the mental health problems of a personality disordered pea with a shocking, hilarious and poignant 11-step programme.
Bobby, 55, draws on her own experiences: eleven years ago she found herself on a downward spiral of mental health problems which had their root in her father’s drowning when she was just 15 years old.
But Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) helped her deal with the harrowing situation.
“ It was all very scary and I didn’t know what was happening. And very early on I felt just like a pea – small and insignificant.
“ But I was taught new ways of thinking that really helped me look at things in a different way, she explains. But doesn’t she feel emotionally naked by putting such personal experiences up on-stage?
“ Yes - but I’ve always done that!” she says.
Bobby – who trained at St Martin’s as a painter, but became frustrated that her ideas couldn’t fit onto canvas – takes the ordinary lives of women and makes them extraordinary and not a little bizarre.

"I read that Posh wears children's size jeans!"

“ It can be so hard being a working mother,” she says, echoing the sentiment felt by thousands of women. “ You have issues with identity,
with your place in the world. Domestic life is so important, but it’s overlooked.”
Her down-to-earth and sensible outlook is a refreshing change from the mind-numbing musings of many a modern star, and she’s testament to the notion that you don’t have to be a size 00 teenager to be successful or relevant in an increasingly image conscious world.
“ There’s so much pressure on girls these days and it’s unnecessary,” says Bobby, who readily admits that she loves celebrity gossip and is an avid viewer of reality telly ( her favourite is 'I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here.' )
“I read that Posh wears children’s size jeans!” she says incredulously.
That’s not something that Bobby - who worked as a food stylist with her photographer husband - will ever be in danger of doing.

And thank goodness for that.

How To Live at the Barbican Theatre, Silk Street, London, EC2Y 8DS,from 20th – 23rd September. For more information visit www.barbican.org.uk.

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