Beetlejuice 'baptism of fire' for Guernsey actress

A Guernsey-born actress has told of her "baptism of fire" as she was asked to play the leading female role in the West End musical Beetlejuice just 90 minutes before the show began.

Rachel Macdougall had originally been cast as the character Girl Scout, but last week was asked to take on the much larger role of Lydia Deetz at short notice by the theatre company, to make her "leading lady debut".

Macdougall said walking on stage as Lydia had been a "mind-blowing" experience, and added the audience "were wonderful".

"If I had been told the night before I probably wouldn't have slept, so I was lucky in a sense," she told BBC Radio Guernsey.

Beetlejuice the musical is based on Tim Burton's 1988 gothic-horror film of the same name, and follows a dead couple who as ghosts try to haunt the new inhabitants of their former home.

They call upon the help of another ghost, referred to as Beetlejuice, to help them scare away the new people, one of whom is Lydia.

"I had just got to the theatre about an hour and a half before the show was due to start when I got a call from the company manager," said Macdougall, who was understudy for the role but had never performed it to a live audience.

"I ended up doing four shows that weekend which is a baptism of fire, and an emotional moment for me because it was my leading lady debut as well," she said.

She added: "I was exhausted by the end of it but I can't describe that feeling of completing the first show.

"It was mind-blowing, and the audience were wonderful."

Macdougall was born and raised in Guernsey and trained under Catherine and Brian Webster at the Guernsey Academy of Theatrical Education.

She said she had doubted whether she would be able to achieve a career in theatre as it initially seemed out of reach.

"They gave me the foundation and they are the ones who first encouraged me to audition for drama school," said Macdougall

"I wondered if I could even make a career out of this, growing up I didn't think it could have been a real career.

"But if it wasn't for them I definitely wouldn't be where I am today."

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