 SINGER and actress Faye Tozer has fond and less-fond memories of Coventry after filming the forthcoming Lady Godiva movie.
Her abiding reminiscence is of the city’s medieval beauty.
Yet freezing near naked on horseback in the cathedral quarter under the public’s gaze also left an indelible impression.
She had the unfortunate job of straddling her steed in Bayley Lane last March as temperatures dipped below freezing.
“I came to Coventry hoping for blue skies. Instead, it was threatening to snow,” said the 31-year-old, during a return visit this week to promote the Carry On-style comedy Lady Godiva: Back in the Saddle.
“Some students came past and started shouting ‘wey-hey. I thought ‘yeah great, hi’,” she jokes sarcastically.
“The extras lining the street were wearing woolly hats and coats asking if I was alright!”
She continues: “I always said I’d never get my kit off unless necessary.
“I never thought I’d do it past the age of 21.
“To be 30 and get my kit off in Coventry seemed a good idea at the time I was offered the part,” jokes Faye, best known as a singer in globally known ex-pop band Steps.
“The scene in the film where I was most nervous was an audition scene for the part of Lady Godiva where I had a full naked back with a stick-on bra. They’re ugly things and we had a good laugh about it.
“I had to do a rehearsal run to get over my embarrassment.”
The low-budget film by rookie screenwriter and Coventry kid Heath Jones is released for the first time on November 16 at Showcase cinemas at Walsgrave and Birmingham, three days after an exclusive premiere city showing. Hopes are high for a national release soon after.
Faye, currently touring on-stage playing Eva Cassidy in the musical Over The Rainbow, said: “I hope the film is received with a light-hearted attitude and is pushed as a great little British film for this year.
Comedy is quite hard to push. But done in a light-hearted family way it crosses the board. I think there’s something in this film for everyone. It’s cheeky but good fun and British.”
She admits to have been slightly starstruck on set by the likes of comedian Tony Slattery and, as a fan of Vicar of Dibley, by James Fleet, both of whom she watched closely to learn more about acting.
Fleet – also famed for Four Weddings and a Funeral – plays a history teacher who brings a serious yet warmhearted historical narrative of Coventry to the otherwise bawdy farce.
Faye says: “Not only is it a comedy but it’s about history and kids learning history.
“It will make people here proud of Coventry’s history and its surroundings.”
She adds: “I wasn’t aware of Coventry’s history but I did know the legend of Godiva came from Coventry.
“It was interesting to see the city’s architecture.
“Behind the modern corners of the city there is a beautiful old part of Coventry that you don’t expect to be there.”
She says the modern twist of the Godiva legend suited her well.
“I was pleased to be playing a named icon. She was one of the first powerful women who made a stand for her rights and other people’s rights.
“My character was modern, strong and ambitious and willing to do what it took to get to where she wanted to be.”
Faye, trained as a dancer at school and raised in her hometown Dunstable, Kent, hopes her first film will help her develop an acting career.
Her only previous experience in front of the camera was shooting videos for Steps.
Of speculation that Steps could reform, she says: “They keep asking us, but we’re all busy and have jobs.
“But you never say never.”
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