Hello sister

SHE’S become the best-known of the Nolan Sisters thanks to TV’s Loose Women and Dancing On Ice, but Coleen Nolan admits she’s going to be the most nervous when The Nolans make their big reunion tour visit to the Metro Radio Arena Newcastle in October.

“Don’t tell me that there could be 11,000 people. That’s slightly worrying... I can’t even think about that. But, having said that, how exciting. The last time this line-up was on stage together was 25 years ago and I haven’t performed on stage for 17 years so I’m really nervous. All the other girls have carried on performing and appearing in shows like Blood Brothers... so I’m scared already,” Coleen admits.

With so many tickets having sold in minutes for the 17-date tour, Coleen says: “We’re overwhelmed and the good news is that after not having a venue for Newcastle we now have one.

We kept saying to people ‘why aren’t we going to Newcastle, because it’s always been one of our best places in our heyday?’ Then I got a phone call a few hours later saying ‘you’re going to Newcastle’ and I can’t tell you the cheer that went up. We’re so thrilled because we said we’d have to go back later if we couldn’t tour there this year. We did get a lot of a calls and emails asking why we weren’t coming to Newcastle.”

So will this be the only chance for fans to see The Nolans in live concert?

“As far as we know, it’s been so long putting this tour together in respect that we were approached over four or five years to reunite. It’s never been the right time and we’ve all been concentrating on solo careers.

Then four or five weeks ago Universal and Live Nation got in touch and said that I’m In The Mood For Dancing was celebrating its 30th anniversary, all these boy bands had reunited and we said ‘you know what, let’s just do it’. If it’s a massive sell-out and there’s big demand then we’ll go back and do bigger venues next year. At the moment, as far as I’m concerned, this is it,” she says.

“We never did a farewell tour, the act just petered out. The lineup was always changing and because we all continued to work nobody seemed to notice it was over,” Coleen comments.

The most difficult part of putting together the tour involves inviting her sisters Linda, Maureen and Bernie, but not older siblings Anne and Denise. Both of them have commented on the reunion and the family rift in recent days.

Does Coleen have a response?

“The problem is that Denise was part of the act when it was The Nolan family, but she left in 1976, long before the hits because she hated doing pop songs and choreography. She was never part of The Nolans as such.

Anne left just after I’m In The Mood For Dancing because she wanted to stay at home with a new baby and we went on to have the hits and go to Japan.

That’s why Universal picked the most successful four. It would never be possible for Denise to do it and with Anne, she now has a proper job (working in the office of the Official Receiver) as we like to call it. I don’t know how she’d feel about coming back, who knows, I never thought us four would come back.”

Coleen admits that she and Anne fell out a couple of years ago. “It was a personal row that others got involved in and I moved away from it because it was affecting me and my family.

So I don’t talk to some of the family now. But as far as the tour was concerned I did say ‘don’t leave Anne out of it because we are grown women and we can work on a professional level’.

But they just wanted the four.

"EVERYONE was reading it: ‘Anne’s not doing it because Coleen’s not talking to her’. But when we sang at my brother’s wedding, we weren’t talking, but we rehearsed for weeks and then got up and sang. You’ve got to put personal issues aside for things like that. And it would have been the same for the tour. It is sad when it is family, but just because you’re family doesn’t mean you can say things and get away with it,” she says.

As Coleen talks her daughter, Ciara, enters and is really excited because it’s her eighth birthday. “Obviously my family life is most important and I’d been asked to tour before, but I had my daughter and husband at home. My husband (Ray Fensome) is going to be playing guitar in the band and I’m going to get Ciara a tutor so she can come with us and be part of it.

I’d like her to be part of it because it may never happen again,” she says. Coleen also wants her sons (Shane and Jake) to see a performance “because it’s my job as their mother to embarrass them at least once more. They’ve already seen me in Dancing On Ice... me in a lycra leotard”.

I ask her if she thinks twice before commenting on Loose Women having made headlines previously over saying she’d pay for her son to visit Amsterdam’s red light district as a 16th birthday present.

“I still try not to edit myself because the joy of that programme is its honesty. If someone asks my opinion I give it, but then I do get home and nobody is talking to me. If it’s my opinion and people don’t agree with it, that’s part of the show.”

Rehearsals will begin about six weeks before The Nolans tour begins. The four will be singing the original hits but are also adding in their favourite diva anthems plus dance numbers for what Coleen calls “a big girls’ night out... with men very welcome”.

“It was spooky when we all agreed to do the tour because all of us said ‘well it might be the last time, let’s do it before we die’.”

■ The Nolans, Metro Radio Arena, Newcastle. Friday, October 23. Tickets £35.

Box Office: 0844-493-6666