I met up and had a coffee at the Hotel Presidente with the lovely Crissy Rock yesterday afternoon, her home when she is here in Benidorm. Unfortunately, she is jetting back on a Jet2 flight to Liverpool today, using her entire 22kg luggage allowance she showed me, having had a fruitful shopping spree that morning. But she´ll be back here in November, in time for the Benidorm fiestas and looking forward to the British Fancy Dress day she told me – but hasn´t quite decided on her outfit for this year yet.

Benidorm - Crissy´s second home

Crissy absolutely adores Benidorm – except for the heat at this time of the year, so going back to her native Liverpool to cool down. Mind you, looking at the weather forecast its pretty warm in the UK at the moment too – only difference is that it probably won´t last! But she won´t be sitting back and relaxing by any means, as she has a full diary until the end of the year.

Next Tuesday, 29th July you can tune into ITV and see Crissy on GMB – Good Morning Britain, where she will be talking about her latest book " Revenge is Sweeter than flowing Honey", which she co-wrote with author Ken Scott. It is a fiction novel based on history and factual events that took place, about a topic which Crissy is passionate about – the Burning Times. This is a true event in history, which took place only a few hundred years ago when witches and their children were tortured and burned for their beliefs. It is something very close to her heart as she is in fact a white witch herself – and has been for the last 25 years! It is a fascinating book that will have you gripped. However, it is not her first brush with writing – in 2011she wrote a best selling autobiography "The Heart within me Burns", which remained on the Sunday Times best seller list for 7 months.

Entertainment circuit in Benidorm

She first came to Benidorm 15 years ago, on holiday and happen to be in Valentines Cabaret Bar. She got talking to the owner and said that she was a comedienne from the UK and would do a slot for him – he chuckled and said that "everyone from England is a comedian"! But she struck a deal and said that she would do 3 nights for free for him. Well, the place was absolutely jam packed and he couldn´t get her back in quick enough. Unfortunately for him, she was heading back to the UK but returned and since then, spent many years working a number of months at a time here.
I went to see her last night at the Riviera Music Lounge for her 10pm show and the place was heaving. Yet when she finished, they started to leave – she is certainly a great pull for them. But her main venue is the UK Cabaret Bar, formerly known as the UK Comedy Club – beneath the Hotel Presidente, where she packs it out every time is on stage. She is always ready to lend a helping hand for charity events and appeared live on stage at the Benidorm Palace for a Help 4 Heroes event last year. 

Benidorm comedy series

But many only came to recognize her after her appearance in the ITV hit comedy series "Benidorm", where she played Janey York, the loud mouthed manageress of the Solana Resort for the first 4 series, before being replaced by Sherrie Hewson. However many will be delighted to know that she´s back for the latest series, which was filmed earlier this year. She will be appearing in episodes 5 and 6 and told me that she never realized how much she missed it until she came back on set with all the cast – especially Jake Canuso who plays the roving Spanish barman Mateo.

So what is on Crissy´s agenda? Well she will be on stage for 3 nights, 25th, 26th and 27th September at the Epstein Theatre in Liverpool, formerly the Neptune Theatre – spooky connection to the TV series or what! Crissy will be appearing in the play "Last train to Auswitz", which tells the harrowing story of a group of women on their final journey into hell. Then from 1st November she will be on tour with "Dirty Dusting" – a hilarious play about 3 cleaning ladies who set up a telephone sex line, which will be going all around the country. Then before she even has time to restock her feather dusters she is starring in panto – playing Baroness Hard Up in Cinderella at the Stockport Theatre! But hopefully she will find time to come back and do a few nights here in Benidorm again in the not too distant future.