My niece Clare Jarvis, who has died aged 51 from cancer, was a fine actor and a talented singer and musician.
After graduating from the Manchester School of Theatre in 1994, at a time when theatre and television work was hard to find, she set out to create her own one-woman show, which included all of her talents: acting, singing and playing the piano. Solo performance proved ultimately to be her metier.
In her 20s she also appeared in pantomime for two consecutive years at the Albert Halls, Bolton, and performed in summer seasons at holiday camps and on cruise ships.
She made her home in East Sussex, and began to obtain bookings for clubs, pubs, care homes, weddings and children’s parties, creating a wide variety of material to cater for her different audiences. She added verbal sketches to her repertoire, and also found her natural comedic instincts, making interaction with the audience a central part of her work.
Alongside raising a family as a single mother, Clare blossomed as a performer and created a range of comedic characters, which became the mainstay of her shows. In 2022 and 2023 she presented a comedy musical at the Brighton fringe, as “the Split Personality Diva”, featuring an ex-club singer, a primary school teacher, a TV agony aunt and a priest competing in a song contest. Recently she also released her own CD of classic songs.
Clare was born in Poole, Dorset, the daughter of Carol (nee Wharrier), an occupational therapist, and Alan Jarvis, a teacher. She went to secondary school in Poole, before moving north for her drama studies in Manchester.
She was courageous and dynamic as a person - qualities she brought not only to her work on stage, but also to the teaching of acting and musical theatre classes at weekend children’s drama clubs. For a period she ran her own drama school in Hove. At the time of her death, she was writing another new show, about a woman coping with cancer.
Her father died in 2013. Clare is survived by her children, Ashleigh and Seth (from a relationship with Simon Dyer), her mother, and her brother, Simon.