I was a Tracy Beaker star – there were secret clause in our contracts and, yes, there were romances on set
NO ORDINARY kids show, The Story of Tracy Beaker has gained cult status since it first aired in 2002.
Spanning five series, 120 episodes and four spin-offs, the BAFTA-nominated drama - adapted from Jacqueline Wilson iconic books - and its stars became a household name, as Alicia Hooper well knows.
Starring as the bad girl of the care home, known as the Dumping Ground to its fans, Alicia says that her role as teen tearaway Amber turned her life upside down.
“Playing Amber was amazing, it changed my life forever,” Alicia, who is now a mum-of-one and singing teacher, and professional singer tells Fabulous as part of our Telly Timewarp series.
“I can’t believe it’s been two decades since the show aired. I’m gobsmacked,”
Alicia was 15 and living in Newport, Wales, with her family when she had the chance to audition for the second series of The Story of Tracy Beaker.
“Producers had been scouring Britain to find an actress to take on the role of Amber and thousands of girls had been considered. I got the chance to audition as part the HTV Drama Workshop.
“I had not applied for the role. I was discovered when producers sat in on one of the sessions and saw me,” she explains.
“They wanted a girl who could pull off the rebel attitude of Amber - who could be tough but also someone who viewers would end up liking.
“Even when I was auditioning, I didn't think I’d actually be chosen to star opposite Dani Harmer who played Tracy,” explains Alicia, 36, who lives in Undy, South Wales.
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Alicia was put through three exhaustive audition rounds in February 2002, doing improv scenes and reading lines with the boys who played Lol and Bouncer, before being told she’d nabbed the part.
“I was fifteen and got child fees for the role."
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Within three months, she found herself in Cardiff, filming series two of the hit show.
As she only lived fifteen miles away, Alicia was driven to and from the set every day, while the other actors, who came from further afield, stayed in a hotel.
“We were all underage and had minders and chaperones,” she says. “Some days I’d be in makeup at 6am or starting late at midday and shooting into the night.
“There were tutors onset so we could do schoolwork and revision as some of us were preparing for A-levels or GCSEs.”
Alicia would get her scripts the night before and had to be word perfect for the next morning.
“I learnt quickly how to memorise the scripts. There wasn’t room for larking about. If it was a critical scene, we might do a round table read through and rehearsal, otherwise I'd just walk on set, the crew would mark our spots and we’d record the scene.”
Despite the gruelling schedule, the cast still had a laugh on set.
“We were typical teens constantly giggling if someone fluffed lines,” she says.
“It was a great mix of fun and work.”
Like their characters, the young actors all became firm friends - but there were strict rules.
“I got invited to sleepovers at the cast hotel with Dani, who played Tracy, and we’d all stay up as late as the chaperones would allow playing video games, studying scripts, and listening to music,” Alicia says.
“As child actors we were not allowed to misbehave, it was in our contracts and the chaperones knew what we were up to all the time.
“There were no off screen romances although I did have a crush on one of the lads in the show for a short time. I won’t say who it was. It was a teen thing,” she says.
After filming wrapped on the 26-episode series, Alicia returned to school.
“Before the show aired it was school normal. One minute I was on a TV set the next I was back in school uniform,” she says
The teen was back at school for four months before hit TV screens air ed- and it took about three episodes before Alicia was recognised wherever she went.
“People were shocked and amazed when they realise it was me on the TV.
“Kids would walk up to me in the street and ask if I was Amber,” she recalls.
“Others would yell ‘Go play in the traffic’, one of Amber’s catch phrases, and everyone wanted to know what it was like to be on the show.
“Some would even ask me for autographs, I’ve even signed a pie in the school canteen.”
“Very occasionally I’d get people telling me I was ‘bad girl mean’ or horrible to play a character like that in the show. Like my character Amber, I had an ability to give people scary dirty looks.
“I’d do an Amber look and it sent them fleeing!”
“I moved school after my GCSE’s to complete my A-Levels.
“When I was introducing myself word had already got around that I was on the show. I had lots of people who wanted the inside scoop on the Dumping Ground.”
The following year, Alicia reunited with the cast for spin-off film Tracy Beaker Parties With Pudsey.
“That was the last time I did Tracy Beaker. Amber was being written out and I focussed on my A- Levels,” she says.
“I would have loved to have continued but towards the end of my series a story line began that Amber may have been adopted by a biker couple.
“I was sad and missed Amber but it’s part of the world of acting. The show was constantly using new characters.
“I’m still friends with the cast on social media.
“I am always so happy when I learn about any of the original cast members continuing to be successful. I was thrilled for Dani when she appeared on Strictly.”
After that, offers came in for other TV shows, but Alicia decided to focus on her A-Levels, and went on to graduate with two Bs in Drama and Music and C in English literature.
“I was at a crossroads,” she says. “I’d had this amazing experience as a child actor but I wanted to take time out to travel and decide what I really wanted to do: act, sing or teach.”
In the meantime, she had a nest-egg of £1500 from her earnings, which her parents had made her save.
“I passed my driver’s test in August 2005, and I bought my first car, a Red Mazda 121 with my earnings. It cost £1200 and that was a lot of money at the time,” she says.
“It was my pride and joy!”
After school Alicia took a year off to go travelling in Asia and Australia, where she got a job in a coffee shop in Sydney.
She says, “I was on the other side of the world serving coffee and people still recognised me. It was a shock and an honour. It showed me how big the show was.”
When she returned to Britain, Alicia worked for nine months in a Bristol recruitment agency before being approached by Gwent Music in 2006.
“They asked me if I’d be interested in teaching music. That’s how I became a peripatetic vocal coach and I love it,” she says.
Alicia now teaches in schools and says it’s exposed her to a whole new generation of fans.
“I’ll be in class and a student will realise I played Amber and I discover the class know the series, love the books and get inundated with questions.
“It’s brilliant - even the teachers in the staff room have questions. Turns out everyone was a Tracy Beaker fan.”
As well as vocal coaching, Alicia is still singing professionally - last year, she performed on The Voice after being approached by producers.
Alicia did six months of show auditions on zoom during Covid.
The after blowing viewers away with her audition, singing Pink’s ballad All I Know So Far but unfortunately the judges didn’t turn on their chairs and buzz.
“It wasn’t a song I would have chosen,” she admits.
“The performance created controversy on social media because I was a professional singing teacher and many viewers thought I should have gone through and were outraged.”
Alicia is now happily settled down with her partner Josh, 37 - who she first met in secondary school.
“Josh didn’t know who Tracy Beaker or Amber were,” she says.
“He’d never seen the show and was more into sports, he had no idea I’d been on TV.”
Alicia is now enjoying sharing Tracy Beaker with their daughter Alba-Rae, nine.
She says: “Alba-Rae loves watching the episodes of Tracy Beaker I’m in, though I’m waiting for her to hit her teen years and start being embarrassed.
Alicia is continuing her professional singing career with a performance in July at the Welsh proms.
“I will be performing with the Capital City Jazz Orchestra and my dad, Jeff Hooper, big band singer at Saint David’s Hall in Cardiff,” she says.
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With Tracy Beaker still regularly repeated on - and its most recent spin-off, The Beaker Girls, airing just two years ago - Alicia still hopes to return to the Dumping Ground one day.
“I am glad Tracy Beaker is still popular today,” she says. “I’d love to see more funding for these types of kids shows today - and I would love to do a series about the care home kids 20 years on. We’d be amazing.”
