Tracy-Ann Oberman on EastEnders, Doctor Who & Toast of London

WEBVTT
1
00:00:00.131 --> 00:00:02.173
What was it like working with Leslie Grantham?
2
00:00:02.413 --> 00:00:05.696
Well, I had come out of, um, I'd come out of the National.
3
00:00:05.896 --> 00:00:07.418
I'd been working with Kenneth Branagh.
4
00:00:07.978 --> 00:00:11.721
And I always found, literally within a few weeks, I suddenly found myself in Albert Square.
5
00:00:12.202 --> 00:00:16.826
And I always said if I wrote an autobiography, it would be From Ken to Den in Two Small Steps.
6
00:00:16.846 --> 00:00:18.287
Well, this is him coming back from the dead.
7
00:00:18.387 --> 00:00:18.748
Twice.
8
00:00:18.788 --> 00:00:19.689
This is the second time.
9
00:00:19.909 --> 00:00:20.569
Twice, of course.
10
00:00:20.770 --> 00:00:24.453
And, um, I walked in, we did our scene, and then they kept the, uh,
11
00:00:24.753 --> 00:00:27.575
They kept the camera rolling, apparently, and this was so camp.
12
00:00:28.035 --> 00:00:31.957
Because Leslie sort of went at the end of it, went, you the girl that does loads of voiceovers?
13
00:00:31.977 --> 00:00:34.358
And I went, are you the bloke that's been dead for seven years?
14
00:00:34.879 --> 00:00:51.168
I think because when I was at drama school, as I was leaving, the head of the drama department, knowing that I was Jewish, said to me, you know, you really should change your name from Obermann because it's very Jewish and, quote, you don't look enough like Anne Frank to get cast in Jewish films.
15
00:00:51.208 --> 00:00:51.368
Sure.
16
00:00:52.028 --> 00:00:52.869
Excuse me, my jaw drops.
17
00:00:52.890 --> 00:00:54.192
Yeah, a jaw literally dropped.
18
00:00:54.472 --> 00:00:56.856
And I went, oh, God, maybe I should be Tracy Smith.
19
00:00:56.996 --> 00:00:57.717
Maybe I could be Tracy.
20
00:00:57.737 --> 00:00:59.419
And then I thought, oh, fuck it.
21
00:00:59.520 --> 00:01:03.245
And then I thought if I added an ant, my middle name in there, it would become a whole other thing.
22
00:01:03.746 --> 00:01:07.111
So this is fantastic because I was thinking, we'll save the anti-Semitism stuff.
23
00:01:08.195 --> 00:01:09.416
Until the end of the hour.
24
00:01:09.436 --> 00:01:10.097
Never far away.
25
00:01:10.117 --> 00:01:11.277
Straight in there.
26
00:01:11.518 --> 00:01:19.084
Welcome to Martin Deason Unloaded, the podcast where I sit down with some of the people who've made Britain such a joy to live in since the 1990s.
27
00:01:19.584 --> 00:01:24.228
Today's guest has been entrusted with more national treasures than the beefeaters at the Tower of London.
28
00:01:25.368 --> 00:01:38.720
EastEnders, Doctor Who, Toast of London with Matt Berry, Friday Night Dinner, Ricky Gervais's Afterlife, The Witcher, The Sandman, the new Harlan Coburn thriller Runaway on Netflix, and of course the Royal Shakespeare Company.
29
00:01:39.021 --> 00:01:48.850
And I'm sorry for reading that, I'm terrible at remembering lines, but honestly, Tracey's Wikipedia page is the longest one I've ever seen in my life, she's a writer, actor...
30
00:01:49.450 --> 00:01:55.072
comedian, activist, recently minted MBE, it's Tracey-Ann Obermann.
31
00:01:55.193 --> 00:01:56.193
Welcome to Unloaded.
32
00:01:56.213 --> 00:01:57.454
Hello Martin, how lovely to be here.
33
00:01:57.474 --> 00:01:59.674
And you know what, you're one of the few people that can call me Tracey.
34
00:02:00.235 --> 00:02:01.055
Did I just call you Tracey?
35
00:02:01.075 --> 00:02:06.297
You did, and that's because we go back so far that I'm not prepared to voice my professional name on you.
36
00:02:06.397 --> 00:02:08.578
That's right, because when we first met, you were Tracey.
37
00:02:08.938 --> 00:02:09.099
Yeah.
38
00:02:09.159 --> 00:02:12.360
And then you became Tracey-Ann, presumably for an equity kind of reason, or...?
39
00:02:12.680 --> 00:02:13.681
Yeah, I have no idea what.
40
00:02:13.741 --> 00:02:25.808
I think because when I was at drama school, as I was leaving, the head of the drama department, knowing that I was Jewish, said to me, you know, you really should change your name from Obermann because it's very Jewish.
41
00:02:25.828 --> 00:02:30.210
And quote, you don't look enough like Anne Frank to get cast in Jewish roles.
42
00:02:30.891 --> 00:02:32.172
Excuse me, on my jaw drops.
43
00:02:32.192 --> 00:02:33.072
Yeah, jaw literally drops.
44
00:02:33.332 --> 00:02:35.714
And I went, oh, God, well, maybe I should be Tracy Smith.
45
00:02:35.834 --> 00:02:36.574
Maybe I could be Tracy.
46
00:02:36.594 --> 00:02:37.795
And then I thought, oh, fuck it.
47
00:02:38.175 --> 00:02:42.097
And then I thought if I added an ant, my middle name in there, it would become a whole other thing.
48
00:02:42.577 --> 00:02:48.279
So this is fantastic because I was thinking we'll save the anti-Semitism stuff until the end of the hour.
49
00:02:48.299 --> 00:02:49.339
Never far away.
50
00:02:49.459 --> 00:02:50.880
Straight in there.
51
00:02:50.900 --> 00:02:55.582
That's astonishing how things have changed and moved and not changed since we first met.
52
00:02:55.602 --> 00:02:57.683
Which brings us to we met when we were teenagers, right?
53
00:02:57.703 --> 00:02:58.143
Teenagers.
54
00:02:58.583 --> 00:03:05.626
And I remember me saying, first of all, I met your childhood sweetheart, your boyfriend at the time, who said it's all right to say his name on this, Richard Matthews.
55
00:03:05.666 --> 00:03:06.306
Richard Matthews.
56
00:03:06.326 --> 00:03:10.327
Who is now a King's Council, which is a best job title in the world.
57
00:03:10.347 --> 00:03:10.587
I know.
58
00:03:10.607 --> 00:03:13.989
And he was the funniest person I'd ever met on the first day at university.
59
00:03:14.349 --> 00:03:17.690
And then I met you a few months later and he became the second funniest person.
60
00:03:17.990 --> 00:03:23.377
And I have to say, he was going on about this friend of his, Martin Dees, and I'm obsessed with you.
61
00:03:23.497 --> 00:03:24.578
I've known you for many, many years.
62
00:03:24.598 --> 00:03:25.479
You are fascinating.
63
00:03:25.499 --> 00:03:26.180
Your career has...
64
00:03:26.440 --> 00:03:29.644
I mean, you should interview yourself sometime because your career is fascinating.
65
00:03:29.664 --> 00:03:30.886
That would be quite schizophrenic.
66
00:03:30.906 --> 00:03:31.426
You're brilliant.
67
00:03:31.447 --> 00:03:32.788
You are just brilliant.
68
00:03:32.808 --> 00:03:34.190
So I'm really honoured to be here.
69
00:03:34.230 --> 00:03:35.672
People are turning off in their droves now.
70
00:03:37.073 --> 00:03:40.734
But just to start there, because there is so much to talk about with you.
71
00:03:41.654 --> 00:03:44.154
Like I said, you were genuinely incredibly funny.
72
00:03:44.815 --> 00:03:54.197
And then, of course, it's no surprise that very quickly you were working with some of the really people who went on to be very big in comedy, even in the late 80s, but all through the 90s.
73
00:03:54.437 --> 00:03:55.497
I've got my little list here.
74
00:03:55.717 --> 00:03:56.377
It's crazy.
75
00:03:56.597 --> 00:04:00.978
Catherine Tate, Simon Pegg, Sean Locke, who I just thought was the funniest man in the world.
76
00:04:00.998 --> 00:04:01.098
Yeah.
77
00:04:02.179 --> 00:04:05.062
Um, Sacha Baron Cohen, Julian Barrett, Robert Webb.
78
00:04:05.523 --> 00:04:09.827
Were you aware at the time that this was kind of the second wave of alternative comedy happening?
79
00:04:09.847 --> 00:04:18.477
Yeah, that's really, it's really interesting because I started off, um, you know, after I'd gone to, um, university, then I went to drama school and that had been seven years.
80
00:04:18.497 --> 00:04:22.542
So I could have been a doctor as my father was screaming at me, seven years of education.
81
00:04:23.222 --> 00:04:24.923
And then I went straight to the Royal Shakespeare Company.
82
00:04:24.943 --> 00:04:28.345
So I was very much like part of the theatre establishment.
83
00:04:28.825 --> 00:04:31.727
But I then ended up overlapping in comedy.
84
00:04:32.508 --> 00:04:36.390
And I was because I wasn't like in the heart of the comedy world.
85
00:04:36.410 --> 00:04:41.293
I was very much doing drama and theatre, but also doing comedy, a little bit of stand up, got into sitcoms and comedy.
86
00:04:41.373 --> 00:04:43.254
I was working with this new wave of...
87
00:04:44.654 --> 00:04:45.895
of up and coming comedians.
88
00:04:46.475 --> 00:04:50.877
And at the time, you know, I didn't know that Catherine was going to be Catherine.
89
00:04:50.897 --> 00:04:53.518
I knew she was brilliant and she had been at drama school with me.
90
00:04:53.778 --> 00:04:54.898
So I knew her as an actress.
91
00:04:55.358 --> 00:05:04.582
I remember with Robert and Paul, we were doing a lot of the Radio 4 comedy stuff, you know, all the goodness gracious me crowd.
92
00:05:04.822 --> 00:05:08.243
I was doing loads and loads of comedy on Radio 4 with Sean Locke.
93
00:05:09.064 --> 00:05:11.886
15 stories high where I used to, I played all the women.
94
00:05:12.307 --> 00:05:14.189
And I remember, you know, I had to play all the women.
95
00:05:14.209 --> 00:05:19.754
I remember one day coming in going, Sean, in one episode, I'm playing like 20 women, all from South London.
96
00:05:19.794 --> 00:05:21.255
Can I at least do a different accent?
97
00:05:21.275 --> 00:05:25.239
He was like, no, they've all got to come from South London and be completely different.
98
00:05:25.480 --> 00:05:26.801
Am I getting paid per character?
99
00:05:26.821 --> 00:05:27.181
Exactly.
100
00:05:27.201 --> 00:05:28.803
But it was like, oh, God, that's difficult.
101
00:05:28.823 --> 00:05:29.003
Yeah.
102
00:05:29.167 --> 00:05:39.336
But yeah, looking back now and I can see, you know, the Kevin Eldons and Mark Heap, who he and I have crossed over on many occasions through Big Train and Friday Night Dinner.
103
00:05:39.356 --> 00:05:39.977
Yes, of course, Big Train.
104
00:05:39.997 --> 00:05:40.838
That was huge at the time.
105
00:05:40.858 --> 00:05:40.978
Huge.
106
00:05:40.998 --> 00:05:42.139
Really close.
107
00:05:42.559 --> 00:05:50.266
And Simon, I think there was a feeling that, yeah, I was working with some pretty amazing people, but they did go on to define comedy in a generation.
108
00:05:50.426 --> 00:05:51.988
And I felt really honoured to be in their orbit.
109
00:05:52.235 --> 00:06:02.184
I remember when we first met, you and Richard were both obsessed with The Young Ones, comic strip, and then also some great historical comedy as well.
110
00:06:02.664 --> 00:06:03.685
Woody Allen films.
111
00:06:03.725 --> 00:06:04.646
Woody Allen films.
112
00:06:04.686 --> 00:06:06.168
Bilko, Richard was obsessed with.
113
00:06:06.188 --> 00:06:07.649
Oh, Bilko, we were obsessed with.
114
00:06:07.929 --> 00:06:11.733
My favourite film of all time was The Original Producers, Mel Brooks, Blazing Saddles.
115
00:06:12.053 --> 00:06:16.057
These really, you know, even things like The Goons and Stabler.
116
00:06:16.097 --> 00:06:16.537
Oh, really?
117
00:06:16.597 --> 00:06:20.558
Stupid little things like Michael Bentine's potty time, you know, those sort of things that define the friendship.
118
00:06:20.578 --> 00:06:21.219
But you're right.
119
00:06:21.259 --> 00:06:23.359
We were completely obsessed with sketch comedy.
120
00:06:23.740 --> 00:06:34.604
And had we been around now, maybe later on, we would have maybe written up some of those sketches and got them on YouTube or done whatever you could do with it.
121
00:06:34.624 --> 00:06:37.905
But in those days, you just did it yourself and you didn't really know what to do with it.
122
00:06:38.505 --> 00:06:41.227
And is there a line through your comedy career?
123
00:06:41.267 --> 00:06:52.757
Because, I mean, for starters, for me as an outsider, it seems quite unusual to have Royal Shakespeare Company, lots and lots of comedy, writing credits, really very serious drama as well.
124
00:06:52.797 --> 00:06:53.418
It's quite unusual.
125
00:06:53.438 --> 00:06:55.740
But the comedy seems... And I can't quite put my finger on it.
126
00:06:55.760 --> 00:06:56.480
There's a theme.
127
00:06:56.961 --> 00:06:57.241
Yeah.
128
00:06:57.261 --> 00:06:58.302
The women you play.
129
00:07:00.444 --> 00:07:01.044
Yes.
130
00:07:01.084 --> 00:07:01.344
Yeah.
131
00:07:01.424 --> 00:07:02.886
Well, that is interesting, isn't it?
132
00:07:02.906 --> 00:07:03.887
Because, you know, I just...
133
00:07:04.956 --> 00:07:07.278
I just played Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, 1936.
134
00:07:07.318 --> 00:07:09.100
So I was the first ever female Shylock.
135
00:07:09.120 --> 00:07:11.462
And yet even in that, there is a sort of funny bones.
136
00:07:11.623 --> 00:07:14.746
I think there is comedy and tragedy and tragedy and comedy.
137
00:07:14.766 --> 00:07:23.054
And I think the thing with comedy is it only works when there's a truth in it, which is why I think some of the best comics are also very good actors.
138
00:07:23.775 --> 00:07:25.456
I think script is really important.
139
00:07:25.476 --> 00:07:28.599
So I think really clever wordplay, you know,
140
00:07:29.460 --> 00:07:31.441
Farce I like, but it's got to be clever farce.
141
00:07:31.461 --> 00:07:37.185
But slapstick, falling over, slipping on banana skins does nothing for me, but clever, good scripts.
142
00:07:37.846 --> 00:07:43.930
And I think even in the most tragic of parts, there is an absolute vein of comedy because life is tragically comic.
143
00:07:44.336 --> 00:07:56.901
And I think there's always a, you play comedy relatively straight, which sounds absurd to say, because my favourite, I think, if I had to pick one, would be Mrs. Purchase, Ray fucking Purchase from Toast of London.
144
00:07:57.102 --> 00:07:58.182
That just kills me.
145
00:07:58.242 --> 00:07:58.562
I know.
146
00:07:58.582 --> 00:08:01.884
I remember getting the script of the pilot for that.
147
00:08:01.904 --> 00:08:06.366
And they said, oh, Matt Berry wants you to play this.
148
00:08:06.386 --> 00:08:10.247
And I remember reading it and it was like, Mrs. Purchase gets taken from behind.
149
00:08:10.287 --> 00:08:12.908
And I rang my agent and went, I'm absolutely not doing that.
150
00:08:14.669 --> 00:08:15.229
what is this?
151
00:08:15.269 --> 00:08:16.630
This is like sort of, what is this?
152
00:08:16.970 --> 00:08:17.750
I don't understand it.
153
00:08:17.790 --> 00:08:18.591
It's not funny.
154
00:08:18.731 --> 00:08:21.352
And I'm certainly not going to have this hanging around the internet for years.
155
00:08:21.812 --> 00:08:24.793
And then they ran back and said, oh no, Matt would really like you to do it.
156
00:08:25.973 --> 00:08:28.734
And I knew the producer from Big Train and it was a really good crew.
157
00:08:28.774 --> 00:08:30.575
And I went, oh, I'll come in for a rehearsal.
158
00:08:30.615 --> 00:08:32.116
And it was funny, sort of funny.
159
00:08:32.436 --> 00:08:35.897
And then we did the pilot and it was sort of funny, weird, but sort of funny.
160
00:08:35.917 --> 00:08:37.758
Can you tell when you're in it, when you're acting in it?
161
00:08:38.178 --> 00:08:39.639
I kind of had a real laugh on the day.
162
00:08:39.739 --> 00:08:43.943
And I remember saying to Matt, oh, so lovely to meet you, you know, and Harry Peacock.
163
00:08:43.963 --> 00:08:47.747
It was like, well, that was a real laugh, but this will never get picked up for a series.
164
00:08:48.247 --> 00:08:48.767
And then it did.
165
00:08:48.908 --> 00:08:50.549
And it became a kind of cult classic.
166
00:08:50.589 --> 00:08:53.732
And I was really happy when Mrs. Purchase came back again and again and again.
167
00:08:53.952 --> 00:08:58.235
There's something so funny about being able to be most of your appearances on screen taken roughly from mine.
168
00:08:58.315 --> 00:08:59.676
Literally with a fag in your mouth.
169
00:08:59.796 --> 00:09:01.237
And yet playing that pretty straight.
170
00:09:01.257 --> 00:09:01.977
Totally straight.
171
00:09:02.017 --> 00:09:02.638
Yeah, here I am.
172
00:09:02.678 --> 00:09:03.738
I've got Matt Berry up the back.
173
00:09:03.918 --> 00:09:04.339
Exactly.
174
00:09:04.359 --> 00:09:05.259
Matt Berry up the back.
175
00:09:05.740 --> 00:09:06.940
But there was a whole backstory there.
176
00:09:06.960 --> 00:09:10.503
This is a woman that's never enjoyed sex in her life unless she's paid for it.
177
00:09:10.563 --> 00:09:11.283
She certainly doesn't.
178
00:09:11.303 --> 00:09:12.904
It was funny.
179
00:09:12.924 --> 00:09:18.548
And the thing that I loved about Matt and Arthur, who wrote that with him, who had also done Big Train, is that...
180
00:09:19.028 --> 00:09:24.113
That world of Toast, whilst it was stretched to an extreme, was based in a reality.
181
00:09:24.153 --> 00:09:25.574
So you absolutely believed it.
182
00:09:25.594 --> 00:09:26.856
They were total truths there.
183
00:09:27.416 --> 00:09:29.799
And they very cleverly cast very good actors in it.
184
00:09:30.319 --> 00:09:35.885
So everyone, you know, like Stephen Boxer was a straight actor straight from the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National.
185
00:09:36.165 --> 00:09:39.248
Brian Blessed, like John Hamm, amazing actors in it.
186
00:09:39.683 --> 00:09:47.490
I've heard actors say that, that it's actually alarmingly true to what it's like being a juggling actor, working voiceover studios, that kind of thing.
187
00:09:47.530 --> 00:09:47.971
Oh, I know.
188
00:09:48.011 --> 00:09:59.661
Matt completely blew the, you know, everyone is now slightly embarrassed when you go in to do a voiceover because they sort of go, I don't want to sound too much like Clem Fandango here, but can you play it old, young, wise, stupid?
189
00:09:59.701 --> 00:10:01.263
And you're like, yeah, you sound like Clem Fandango.
190
00:10:01.283 --> 00:10:01.603
I don't know.
191
00:10:01.883 --> 00:10:02.904
I've done a tiny bit myself.
192
00:10:02.924 --> 00:10:07.447
I did some recently for a charity campaign, and it's absolutely comedic, isn't it?
193
00:10:07.508 --> 00:10:08.648
It's like, yes, yes.
194
00:10:08.668 --> 00:10:09.609
What does everyone think of that?
195
00:10:10.350 --> 00:10:12.892
There's someone at the back who hasn't said anything yet, so they feel they have to.
196
00:10:12.972 --> 00:10:13.672
Exactly.
197
00:10:13.833 --> 00:10:17.115
I think, could you say a little bit more, I don't know, a bit more controversy?
198
00:10:17.335 --> 00:10:18.196
Yeah.
199
00:10:18.236 --> 00:10:19.137
What does that mean?
200
00:10:19.177 --> 00:10:20.538
How do I had controversy?
201
00:10:20.898 --> 00:10:24.102
And also those adverts that, you know, a fortune has been spent on.
202
00:10:24.122 --> 00:10:27.347
And so everybody has to justify their paycheck.
203
00:10:27.447 --> 00:10:30.711
And you get these utterly, you know, can you hero the price point, please?
204
00:10:30.852 --> 00:10:33.856
Or can you say, well, it's sort of advertising speak.
205
00:10:34.316 --> 00:10:36.940
So Matt really did puncture that world very nicely.
206
00:10:36.960 --> 00:10:37.060
Yeah.
207
00:10:37.300 --> 00:10:43.923
And then the other massive cult comedy, I suppose if you're putting them in a pancy and there's got to be Friday night dinner, Auntie Val.
208
00:10:44.183 --> 00:10:44.643
Yes.
209
00:10:45.023 --> 00:10:47.545
Which I've just recently seen online.
210
00:10:47.665 --> 00:10:50.206
Auntie Val is now, and that show finished a while ago, right?
211
00:10:50.226 --> 00:10:51.046
She's now a meme.
212
00:10:51.226 --> 00:10:53.107
Again, they're calling it Auntie Val Corp.
213
00:10:53.127 --> 00:10:53.888
Yeah, she's turned.
214
00:10:53.928 --> 00:11:05.641
I've got 20 people I know, about 50 people I know under the age of 20, two days ago, sent me a thing going, you're trending on TikTok, which I don't even bother to do.
215
00:11:06.081 --> 00:11:08.664
And that anti-valcor has become a thing.
216
00:11:08.959 --> 00:11:15.084
which is kind of the sort of, for want of a better expression, Jewish Bette Lynch vibe that she channels.
217
00:11:15.104 --> 00:11:15.744
I don't even know.
218
00:11:15.764 --> 00:11:21.869
It's like the wig, the leopard print, the nails, the sort of Larry, the sunglasses, all of it.
219
00:11:21.889 --> 00:11:24.752
Yeah, just very Aunty Valcore, sort of slightly glamorous.
220
00:11:25.372 --> 00:11:31.397
What I loved about Mrs Purchase was that the dads at school always used to want to come and talk to me after that.
221
00:11:31.537 --> 00:11:35.060
So I became very popular at the school gates at the drop-off.
222
00:11:35.520 --> 00:11:37.542
And Aunty Val, people had a bit of a fit.
223
00:11:37.762 --> 00:11:41.824
I think it's the mum's best friend, surely, isn't it?
224
00:11:41.844 --> 00:11:42.484
Right, sure.
225
00:11:42.604 --> 00:11:46.666
I just think she was foul, but a little bit sexy.
226
00:11:47.046 --> 00:11:48.487
Yeah, foul was, yes.
227
00:11:48.527 --> 00:11:51.788
I don't know, I would never use the word MILF, but I think we're into that territory.
228
00:11:51.808 --> 00:11:52.429
She was a little MILF-y.
229
00:11:52.449 --> 00:11:53.629
I think that's what's going on.
230
00:11:53.929 --> 00:11:55.190
I've never understood how.
231
00:11:55.610 --> 00:12:00.795
My favourite, favourite episode of that was when I was locked in a cage in the last seven series we did.
232
00:12:00.835 --> 00:12:01.936
Seven series.
233
00:12:01.976 --> 00:12:03.437
Seven series.
234
00:12:03.497 --> 00:12:03.978
Excellent.
235
00:12:04.038 --> 00:12:07.781
And it became very culty when it got put onto Netflix during COVID.
236
00:12:07.801 --> 00:12:10.604
And so it seemed like the world and his wife watched that.
237
00:12:11.264 --> 00:12:18.572
So having been used to being stopped for Doctor Who or EastEnders, I was suddenly getting stopped a lot for Aunty Val.
238
00:12:18.632 --> 00:12:20.894
And people just love that series.
239
00:12:20.934 --> 00:12:26.680
And what I loved about it was that Robert wrote about his family, but it seemed to speak to everybody's family.
240
00:12:26.740 --> 00:12:33.127
So I was getting, you know, all demographics stopping me from all over England when I've been on tour, saying that's like my family.
241
00:12:33.347 --> 00:12:35.648
It's because it presented as a Jewish family, obviously.
242
00:12:35.688 --> 00:12:44.209
But in fact, it's more, to me, because I come from a suburban South London Catholic family, it's presented more suburbia, I think, which is a lot of people's lives.
243
00:12:44.229 --> 00:12:54.852
And that truth of the minute you walk through your parents' door, you turn back into the teenager you always were in your relationship with your, you know, even though you could be in your 60s, you're still pouring salt into your brothers and all those old arguments.
244
00:12:54.872 --> 00:12:55.232
Absolutely.
245
00:12:55.352 --> 00:13:01.234
But there was an episode in the last episode, Auntie Val has split up from Larry and she's dating.
246
00:13:01.254 --> 00:13:03.095
She's sort of dating on her phone.
247
00:13:03.315 --> 00:13:06.816
And so she's stuck over at Val and Martin's house.
248
00:13:06.836 --> 00:13:10.578
And then they bought this massive dog cage for Wilson, which is in there.
249
00:13:11.058 --> 00:13:12.238
They're housing it for Jim.
250
00:13:12.818 --> 00:13:14.779
And somehow she gets stuck in the cage.
251
00:13:14.919 --> 00:13:18.120
And I have to say that house was very, very intense to film in.
252
00:13:18.520 --> 00:13:20.581
It was a small house in Mill Hill.
253
00:13:20.601 --> 00:13:22.342
It was quite a large crew.
254
00:13:22.362 --> 00:13:22.442
And,
255
00:13:22.922 --> 00:13:24.123
tiny little corridor.
256
00:13:24.143 --> 00:13:33.352
So when you're filming a scene, which is maybe four pages, but you've then got to come back on six characters standing in a corridor, that can take up to 10 hours a day.
257
00:13:33.392 --> 00:13:34.934
So it was really intense.
258
00:13:34.974 --> 00:13:37.657
And it was always, you were always walking into somebody, past somebody.
259
00:13:37.697 --> 00:13:38.417
It was very hot.
260
00:13:39.138 --> 00:13:40.239
Stick me in that cage.
261
00:13:40.299 --> 00:13:41.801
That was the best time I had on that job.
262
00:13:41.881 --> 00:13:42.882
I loved my cage.
263
00:13:42.902 --> 00:13:43.863
It was a safe space.
264
00:13:43.923 --> 00:13:45.345
I had my lunch in the cage.
265
00:13:45.685 --> 00:13:47.327
I had a little schluff in the cage.
266
00:13:47.467 --> 00:13:48.048
Pretty weird.
267
00:13:48.068 --> 00:13:48.609
It was weird.
268
00:13:48.629 --> 00:13:49.369
You felt safe in the cage.
269
00:13:49.389 --> 00:13:50.591
Yeah, it was love my cage.
270
00:13:50.611 --> 00:13:51.752
And people were going, you all right in there?
271
00:13:51.912 --> 00:13:53.013
Absolutely fine.
272
00:13:53.334 --> 00:13:54.055
Don't want to come out.
273
00:13:54.075 --> 00:13:54.335
I'm fine.
274
00:13:54.495 --> 00:14:01.562
And it's amazing that that, as well as so much else that you've done, before we come on to the serious stuff, we'd all come under the sort of cult umbrella.
275
00:14:02.483 --> 00:14:06.167
So I wonder, when people do recognise you in the street, which one is it they're going for?
276
00:14:06.227 --> 00:14:09.069
Is it those or, of course, the massive ones we haven't really talked about yet?
277
00:14:09.630 --> 00:14:11.992
EastEnders and Doctor Who, which are, you know...
278
00:14:12.132 --> 00:14:12.953
It's funny, I...
279
00:14:14.114 --> 00:14:15.415
Back in the day when I was doing...
280
00:14:15.435 --> 00:14:27.999
I've always sort of fringed around the sort of culty comedy, like Big Train when I came up with the second series with, as you say, Simon Pegg and Catherine Tate and Kevin and amazing people and great writers.
281
00:14:28.459 --> 00:14:30.200
That was a bit of a thing in its day.
282
00:14:30.320 --> 00:14:33.041
And then, obviously, Toast is very culty.
283
00:14:33.601 --> 00:14:35.382
Friday Night Dinner went mainstream and...
284
00:14:36.122 --> 00:14:43.763
I would say I still get stopped for EastEnders, but I would say it's 50-50 between Friday night dinner and EastEnders.
285
00:14:44.043 --> 00:14:51.105
Well, tell me about EastEnders, because I'm not a massive soapy fan, but even I was aware that this person I knew was in it.
286
00:14:51.145 --> 00:14:51.785
I'm like, what?
287
00:14:52.005 --> 00:14:52.805
And it went massive.
288
00:14:52.865 --> 00:14:54.245
And you killed Dirty Den.
289
00:14:54.365 --> 00:14:55.545
And buried him under the Queen Vic.
290
00:14:55.565 --> 00:14:56.466
And buried him under the Queen Vic.
291
00:14:56.546 --> 00:14:59.686
And then talked to him under the Queen Vic for quite a few episodes.
292
00:14:59.706 --> 00:15:00.606
I need to watch these clips.
293
00:15:00.626 --> 00:15:01.707
That just sounds hilarious.
294
00:15:01.767 --> 00:15:02.067
I know.
295
00:15:02.247 --> 00:15:04.307
And what was it like working with Leslie Grantham, who's...
296
00:15:04.487 --> 00:15:07.769
Well, I had come out of The National.
297
00:15:07.949 --> 00:15:09.490
I'd been working with Kenneth Branagh.
298
00:15:10.031 --> 00:15:13.773
And literally within a few weeks, I suddenly found myself in Albert Square.
299
00:15:14.273 --> 00:15:18.956
And I always said if I wrote an autobiography, it would be from Ken to Den in two small steps.
300
00:15:19.016 --> 00:15:19.937
It was bizarre.
301
00:15:21.478 --> 00:15:24.780
It was at the height of – I went into it in 2003.
302
00:15:25.861 --> 00:15:31.565
It was at the height – it was before all these – you'll know this from your journalism and you'll understand that –
303
00:15:33.146 --> 00:15:35.748
It was before reality shows took over.
304
00:15:35.768 --> 00:15:39.210
So there was an enormous amount of tabloid and press interest in it.
305
00:15:39.510 --> 00:15:43.513
So the minute you signed up for EastEnders, you knew that you were going to be followed by paparazzi.
306
00:15:43.553 --> 00:15:45.014
Your life was never going to be your own.
307
00:15:45.475 --> 00:15:46.896
I wasn't totally aware of that.
308
00:15:47.196 --> 00:15:49.538
So it was a huge commitment.
309
00:15:49.578 --> 00:15:50.859
Did you immediately get all that?
310
00:15:51.479 --> 00:15:52.699
Well, what happened?
311
00:15:52.920 --> 00:15:56.081
I mean, this is an exclusive, but I got the job and I was a bit nervous.
312
00:15:56.121 --> 00:15:58.442
And then my agent said, and this is what you'll be earning.
313
00:15:58.462 --> 00:15:59.962
And I was less nervous.
314
00:16:01.082 --> 00:16:03.223
And it was like, you know, it's kind of quite life changing.
315
00:16:03.543 --> 00:16:05.804
But a lot of active friends of mine were like, what are you doing?
316
00:16:05.824 --> 00:16:06.504
Why are you going to go in?
317
00:16:06.885 --> 00:16:08.405
What are you going into EastEnders for?
318
00:16:08.785 --> 00:16:09.746
You know, you're mad.
319
00:16:10.266 --> 00:16:10.706
However,
320
00:16:11.286 --> 00:16:12.347
I went out for that part.
321
00:16:12.527 --> 00:16:13.989
It was shrouded in secrecy.
322
00:16:14.029 --> 00:16:15.490
It was getting huge viewing figures.
323
00:16:16.751 --> 00:16:19.653
There were no reality shows, so it was the reality show.
324
00:16:20.894 --> 00:16:23.076
I went out for this secret part.
325
00:16:23.877 --> 00:16:25.038
I then got a call back.
326
00:16:25.138 --> 00:16:26.760
I turned up at Elstree.
327
00:16:26.880 --> 00:16:31.664
I looked down the list of six actresses who were on the list, and I was the only one I didn't recognize.
328
00:16:31.684 --> 00:16:32.905
They were all household names.
329
00:16:32.925 --> 00:16:33.125
Yeah.
330
00:16:33.405 --> 00:16:34.405
I was rushed through.
331
00:16:34.425 --> 00:16:37.487
I thought I was going up for Ian Beale's new wife.
332
00:16:38.087 --> 00:16:44.189
As we walked into the Vic for the chemistry test, they said, oh, just to let you know, you're going to be working with Leslie Granson.
333
00:16:44.209 --> 00:16:44.969
You have a chemistry test.
334
00:16:45.049 --> 00:16:48.931
And I said, I wasn't a massive watcher in those days, but my flatmate was huge.
335
00:16:48.971 --> 00:16:49.411
And I was like...
336
00:16:49.971 --> 00:16:51.372
I thought he was dead, didn't he?
337
00:16:51.392 --> 00:16:53.933
Yes, of course, this was him coming back from the dead.
338
00:16:53.993 --> 00:16:55.254
Twice, this is the second time.
339
00:16:55.514 --> 00:16:56.535
Twice, of course.
340
00:16:56.615 --> 00:17:07.561
And I walked in, we did our scene, and then they kept the camera rolling, apparently, and this was so camp, because Leslie sort of went at the end of it, went, you're the girl that does loads of voiceovers?
341
00:17:07.581 --> 00:17:09.923
And I went, are you the bloke that's been dead for seven years?
342
00:17:10.523 --> 00:17:12.145
And then he said, are you going to do it like that?
343
00:17:12.165 --> 00:17:13.306
And I said, well, I'll do it like that.
344
00:17:13.326 --> 00:17:14.388
Are you going to do it like that?
345
00:17:14.488 --> 00:17:15.649
And we just got on very well.
346
00:17:15.669 --> 00:17:17.992
And then very, very, I assumed I'll never get it.
347
00:17:18.032 --> 00:17:22.296
Maybe if I'm lucky, I'll get a police woman that arrests him for the 15th time.
348
00:17:22.817 --> 00:17:26.921
And I got a call very quickly, very, very quickly to say, you got the part.
349
00:17:27.602 --> 00:17:32.446
which was mad because normally they would workshop these characters on EastEnders for a long time.
350
00:17:33.306 --> 00:17:38.350
So within the time of getting it to being on set was about 10 days, and it was like Pretty Woman.
351
00:17:38.370 --> 00:17:39.371
It was like a whirlwind.
352
00:17:39.751 --> 00:17:40.992
I was taken into Selfridges.
353
00:17:41.012 --> 00:17:42.613
They said, you're a high-octane character.
354
00:17:42.633 --> 00:17:44.014
The spend is unlimited.
355
00:17:44.274 --> 00:17:48.197
We've got to pick outfits for basically a three-year.
356
00:17:48.478 --> 00:17:50.799
So we were like going, yes, all right, we'll get a bit of that in.
357
00:17:51.260 --> 00:17:52.701
I think I was the first person to get a...
358
00:17:54.562 --> 00:17:58.183
an Issa dress and also a Diane van Furstenberg dress.
359
00:17:58.243 --> 00:18:02.324
I was picking up crazy Vivienne Westwood bags.
360
00:18:02.645 --> 00:18:03.305
It was incredible.
361
00:18:03.365 --> 00:18:04.705
Then I was taken to the hairdresser.
362
00:18:05.045 --> 00:18:07.126
I said, I'd love to have long, blonde, straight hair.
363
00:18:07.386 --> 00:18:08.686
Can we sort of iron out the cause?
364
00:18:08.706 --> 00:18:12.087
They went, no, Sharon has the blonde hair in this, but we want to dye your hair.
365
00:18:12.107 --> 00:18:13.568
So it was literally like Pretty Woman.
366
00:18:13.628 --> 00:18:14.088
It's a building
367
00:18:14.569 --> 00:18:15.690
Literally building the character.
368
00:18:15.750 --> 00:18:18.474
Nine days later, I was on set with 16 scripts.
369
00:18:18.614 --> 00:18:22.379
Normally when you do a series, 16 scripts would be the whole series.
370
00:18:22.799 --> 00:18:24.922
This was for the first three weeks.
371
00:18:25.202 --> 00:18:28.346
And when I got there, they said, we just want to let you know.
372
00:18:29.107 --> 00:18:31.731
We kept the cameras running with you and Leslie.
373
00:18:33.272 --> 00:18:35.153
you're obviously the new Mrs. Watson.
374
00:18:35.273 --> 00:18:45.056
You know, we like to think of Dirty Den and Angie as sort of like Liz Taylor and Richard Burton of Walford.
375
00:18:45.496 --> 00:18:53.959
But when we saw your chemistry, we thought that you were more like, and we're really excited by this, Catherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy of Walford.
376
00:18:54.359 --> 00:18:56.920
And as I saw, I was like, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, okay.
377
00:18:57.220 --> 00:18:57.701
That's great.
378
00:18:57.741 --> 00:18:59.961
And I took that in and we ran with it.
379
00:19:00.141 --> 00:19:01.542
And I'd been there for a week.
380
00:19:02.202 --> 00:19:04.065
filming about 28 scenes a day.
381
00:19:04.826 --> 00:19:11.756
And one of the gorgeous things about EastEnders in those days was that there was a lot of press interest in it.
382
00:19:12.076 --> 00:19:16.662
And I didn't realise this because I'd only been there for a week and a half, is that...
383
00:19:17.303 --> 00:19:31.854
On the Saturday night was known as Press Nightmare Day because that was when you got the phone call from the press office to say there was a big tabloid, News of the World, Sunday Mirror, awful scandal coming out the next day.
384
00:19:32.014 --> 00:19:34.656
I literally hadn't been there long enough to appreciate that.
385
00:19:35.076 --> 00:19:37.238
I'd had my first entrance on the Friday night.
386
00:19:37.878 --> 00:19:39.520
I'm, do you know where Dirty Den is?
387
00:19:39.540 --> 00:19:40.600
Because I'm his wife.
388
00:19:40.681 --> 00:19:41.141
Pfft, pfft.
389
00:19:41.281 --> 00:19:41.481
Amazing.
390
00:19:41.501 --> 00:19:43.444
You've got a duff straight off.
391
00:19:43.504 --> 00:19:46.668
I've got hundreds of duffes, literally first straight off.
392
00:19:46.928 --> 00:19:54.698
I remember getting a phone call from Nigel Harmon on the Saturday going, babe, listen, you better go and buy the Sunday People tomorrow.
393
00:19:54.919 --> 00:19:55.940
This was on the Saturday.
394
00:19:56.961 --> 00:19:59.525
And being the sort of like erudite family that we were, I was like, what, what, what?
395
00:20:00.025 --> 00:20:00.927
What's the Sunday People?
396
00:20:00.967 --> 00:20:01.227
What is that?
397
00:20:01.247 --> 00:20:03.691
We only do Regis Diabetes and the Guardian in my family.
398
00:20:04.091 --> 00:20:06.735
He was like, you better go, right, there's a thing kicking off about Leslie.
399
00:20:06.915 --> 00:20:08.117
Thing kicking off about Leslie?
400
00:20:08.157 --> 00:20:08.858
Nobody had rung me.
401
00:20:09.419 --> 00:20:13.044
And I remember saying to Rob the next day, my husband going, we better go and buy the Sunday People.
402
00:20:13.064 --> 00:20:14.486
So I totted off down the road
403
00:20:15.367 --> 00:20:18.510
People stopping me because I'd been on the whole of Friday.
404
00:20:18.570 --> 00:20:19.251
Instantly.
405
00:20:19.291 --> 00:20:20.012
Within two days.
406
00:20:20.212 --> 00:20:20.973
Not even two days.
407
00:20:21.033 --> 00:20:30.322
I came down that evening onto the road in West Hampstead where I lived at that time and a car screeched to a halt and it was just as flip phone cameras had just come out.
408
00:20:30.543 --> 00:20:33.486
And in 2003, a car screeched to a halt and it was like dum, dum, dum, dum, dum.
409
00:20:33.966 --> 00:20:35.808
And that was it instantaneously.
410
00:20:35.848 --> 00:20:36.709
Welcome to your new life.
411
00:20:36.729 --> 00:20:37.690
Welcome to your new life.
412
00:20:37.790 --> 00:20:38.110
Yeah.
413
00:20:39.031 --> 00:20:40.132
God, hang on, don't I?
414
00:20:40.152 --> 00:20:40.572
Right, hang on.
415
00:20:40.612 --> 00:20:41.012
Where was I?
416
00:20:41.032 --> 00:20:42.914
No, no, I thought I'm fascinated.
417
00:20:43.034 --> 00:20:43.574
I got this phone.
418
00:20:43.594 --> 00:20:45.155
He said, you better go and buy it.
419
00:20:45.175 --> 00:20:46.436
So I said to Robert, buy The Sunday People.
420
00:20:46.456 --> 00:20:49.458
I bought The Sunday People and The News of the World and a couple of other tabloids.
421
00:20:49.498 --> 00:20:53.980
And there was this huge six-page expose of Leslie.
422
00:20:54.381 --> 00:20:55.601
Which expose?
423
00:20:55.621 --> 00:20:56.562
Is that a few?
424
00:20:56.662 --> 00:20:58.283
Oh, don't you remember this one, Mark?
425
00:20:58.423 --> 00:21:02.045
Well, I remember the first expose was when his criminal record came.
426
00:21:02.065 --> 00:21:06.708
Yeah, no, that was... Not many actors learned to act in prison when they were doing 10 years for murder.
427
00:21:06.788 --> 00:21:09.149
I mean, there's a whole story there, but I don't even think...
428
00:21:09.209 --> 00:21:13.532
But then the big one, the comedy will always stay with me, was he not in Panto?
429
00:21:13.992 --> 00:21:14.773
That was the moment.
430
00:21:14.793 --> 00:21:16.193
No, when you just started.
431
00:21:16.213 --> 00:21:17.834
It was a picture of him in his...
432
00:21:19.215 --> 00:21:20.196
Captain Hawk.
433
00:21:20.276 --> 00:21:28.903
A, he was in his captain, but he was also in his dressing room in Elstree with his finger in his mouth in one of those early doors.
434
00:21:29.723 --> 00:21:30.864
Anyway, it was a huge scandal.
435
00:21:30.884 --> 00:21:35.108
For younger listeners who don't remember, yes, he was – how do I put this delicately?
436
00:21:35.929 --> 00:21:37.271
Let's not talk about it, but yes.
437
00:21:37.291 --> 00:21:40.395
Yes, for having online relations with people.
438
00:21:40.936 --> 00:21:43.099
Pleasuring himself, shall we say.
439
00:21:43.119 --> 00:21:43.940
Pleasuring himself.
440
00:21:44.101 --> 00:21:48.387
But it was bizarre because I was totally unprepared for what this meant.
441
00:21:51.691 --> 00:21:54.532
I just remember that nobody had rung me because I was so new to the game.
442
00:21:55.112 --> 00:22:01.476
And I remember turning up on Monday at work and it was just bizarre.
443
00:22:01.536 --> 00:22:07.739
It was like, you know, I'd walked into what was a complete and utter scandal, tabloid scandal.
444
00:22:07.779 --> 00:22:09.880
So I hit the ground running on that show.
445
00:22:09.941 --> 00:22:13.903
And I remember having to get Leslie out of his dressing room and saying, we're going to do a clothes set.
446
00:22:13.923 --> 00:22:14.423
We'll be fine.
447
00:22:14.603 --> 00:22:15.884
It's going to be fine, Leslie.
448
00:22:15.905 --> 00:22:16.425
We're all fine.
449
00:22:16.445 --> 00:22:23.333
So I actually really enjoyed working with Leslie, but it was not without its tabloid moments, shall we say.
450
00:22:23.353 --> 00:22:30.220
I've only ever did one interview on the EastEnders set, and the three things I couldn't believe were, one, what everyone says, the set was tiny.
451
00:22:30.661 --> 00:22:32.222
Albert Square is like the size of this room.
452
00:22:32.963 --> 00:22:36.444
Two, I watched some filming a bit and I was like, you don't really have time to rehearse.
453
00:22:36.464 --> 00:22:37.244
No, no time to rehearse.
454
00:22:37.264 --> 00:22:37.745
Just bang.
455
00:22:38.045 --> 00:22:39.045
And three, the paranoia.
456
00:22:39.065 --> 00:22:42.966
Because I was interviewing Tamsin Althwaite for GQ, weirdly.
457
00:22:43.727 --> 00:22:45.587
And she literally wouldn't say a word during the interview.
458
00:22:45.607 --> 00:22:51.709
And it turned out because she had a tabloid expose coming up, I think something in her relationship had gone wrong.
459
00:22:51.749 --> 00:22:55.190
And I've never seen anyone so scared of a journalist in my life.
460
00:22:55.510 --> 00:22:56.831
I was thinking, why are we doing this?
461
00:22:57.091 --> 00:23:02.834
So I, well, I know, and I joined, I mean, God, all the secrets are coming out now.
462
00:23:02.854 --> 00:23:05.756
And in fact, I did try and write something about this because it was extraordinary.
463
00:23:05.796 --> 00:23:12.039
When in those days, the tabloid interest and expose and hacking was, you know, of the ritter scale.
464
00:23:12.059 --> 00:23:12.919
Yeah, of course, it's the hacking time.
465
00:23:12.939 --> 00:23:15.261
You know, and I'd been a professional actress for 12 years.
466
00:23:15.561 --> 00:23:17.882
I loved, you know, I'd been working for many, many years.
467
00:23:17.902 --> 00:23:22.584
And I love the fact that within my first year, I was up for Best Newcomer at the National Television Award.
468
00:23:22.604 --> 00:23:23.285
Yeah.
469
00:23:24.026 --> 00:23:27.525
You know, there were a few amazing moments
470
00:23:28.542 --> 00:23:30.563
that really stayed with me on that show.
471
00:23:31.844 --> 00:23:37.426
The first one being, I remember going to the Soap Awards and it was like crossing into Hogwarts.
472
00:23:37.467 --> 00:23:38.867
It was like a whole other world.
473
00:23:38.907 --> 00:23:47.792
And I remember sort of sitting there with Letitia Dean, who I have to say is the funniest woman in the world, but she sort of held my hand and went, you know, we're not in Kansas now, Toto.
474
00:23:47.972 --> 00:23:48.832
Sit back and enjoy this.
475
00:23:48.852 --> 00:23:54.475
And I remember they had Best Exit and there was quite a few, there were like four real actors and a dog,
476
00:23:54.655 --> 00:23:56.336
Best exit as in walking out of a room?
477
00:23:56.376 --> 00:24:00.118
No, best exit from the show, whatever your exit storyline was.
478
00:24:00.158 --> 00:24:04.520
But I remember that there was a small dog had been nominated as best exit.
479
00:24:05.060 --> 00:24:08.161
And so they flashed up a picture of this actress, that actress, that actress.
480
00:24:08.221 --> 00:24:10.583
And then this small little dog with a bow tie on.
481
00:24:11.003 --> 00:24:12.083
Tell me the dog won.
482
00:24:12.123 --> 00:24:12.644
The dog won.
483
00:24:12.704 --> 00:24:13.124
The dog won.
484
00:24:16.125 --> 00:24:26.109
And I just thought, wow, you know, for me now, I don't care whether I get nominated for a BAFTA or an Oscar, I will always have the image of that dog in a bow tie winning that award, trotting down with its own.
485
00:24:26.129 --> 00:24:29.231
You went to bed sobbing into your pillow, stabbing a picture of a dog.
486
00:24:29.251 --> 00:24:31.272
Because you're going, oh my God, the dog beat me to it.
487
00:24:31.292 --> 00:24:33.413
We're all little dogs, basically, with bow ties.
488
00:24:34.833 --> 00:24:36.836
So, yeah, no, EastEnders was amazing.
489
00:24:36.936 --> 00:24:38.437
I made some really good friends.
490
00:24:38.958 --> 00:24:49.509
It was work unlike anything because you're doing, like I say, I remember doing up to 28 scenes a day, whereas normally you maybe would do four or five on a regular TV series.
491
00:24:49.529 --> 00:24:50.931
It works at such a speed.
492
00:24:50.951 --> 00:24:54.635
I remember Melvin Hayes coming in for a few episodes.
493
00:24:55.195 --> 00:25:17.407
and i remember him sitting in the green room with his script and i went you were right and he went it's like jumping on to a bullet train yeah you just got to hold on tight yeah it was really and then the other mega show before we come on i keep saying before we do the serious stuff doctor who oh i mean what the heck how can you do those two which which was greater for you killing dirty den or get did you go inside the tardis of course you did
494
00:25:17.907 --> 00:25:18.928
No, I didn't go inside the Tardis.
495
00:25:18.968 --> 00:25:19.668
You didn't go inside the Tardis.
496
00:25:19.688 --> 00:25:22.250
But what I did do, I, again, I was so lucky.
497
00:25:22.290 --> 00:25:31.316
It was literally as I was leaving EastEnders, I got this call to say from Russell saying, would you like to play Yvonne Hartman, head of Torchwood?
498
00:25:31.856 --> 00:25:33.137
I was like, what do you want?
499
00:25:33.177 --> 00:25:33.617
What's Torchwood?
500
00:25:33.637 --> 00:25:34.578
You hit one to the other.
501
00:25:34.598 --> 00:25:35.298
I didn't realise that.
502
00:25:35.398 --> 00:25:36.418
Yeah, but I wasn't allowed to say.
503
00:25:36.438 --> 00:25:40.000
And EastEnders was literally like the confidentiality.
504
00:25:40.020 --> 00:25:41.561
It was like being on the Enigma code.
505
00:25:41.621 --> 00:25:43.161
I mean, you know, strips were stamped.
506
00:25:43.182 --> 00:25:46.443
It was so careful to be very, very confidential.
507
00:25:46.463 --> 00:25:51.765
But EastEnders was on our, yeah, that was EastEnders, but Doctor Who was on a whole other level of confidentiality.
508
00:25:52.105 --> 00:25:53.786
So you weren't meant to say anything.
509
00:25:53.826 --> 00:25:57.048
So I knew for a while that was coming in for these two big epic episodes.
510
00:25:58.249 --> 00:26:00.391
It was David Tennant's first Doctor Who.
511
00:26:00.411 --> 00:26:01.992
So this is the start of the...
512
00:26:02.132 --> 00:26:02.693
I was at the end.
513
00:26:02.713 --> 00:26:03.834
It'll be used to Russell T. Davis.
514
00:26:03.894 --> 00:26:04.575
It was Russell.
515
00:26:04.635 --> 00:26:05.215
It was Russell.
516
00:26:05.376 --> 00:26:06.517
It was the second series.
517
00:26:06.657 --> 00:26:09.560
Chris had just left and had morphed into David Tennant.
518
00:26:09.880 --> 00:26:11.562
So it was David Tennant's first...
519
00:26:13.083 --> 00:26:13.624
pop it.
520
00:26:13.844 --> 00:26:19.632
I was in the series, but we were the first two episodes that were filmed, even though we were going to be the last two episodes of the series.
521
00:26:20.373 --> 00:26:21.955
And it was great.
522
00:26:21.975 --> 00:26:23.517
They were brilliant, brilliant scripts.
523
00:26:23.557 --> 00:26:25.600
And it was a brilliant character, Yvonne Hartman.
524
00:26:26.261 --> 00:26:26.882
And I'd
525
00:26:31.267 --> 00:26:31.948
on Doctor Who.
526
00:26:32.128 --> 00:26:38.733
And I was in an episode where, two episodes that were brilliant, that where I ran Torchwood.
527
00:26:38.773 --> 00:26:41.154
So I established the Torchwood franchise as well.
528
00:26:41.655 --> 00:26:43.396
But I got to work with the Daleks.
529
00:26:43.676 --> 00:26:45.257
I got to work with the Cybermen.
530
00:26:45.357 --> 00:26:47.238
I got turned into a Cyberman.
531
00:26:47.258 --> 00:26:47.339
Wow.
532
00:26:49.260 --> 00:26:52.001
I mean, it was epic.
533
00:26:52.141 --> 00:26:53.021
It was epic.
534
00:26:53.101 --> 00:26:56.142
So, and she was just a brilliant character.
535
00:26:56.422 --> 00:27:03.005
And I formed a really great friendship with Russell and Phil Collinson and Andy Pryor along the way who, you know, create.
536
00:27:03.025 --> 00:27:10.128
Well, because you went on with him to do It's a Sin, which was another massive, I mean, cult seems the wrong word, but it was super popular.
537
00:27:10.148 --> 00:27:14.090
So it's not a cult, but it had that adoration, particularly, I mean, gay friends who saw...
538
00:27:14.570 --> 00:27:17.772
for the first time, that period of their lives, the AIDS era.
539
00:27:17.792 --> 00:27:18.913
We remember that era.
540
00:27:18.933 --> 00:27:19.913
We do, of course.
541
00:27:19.953 --> 00:27:21.214
Yeah, that's when we were at university.
542
00:27:21.254 --> 00:27:23.155
It was, you know...
543
00:27:23.175 --> 00:27:23.716
The iceberg.
544
00:27:24.256 --> 00:27:25.177
Exactly, the iceberg.
545
00:27:25.237 --> 00:27:31.461
I was doing a play at the time, and again, Russell and Nicholas Schindler, they said, would you be able to get up to Manchester?
546
00:27:31.481 --> 00:27:42.888
So I came off stage, I'd get in a car, I'd be driven up to Liverpool, I'd get out of the car, I'd film the parts, and it was over about three days, and then I'd get back in the car...
547
00:27:43.568 --> 00:27:45.709
go back to London and do the play.
548
00:27:45.749 --> 00:27:49.592
So it was crazy, but luckily I was able to fit that in.
549
00:27:50.072 --> 00:27:56.536
What was really special about that, and I think it was, you know, I've always said to Russell, it was like his Schindler's List in a way.
550
00:27:56.556 --> 00:27:58.677
It was so, I remember that period so well.
551
00:27:58.697 --> 00:28:01.459
I had lots of gay friends, unfortunately, many passed from A's.
552
00:28:01.479 --> 00:28:03.240
Of course, working in theatre, I'm not being...
553
00:28:03.460 --> 00:28:09.201
Yeah, I was... You must be surrounded by gay men disappearing all the time, unfortunately.
554
00:28:09.261 --> 00:28:13.622
And I had a very good friend who Richard and I grew up with.
555
00:28:14.082 --> 00:28:21.304
I remember him just at the start of the kind of AIDS awareness, coming over for the weekend and staying with a mutual friend's family.
556
00:28:21.904 --> 00:28:23.925
And he had just come out as gay.
557
00:28:24.605 --> 00:28:30.366
And they were in the garden burning the sheets that he was sleeping on and burying the cutlery.
558
00:28:30.386 --> 00:28:32.367
But that's almost like a scene from Medicine, right?
559
00:28:32.507 --> 00:28:32.967
Absolutely, yeah.
560
00:28:33.667 --> 00:28:40.772
And, you know, also what I think was so brilliant about It's a Sin was it, number one, the writing.
561
00:28:41.353 --> 00:28:44.875
It was just a brilliant piece of television in Russell's way.
562
00:28:44.895 --> 00:28:48.178
But it came out in the middle of lockdown and COVID.
563
00:28:48.238 --> 00:28:55.603
So I think rather than it being a niche gay story, it sort of touched the world and definitely the nation.
564
00:28:55.663 --> 00:29:01.528
Because suddenly, you know, we were in the middle of a pandemic where you couldn't with a mysterious illness that nobody understood.
565
00:29:01.548 --> 00:29:01.868
That's so true.
566
00:29:02.088 --> 00:29:03.811
Nobody could visit people who were dying.
567
00:29:03.851 --> 00:29:05.273
If they did, you couldn't touch them.
568
00:29:05.834 --> 00:29:09.459
People were dying on their own in hospital beds without family being there.
569
00:29:09.479 --> 00:29:14.346
So I think it ended up having a kind of global message as well.
570
00:29:14.486 --> 00:29:18.131
I had not thought that because that's so true because when I look back on just on COVID now –
571
00:29:18.652 --> 00:29:19.954
there was a level of hysteria.
572
00:29:19.974 --> 00:29:23.198
And because it wasn't related to anyone's sexuality, it wasn't quite so vicious.
573
00:29:23.658 --> 00:29:30.627
But I was thinking the other day, because we didn't know, we started wiping down our post-deliverings with like, you know, antiseptic wipes.
574
00:29:30.647 --> 00:29:35.934
You know, looking back, you're like, seriously, do you actually think you were going to get ill off a parcel from Amazon?
575
00:29:36.134 --> 00:29:40.396
People were, you were told to disinfect your vegetables when they came in.
576
00:29:40.857 --> 00:29:44.519
Yeah, you know, so I do think I was very, very proud of my association with that.
577
00:29:44.539 --> 00:29:56.385
And I think it, you know, honoured a lot of people who died and also just kindness and trying to be kind to people and not to demonise them.
578
00:29:56.725 --> 00:30:02.369
Yeah, I think the human stories in that, I think, affected everyone because there was different types of gay experience, obviously.
579
00:30:02.389 --> 00:30:06.732
You know, there was the guy in the closet who tragically got ill very quickly and all that sort of stuff.
580
00:30:07.193 --> 00:30:08.974
But obviously, there's so much to talk about with you as well.
581
00:30:08.994 --> 00:30:10.555
So the other side, if we...
582
00:30:10.635 --> 00:30:15.339
I don't know if you... One thing I was going to say was I was really lucky because, well, I mean, I was, you know...
583
00:30:16.139 --> 00:30:17.780
the pandemic came, lockdown happened.
584
00:30:18.101 --> 00:30:19.662
I was meant to be doing three TV shows.
585
00:30:19.682 --> 00:30:20.902
I was doing Code 404.
586
00:30:21.703 --> 00:30:24.965
I think we just had snuck in It's a Sin, but there was a little bit more to film.
587
00:30:24.985 --> 00:30:28.067
And then I was doing a series called Ridley Road, which is about the 62 group.
588
00:30:29.979 --> 00:30:32.601
Tell us about that because that brings me on to what I want to talk about.
589
00:30:32.741 --> 00:30:46.992
I would say Ridley Road, Sara Soleimani wrote it, and again, working with Nicola Schindler on this, was really important for me because it was the story of my family and the people that I knew that had come over.
590
00:30:47.532 --> 00:30:50.294
These were Jewish immigrants that had come over that were living in the East End.
591
00:30:50.775 --> 00:30:52.556
Many of them were involved in Cable Street.
592
00:30:53.216 --> 00:30:57.940
After the war, you would have thought that the British Union of Fascists wouldn't have had such a stronghold.
593
00:30:58.440 --> 00:31:17.367
But this particular TV story was a kind of love story thriller set against the backdrop of a Jewish woman, a Jewish girl who infiltrates Colin Jordan and the British Union of Fascists, Oswald Mosley's sort of acolyte, who were doing these big fascist anti-Jewish marches in the East End.
594
00:31:17.587 --> 00:31:19.568
After World War II, I think that's the thing that shocks people.
595
00:31:19.568 --> 00:31:20.588
Yeah, this was in the 60s.
596
00:31:20.608 --> 00:31:22.309
This is the thing that's bizarre about that show.
597
00:31:22.389 --> 00:31:28.630
You know, really road, it's a street market in Dalston, which was, of course, then a Jewish area, very much so.
598
00:31:28.730 --> 00:31:31.390
People at the bagel bakery from late night club.
599
00:31:31.430 --> 00:31:31.951
Exactly.
600
00:31:31.971 --> 00:31:33.231
24-hour bagel bakery.
601
00:31:33.511 --> 00:31:38.632
Yes, my brother and grandma who lived in that, I remember them always saying, never go there, it's horrible.
602
00:31:38.672 --> 00:31:44.593
Meanwhile, I've got friends that have got some of the most expensive… Chewing their faces, getting bagels at five in the morning.
603
00:31:44.633 --> 00:31:45.994
And also desperate to live there.
604
00:31:46.014 --> 00:31:47.434
It's like the most expensive real estate.
605
00:31:48.534 --> 00:31:50.535
But yes, the fact that it was the 60s is incredible.
606
00:31:50.675 --> 00:32:01.239
And so very much like Cable Street and very much like straight after the war when there was a huge upsurge, weirdly, in anti-Semitism, the Jewish community weren't protected by the authorities.
607
00:32:01.379 --> 00:32:09.623
And so you had the 42 group, which was the Cable Street, which was the Jewish, basically Jewish vigilantes who looked after themselves.
608
00:32:09.943 --> 00:32:15.025
And similarly in Ridley Road, you had the 62 group because the police weren't arresting the fascists.
609
00:32:15.145 --> 00:32:17.046
They were absolutely arresting the...
610
00:32:17.926 --> 00:32:24.913
the fascists who were arresting the Jews and their Afro-Caribbean community that were standing up against them.
611
00:32:24.933 --> 00:32:30.078
And they really weren't that friendly towards their immigrant population.
612
00:32:30.118 --> 00:32:42.790
So in order to protect their synagogues, in order to protect the kids that were getting attacked on the way back from school, in order to stop all the graffitiing and all the horrors, this 62 vigilante group was set up.
613
00:32:43.150 --> 00:32:49.235
And I played the wife of and sort of helper and organiser of that 62 group.
614
00:32:49.255 --> 00:32:51.777
And it meant a lot to me for that series to be shown.
615
00:32:51.857 --> 00:33:00.103
And was this sort of a bridge to, I mean, because at some point, but earlier than this, you became more than an actress and more than a comedian.
616
00:33:00.123 --> 00:33:03.146
You were also a creator and initiator of projects.
617
00:33:03.346 --> 00:33:04.627
But this is that too simple to see.
618
00:33:04.667 --> 00:33:06.809
But is this the bridge to The Merchant of Venice?
619
00:33:07.870 --> 00:33:08.891
1936, which is...
620
00:33:10.113 --> 00:33:10.814
In a way, yes.
621
00:33:11.135 --> 00:33:14.640
I could see that, you know, I could see...
622
00:33:14.860 --> 00:33:19.688
I come from a family of Holocaust survivors and I come from a family that were at Cable Street.
623
00:33:20.108 --> 00:33:21.751
You know, my great-grandmother was there.
624
00:33:21.771 --> 00:33:22.392
Yeah.
625
00:33:22.572 --> 00:33:31.478
standing on the front line with my grandmother and my great uncle Alf was pushed through a plate glass window by Oswald Mosley's black shirts.
626
00:33:31.678 --> 00:33:46.527
And, you know, that day, that great day on Cable Street where all the working class communities pulled together to say, you shall not pass, as Mosley and the fascists marched into the Jewish area to basically tell the Jewish entity they were not welcome.
627
00:33:46.587 --> 00:33:50.009
Thinking that the white working classes would rise up with them, didn't they, against the Jewish people?
628
00:33:50.089 --> 00:34:07.024
Absolutely, because they'd spent so many weeks leafleting, burning down, going into... You know, my grandma always said she remembered the black shirts coming into the Watling Street market and going up to the Irish working class and saying, you know why the Jews have got the better market stalls at the front?
629
00:34:07.344 --> 00:34:07.985
It's because of that.
630
00:34:08.025 --> 00:34:11.248
You know why you're on the top floor and they're on the bottom floor of the slum tenements?
631
00:34:11.348 --> 00:34:12.068
It's because of that.
632
00:34:12.088 --> 00:34:13.049
It's the same old playbook.
633
00:34:13.229 --> 00:34:14.110
It's the same old playbook.
634
00:34:14.130 --> 00:34:15.972
You know, internationalist Jews...
635
00:34:16.972 --> 00:34:26.534
And they really did try and, you know, Oswald Mosley, lovely Oswald Mosley, who married Diana Mitford, Donna Cooper, got married.
636
00:34:26.554 --> 00:34:27.794
We must never forget this.
637
00:34:28.074 --> 00:34:30.735
They got married at Goebbels' house and Hitler was a witness.
638
00:34:31.095 --> 00:34:41.417
Hitler gave Mosley the playbook on Jewish hatred and how to pull the working classes and to manipulate them in order to blame the Jewish entity.
639
00:34:41.757 --> 00:34:46.118
And so he fully expected to turn up at Cable Street that day and to have a massive,
640
00:34:46.218 --> 00:34:48.921
You know, he had thousands and thousands marching with him.
641
00:34:49.902 --> 00:34:51.303
So this was the backdrop.
642
00:34:52.164 --> 00:34:57.569
When I did Ridley Road, I could see that art and activism could work together quite well.
643
00:34:57.589 --> 00:35:01.674
And I was being very vocal on Twitter because I could see there was a huge rise, particularly on the left.
644
00:35:02.054 --> 00:35:03.956
That was on the left at the time, wasn't it?
645
00:35:03.976 --> 00:35:05.117
That was the main focus.
646
00:35:05.637 --> 00:35:07.798
I think you kind of know where you are with the right.
647
00:35:07.818 --> 00:35:09.118
They don't make any bones about it.
648
00:35:09.138 --> 00:35:16.980
But coming from the left and having family that helped set up the Labour Party and were part of the trade union movement, and that was in my bones.
649
00:35:17.060 --> 00:35:22.522
It suddenly, as Jews, it felt like a very uncomfortable and not very nice place.
650
00:35:22.542 --> 00:35:26.243
And as you say, the same old playbook was being rolled out.
651
00:35:27.403 --> 00:35:28.203
All Jews are rich.
652
00:35:28.363 --> 00:35:28.844
They're not.
653
00:35:28.924 --> 00:35:29.884
All Jews are powerful.
654
00:35:29.904 --> 00:35:31.484
They control the media.
655
00:35:31.784 --> 00:35:32.605
Yada, yada, yada.
656
00:35:32.625 --> 00:35:33.705
They're untrustworthy.
657
00:35:33.725 --> 00:35:33.985
They're...
658
00:35:34.365 --> 00:35:36.648
They're all fifth columnists.
659
00:35:37.128 --> 00:35:38.290
Really nasty stuff.
660
00:35:39.391 --> 00:35:41.453
You're either with us or you're against us.
661
00:35:41.473 --> 00:35:42.815
You're either a good Jew, i.e.
662
00:35:42.855 --> 00:35:45.118
you follow the rules, or you're a bad.
663
00:35:45.158 --> 00:35:46.179
So it was bad.
664
00:35:46.199 --> 00:35:49.222
And I just remember thinking, what happens if you take the Merchant of Venice?
665
00:35:49.783 --> 00:35:50.724
which I hate as a play.
666
00:35:51.285 --> 00:35:58.893
And I always thought, what would happen if you turned Shylock into a woman with a single daughter rather than an obsessive man with his daughter?
667
00:35:58.953 --> 00:36:00.214
So it's a mother and a daughter.
668
00:36:00.795 --> 00:36:04.719
And then I thought, I worked with Bridget Larmore, the director, and we turned it into...
669
00:36:05.720 --> 00:36:24.609
through lots of workshops with the RSC, the idea of a Jewish immigrant, based on my great grandmother who had come from Belarus and all the pogroms and had come to the East End, who ends up as a single mother lending money in a porn shop, P-A-W-N, lending money under the counter, becoming a money lender, like a bottom feeder money lender.
670
00:36:25.349 --> 00:36:27.350
And the Venetian aristocrats
671
00:36:27.890 --> 00:36:34.473
became the aristocratic fans and followers of Oswald Mosley.
672
00:36:34.813 --> 00:36:43.397
And I set it in the days leading up to this big court case and the pound of flesh and all of that, leading up to the days before the Battle of Cable Street.
673
00:36:43.437 --> 00:36:44.818
And then we reenacted that.
674
00:36:44.918 --> 00:36:48.440
And then after the court case, it turns into the Battle of Cable Street.
675
00:36:48.880 --> 00:36:50.701
And I showed lots of footage all the way through.
676
00:36:50.721 --> 00:36:59.406
We cut a film together that showed a lot of this stuff long before Israel existed to show that, you know, anti-Semitism could exist and the kind of tropes that were being thrown around.
677
00:37:00.107 --> 00:37:11.333
And so it was important to me to make a piece of theatre that was entertaining, that taught you something, that was sexy, political, and I guess tied in my actor-vism together.
678
00:37:11.353 --> 00:37:13.214
And it became a really potent piece of theatre.
679
00:37:13.234 --> 00:37:13.955
It did brilliantly.
680
00:37:13.975 --> 00:37:14.095
Yeah.
681
00:37:14.315 --> 00:37:19.797
You said so many things there that I want to sort of respond to, but I think so many things that are important for people to hear.
682
00:37:19.817 --> 00:37:26.520
I think what you just said, which is such an obvious one that takes my breath away, that antisemitism existed before the state of Israel.
683
00:37:26.860 --> 00:37:30.101
And dare I say, that's why the state of Israel exists.
684
00:37:30.301 --> 00:37:42.346
And what you also said when you mentioned the Holocaust, which is, it's funny how often people don't mention the Holocaust, because I remember when I first met you as a teenager and your boyfriend, that was probably the first time I'd ever, I think, met people who's,
685
00:37:42.906 --> 00:37:46.168
families, recent families, had been absolutely decimated.
686
00:37:46.588 --> 00:37:48.929
And it's just that was such an education for me.
687
00:37:49.429 --> 00:38:04.357
I saw a really good interview with Boy George just last weekend, I think, where he said, because I know a lot of people who grew up at the same time as him in the 80s have been so affected by things they've seen that they've gone to places that I feel very uncomfortable with.
688
00:38:04.397 --> 00:38:05.017
And he just said,
689
00:38:05.377 --> 00:38:10.662
I could never go where they're going, he said, because I have Jewish friends, and that means that I've always understood it.
690
00:38:11.583 --> 00:38:14.326
Doesn't mean I don't understand the pain of some other people as well.
691
00:38:14.346 --> 00:38:20.992
Doesn't mean I uncritically support a particular government or particular prime minister or president, but I could never go to that place.
692
00:38:21.032 --> 00:38:23.515
And it's shocked me in the last couple of years, how many people...
693
00:38:24.095 --> 00:38:25.337
have gone to that place.
694
00:38:25.437 --> 00:38:30.384
And in the 80s and 90s, it was the Nazis, the fascist bully boys.
695
00:38:30.444 --> 00:38:35.711
And it's come now both extremes, you know, things in the Green Party and the left of the Labour Party.
696
00:38:35.751 --> 00:38:37.193
I just think it's good to have that on record.
697
00:38:37.478 --> 00:38:39.559
Do you know, we're just in very dangerous times.
698
00:38:40.980 --> 00:38:47.642
You know, I'm more than just being an actor, you know, and I'm so glad that we've talked about all the work that I've done because I'm an actor first and foremost.
699
00:38:47.662 --> 00:38:49.363
I call myself an accidental activist.
700
00:38:49.843 --> 00:38:54.725
And I think I've been misinterpreted by lots of people on the left for being a certain way.
701
00:38:54.885 --> 00:39:00.728
And I've always worked in areas which is about dialogue conversation.
702
00:39:01.143 --> 00:39:03.165
conflict, you know, conflict resolution.
703
00:39:03.205 --> 00:39:06.468
So I've worked with people on all sides of the divide for many years.
704
00:39:07.469 --> 00:39:14.637
Um, I would say that, uh, I'm, we all want the same thing and that is peace, but we don't want anybody to suffer.
705
00:39:14.677 --> 00:39:24.747
But when you dehumanize people from, uh, to the point where you can't empathize with their pain because they are the enemy or they deserved what was happening in
706
00:39:25.978 --> 00:39:27.878
It's been very painful.
707
00:39:27.898 --> 00:39:39.861
And I have to say, you know, it's when your activism veers into anti-Jewish hatred, that's the area where you need to ring a bell.
708
00:39:39.901 --> 00:39:43.362
And I think that the left, which is where, you know, the right can do whatever they want.
709
00:39:43.382 --> 00:39:46.003
We know, like I say, that's not where my heart lies.
710
00:39:46.323 --> 00:39:47.603
They've got to police themselves.
711
00:39:56.105 --> 00:39:59.187
Be very careful in how you speak about issues.
712
00:40:00.288 --> 00:40:04.410
Look to your source of information and don't dehumanize anyone.
713
00:40:04.750 --> 00:40:10.874
I have friends on both sides of that particular divide and we're all coming to it from the same place.
714
00:40:11.374 --> 00:40:13.775
And also do something positive with your activism.
715
00:40:14.376 --> 00:40:17.017
Don't just make it tranched in hate.
716
00:40:17.718 --> 00:40:18.578
Very wise words.
717
00:40:18.638 --> 00:40:19.178
Thank you.
718
00:40:19.258 --> 00:40:19.899
It's a pleasure.
719
00:40:20.239 --> 00:40:31.327
But what I'm trying to do much more, Martin, is to sort of make entertainment an art that somehow gets messages across.
720
00:40:31.367 --> 00:40:35.610
And I'm finding that I've got to a place in my career where I'm able to do that.
721
00:40:35.630 --> 00:40:36.891
And that's a real thrill for me.
722
00:40:37.111 --> 00:40:37.751
Well, that's great.
723
00:40:37.811 --> 00:40:39.872
I have that power and to step up and use it.
724
00:40:39.912 --> 00:40:45.375
Because there have been times the last few years when I've watched you online, I thought, God, why is she doing this?
725
00:40:45.415 --> 00:40:47.176
Why are you standing up?
726
00:40:47.196 --> 00:40:48.836
Because you're getting such a level of hatred.
727
00:40:48.876 --> 00:40:50.577
And I think I have huge respect for that.
728
00:40:51.037 --> 00:40:56.920
And I think to me it is political as well, just the gender reversal work.
729
00:40:57.020 --> 00:40:57.881
you've done as well.
730
00:40:57.921 --> 00:41:05.411
I think because so much as we know, so much art was written by men, about men over hundreds and thousands of years.
731
00:41:05.451 --> 00:41:09.376
To see you do that, which brings me nicely onto what you're doing next.
732
00:41:10.077 --> 00:41:11.338
Do I say present laughter?
733
00:41:11.358 --> 00:41:13.061
Present laughter by Noel Coward.
734
00:41:13.281 --> 00:41:15.003
Tell us more about present laughter by Noel Coward.
735
00:41:15.063 --> 00:41:26.111
Well, as a journalist who worked in celebrity culture for many years with a sort of intelligent overview and a tongue in your cheek over it, Noel Coward for me wrote the definitive observation about celebrity.
736
00:41:26.612 --> 00:41:41.182
He wrote a play called Present Laughter for himself in 1939, which is about a sort of very famous, basically about Noel Coward being a very famous sort of matinee idol, theatre, playwright, director.
737
00:41:42.143 --> 00:41:48.750
entertainer who is adored by everybody, but he's ageing and he keeps carrying on having very ill-advised affairs.
738
00:41:48.790 --> 00:41:56.418
And he's got his coterie of producers, managers, helpers, agents, and an ex-husband who are part of the firm.
739
00:41:56.478 --> 00:41:58.160
They're all kind of feeding off each other.
740
00:41:58.941 --> 00:42:00.182
So written as a gay character?
741
00:42:00.783 --> 00:42:02.164
No, it was all coded.
742
00:42:02.185 --> 00:42:02.725
All coded.
743
00:42:02.765 --> 00:42:03.446
Right, okay, right.
744
00:42:04.107 --> 00:42:08.813
But it was all about his sort of ill-advised affairs with younger people and younger women.
745
00:42:08.833 --> 00:42:19.267
And then a threat comes into this group in the guise of Joanna, a beautiful young sort of debutante who threatens to blow the whole thing apart.
746
00:42:20.148 --> 00:42:24.790
And I've loved that play very much like I hated The Merchant of Venice, but I wanted to redefine it.
747
00:42:24.830 --> 00:42:26.131
And then I looked at present and after.
748
00:42:26.171 --> 00:42:27.752
And, you know, these are such dark times.
749
00:42:27.792 --> 00:42:29.612
So I thought we want a funny play.
750
00:42:29.632 --> 00:42:30.513
This play is funny.
751
00:42:30.833 --> 00:42:31.453
It's witty.
752
00:42:31.893 --> 00:42:34.935
But I thought, what happens if you put a feminist lens on it?
753
00:42:35.535 --> 00:42:38.156
And I just had written a play about Mae West.
754
00:42:38.496 --> 00:42:40.156
Mae West was an icon.
755
00:42:40.216 --> 00:42:49.619
She wrote, she was the first person that ever wrote her own material, cast her own material, produced her own material, was richer than Croesus and really famous and slept with everybody.
756
00:42:49.659 --> 00:42:50.039
Brilliant.
757
00:42:50.239 --> 00:42:51.960
Like just every leading man, woman.
758
00:42:51.980 --> 00:42:53.380
Is this part of the Hollywood trilogy?
759
00:42:53.400 --> 00:42:54.140
Part of my Hollywood trilogy.
760
00:42:54.160 --> 00:42:55.841
I've enjoyed parts of that so much.
761
00:42:56.121 --> 00:42:57.521
Hollywood's sixery now.
762
00:42:57.561 --> 00:42:58.221
Oh, is it sixery?
763
00:42:58.241 --> 00:42:59.322
That's why I was thinking.
764
00:43:00.082 --> 00:43:00.522
No, I know.
765
00:43:00.762 --> 00:43:01.622
Go.
766
00:43:01.722 --> 00:43:03.983
And I thought, and then I was thinking, you know, I was thinking about,
767
00:43:05.877 --> 00:43:21.510
Joan Collins Liza Minnelli Liz Taylor all these and I was thinking what happens if Gary Essendine becomes Jerry Essendine a very badly behaved hurtling towards middle aged actress who also behaves very very badly and then I was thinking well
768
00:43:22.030 --> 00:43:27.132
Rather than set it in 1939, give me a world where you've still got all that sexual fluidity.
769
00:43:27.152 --> 00:43:30.293
You've got a lot of pre-war debauchery going on.
770
00:43:30.593 --> 00:43:36.175
You've got a cliquey world of sort of celebrity feeding on each other and everybody wanting to be in with the in crowd.
771
00:43:36.675 --> 00:43:38.976
And it drew me to Studio 54, 1977, New York.
772
00:43:42.737 --> 00:43:50.923
And that is where I have done a very interesting, and I have to say all thanks to the coward estate for giving me permission because they never have done before.
773
00:43:51.603 --> 00:43:53.745
I've done a very interesting take on this play.
774
00:43:54.105 --> 00:43:55.206
And it's funny.
775
00:43:55.246 --> 00:44:06.153
And if you like Mrs. Purchase and you like Toast of London and you like witty, funny, fast, but really sharp comedy, I'm really hoping this takes off.
776
00:44:06.593 --> 00:44:08.074
And where can we see this?
777
00:44:08.094 --> 00:44:11.655
Well, this starts at the end of August at Bath Theatre Royal.
778
00:44:12.575 --> 00:44:14.076
And it's going to do a couple of weeks there.
779
00:44:14.096 --> 00:44:15.816
And then it's going on a national tour.
780
00:44:16.336 --> 00:44:25.799
We're going to Cambridge, Cheltenham, Malvern, Liverpool, York, and other places, Chichester, lots of places.
781
00:44:26.259 --> 00:44:27.740
And then we'll see whether it has its...
782
00:44:28.588 --> 00:44:29.228
life afterwards.
783
00:44:29.268 --> 00:44:31.829
And is there a website where people can go to?
784
00:44:32.130 --> 00:44:32.310
Yes.
785
00:44:32.330 --> 00:44:36.652
Go to Bartheaterroyal.com and book your tickets on that.
786
00:44:36.672 --> 00:44:40.053
But this is a piece of work I'm really, really excited about.
787
00:44:40.073 --> 00:44:40.933
Brilliant.
788
00:44:40.953 --> 00:44:41.854
I can't wait for that.
789
00:44:41.994 --> 00:44:42.294
I know.
790
00:44:42.334 --> 00:44:46.076
I'm doing a bit of filming on this on Netflix, on Harlan Coburn's new series.
791
00:44:46.096 --> 00:44:46.336
Yes.
792
00:44:46.496 --> 00:44:50.858
I'm really lucky because he brought back the same character, Jessica Kinberg.
793
00:44:50.878 --> 00:44:51.998
So this is Runaway.
794
00:44:52.138 --> 00:44:52.818
I flicked this.
795
00:44:52.858 --> 00:44:53.859
No, that was Runaway.
796
00:44:53.899 --> 00:44:54.759
This is a new one.
797
00:44:54.779 --> 00:44:55.260
Oh, this is a new one.
798
00:44:55.280 --> 00:44:56.180
This is called The Woods.
799
00:44:56.200 --> 00:44:56.420
The Woods.
800
00:44:56.480 --> 00:44:56.700
Oh, okay.
801
00:44:56.720 --> 00:44:59.402
Because I flicked on Netflix the other night, just started watching Runaway.
802
00:44:59.422 --> 00:45:02.043
I'm like, there's Tracy again, of course.
803
00:45:02.263 --> 00:45:06.265
So what's nice is I get to do a bit of filming, but the present laughter, I'm really excited.
804
00:45:06.285 --> 00:45:14.009
So if anybody's watching and they want to see a good bit of funny, witty, glamorous theatre to block out the world, come and see it.
805
00:45:14.549 --> 00:45:16.971
I'll come with you because I'm really looking forward to seeing that.
806
00:45:16.991 --> 00:45:22.295
We're almost out of time and we've hardly touched on your writing work, which is, and your radio work.
807
00:45:22.315 --> 00:45:24.097
I think it's over 600 radio plays.
808
00:45:24.637 --> 00:45:33.784
One of my favorite things that's happened to me more than once now is I get in the car of an afternoon, got like a two-hour drive to a meeting, and there's a Radio 4 play on.
809
00:45:33.804 --> 00:45:35.986
And I'm a bit brutal with Radio 4 plays.
810
00:45:36.006 --> 00:45:37.147
He's got to grab me quite quickly.
811
00:45:37.167 --> 00:45:37.587
Totally.
812
00:45:37.948 --> 00:45:39.169
And I get into it very fast.
813
00:45:39.189 --> 00:45:41.230
This is what happened first with some of the Hollywood plays.
814
00:45:41.450 --> 00:45:43.272
And then at the end, I go, God, that was good.
815
00:45:43.652 --> 00:45:45.293
And they go, that was delivered by Tracy Open.
816
00:45:45.314 --> 00:45:48.236
I'm like, ah, it's Tracy Ann Open.
817
00:45:48.556 --> 00:45:49.837
So congratulations on all that.
818
00:45:49.857 --> 00:45:50.538
It's fantastic.
819
00:45:50.598 --> 00:45:53.641
But we are sadly out of time because there's so much ground to cover with you.
820
00:45:53.841 --> 00:45:55.302
Martin, so much ground to cover with you.
821
00:45:55.782 --> 00:45:57.424
I have to say, it's such a pleasure to see you.
822
00:45:57.624 --> 00:46:00.266
You define an era for me on journalism as well.
823
00:46:00.827 --> 00:46:02.929
And that's something we're going to carry on talking about after this.
824
00:46:03.129 --> 00:46:03.869
Exactly, we will.
825
00:46:03.969 --> 00:46:05.230
I could interview you for the next one.
826
00:46:05.250 --> 00:46:06.271
But thank you so much.
827
00:46:06.291 --> 00:46:07.052
Tracy, lovely to see you.
828
00:46:07.072 --> 00:46:07.853
Thanks for coming in.
829
00:46:08.453 --> 00:46:08.974
Cheers, everybody.
830
00:46:08.994 --> 00:46:10.075
See you again soon.