Alison Steadman

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 10:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety five, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:29

My castaway this week is an actress. If you followed Pride and Prejudice on BBC One, you'll know her as the inane and highly excitable Mrs Bennett. If you're a true fan, you'll also know her from her performances as the monstrous Beverly in the BBC's production of Abigail's Party, or as the blousy northerner Marie Hoff in the National Theatre's The Rise and Fall of Little Voice. They're all roles which reveal her for what she is a consummate professional of great versatility, who's been entertaining audiences since she left Liverpool at nineteen and went off to drama school. It's my job to absorb and reproduce life, she says. It all filters into me. She is Alison

Presenter1:09

Tell me, Alison, first of all, about misses Bennett. She was very noisy and very demanding. Was she entirely your creation?

Alison Steadman1:16

Well, I think uh I've got to give Jane Austen a bit of credit for uh the wonderful character that obviously was there on the page for me.

Alison Steadman1:23

But when I was sent the script, I could hear the voice, I could hear a voice, I could see the woman.

Presenter1:28

Yeah.

Alison Steadman1:29

And I thought I've

Presenter1:30

I've just got to play this part. But a lot of people criticised you for your interpretation of her, didn't they? I mean, they thought she was too noisy, too over the top. There was one wonderful phrase, somebody said she was a Dickensian character let loose among Jane Austen's best china. Did you have second thoughts when people started saying things like that?

Alison Steadman1:46

No.

Alison Steadman1:48

I mean, it hurts a lot. I mean, I read a a crit in The Observer a few weeks ago, and my son actually said to me, Give me that paper before you start to cry, because I was terribly upset, because as an actor,

Alison Steadman1:58

You can't help but feel it's a personal critic well, it is a personal criticism. And obviously

Presenter2:04

It's very hurtful. But it's a personal criticism of your interpretation. They're not saying you weren't any good, which really would be hurtful. They're just saying.

Alison Steadman2:07

They're not saying

Presenter2:11

You interpreted it wrongly.

Alison Steadman2:13

Yes, it's it's always quite frightening to play a role like Mrs. Bennett because you know that you know there's ex-people who've played it before.

Alison Steadman2:20

The Jane Austen Society, everyone's got their idea of how Mrs. Bennett should be. In fact, one woman said to me, you know, remember the eyes of the world will be upon you.

Presenter2:29

Yeah.

Alison Steadman2:30

As she pointed at

Presenter2:31

Finger at me. This is like we'd been filming for a week. How thorough was the production? I mean, did did you wear authentic clothes right down to the the course itself?

Alison Steadman2:38

Right down to the underwear.

Alison Steadman2:40

The lots, yes. You have to because otherwise the dresses don't fall and they don't look the right shape.

Alison Steadman2:45

The detail was amazing, down to the bread that we ate on the table was baked specially to the recipe of the period, the food, everything amazing.

Presenter2:53

Why is that necessary?

Alison Steadman2:55

Well, I think in the end, if you're going to go for a production and say, you know, we're going to really do it well, you've got to give attention to detail. I mean, if you suddenly see a Pruitt's wholemeal loaf sitting on the table, everyone's going to say, oh, that's not right, you know, whatever. And actually, it's wonderful to sit there, and, you know, suddenly this chef would appear with this wonderful turkey pie, or whatever it was, and it was the real thing. And it's what comes.

Alison Steadman3:23

Well, we were always saying no wonder they all died at forty five or whatever, because the the mounds of meat that they would you know, it was mutton chops for breakfast and that was just the start of the day, so it's extraordinary.

Presenter3:34

Okay, let's get you to this island. Tell me about your music. Have you chosen them?

Presenter3:39

Some things I just like.

Alison Steadman3:40

Uh

Presenter3:41

Yeah.

Alison Steadman3:41

It's as simple as that, and other things.

Alison Steadman3:44

you know, mean a lot to me. Music that my father used to play and I love my father dearly and it's nice to be reminded of him.

Alison Steadman3:51

Perhaps the odd romance in the past and I think memory of teens and things.

Presenter3:56

Tell me about the first one.

Alison Steadman3:58

Well, I love the forties, and although I love Freder Stein the way he sings all those songs, to me, Peter Skellen.

Alison Steadman4:05

And his arrangements are so brilliant, and I just love him.

Speaker 24:18

Some

Speaker 24:19

Oh they

Speaker 24:22

When I'm awfully lone

Speaker 24:25

When the world is cold I will feel a glow just thinking

Speaker 24:35

On the way

Presenter4:40

Peter Skellen and the way you look tonight is heartbreaking stuff that is, it makes me weep every time.

Presenter4:46

Now misses Bennett apart of course Beverly in Abigail's party has to be your most famous role. Amazingly it was eighteen years ago she was first on the screen.

Alison Steadman4:54

I know, she she hasn't aged either.

Presenter4:57

But she was

Alison Steadman4:58

If you like it. Uh

Presenter4:59

Uh

Alison Steadman4:59

Early version of Essex Woman, really, wasn't she? Um sh yes. I mean, I based the character from um

Alison Steadman5:05

A woman in Romford, in Essex. So it's true she was an Essex girl, but uh How had you met this woman in Romford, Essex, then?

Alison Steadman5:11

Well, when I say b I mean

Alison Steadman5:13

Uh working with Mike, you base your characters on a real person. This is Mike Lee, your husband, the director. That's right, yes. And really that person is needed just as a jumping-off point. You know, an artist has to sort of put the first brush stroke on the canvas in the same way an actor beginning from scratch, improvising, has to have something to hold onto to begin with.

Alison Steadman5:34

And it was a woman that I'd met when I was at drama school, and she sort of stuck in the back of my mind.

Presenter5:41

I'm sure she did if she was anything like Beverly. I mean, loud, brassy, ghastly sort of nasal whine, endless sexual innuendo. I mean, she was a monster.

Alison Steadman5:41

It was anything like that.

Presenter5:49

She was

Alison Steadman5:49

was a monster, but she was a she's a very sad case underneath it all. I mean, people kind of laugh at someone like Beverly, but to me she's one of the most tragic figures I think I've ever played.

Alison Steadman5:59

Because when you take away all the tinsel and all the make up and the false nails and all the rest of it, there's this really sort of empty shell. Just not much going on. Trying to prove something, trying to desperately trying to be happy and enjoy yourself and get some sort of

Speaker 16:06

Yeah.

Presenter6:06

Is that my

Presenter6:13

But you mentioned that that the woman from Romford on whom you based her based her. I i is that what you do all of the time? Are you consciously or is it subconsciously absorbing people you meet and spotting mannerisms and little facial tics?

Alison Steadman6:29

I don't think I do.

Presenter6:30

Uh

Alison Steadman6:30

consciously kind of sit there and watch people and say, Oh, you know

Alison Steadman6:33

She's got a twitch in her right eye. I'll use that at some point. But

Alison Steadman6:37

I think if you're an actress you've got to observe because that's your job. And you're reproducing life.

Alison Steadman6:42

And therefore you're being creative and you've

Presenter6:44

Yeah.

Alison Steadman6:44

You've

Presenter6:45

You've got to look all the time and listen. But that's even more true and more necessary if you're going to improvise, which is what you do. I mean it's not so necessary if you're always just speaking somebody else's words, a writer's words. Tell me why that isn't terrifying for a director, your husband Mike Lee, to say, Right, now we're going to do this play called Abigail's Party. You're Beverly, gone, what's Beverly going to say next?

Alison Steadman7:08

Yeah.

Presenter7:09

Uh

Alison Steadman7:09

It is terrifying. I don't don't think anyone would say it isn't terrifying, but at the same time it's a very carefully worked out process and the actors are very much under Mike's guidance.

Presenter7:21

I want to talk to you about that a bit more, but let's pause for another record. Tell me about number two.

Presenter7:26

Yeah.

Alison Steadman7:26

Well, this one is um Harlem Nocturne.

Alison Steadman7:28

Sam the Man Taylor. It's um a record that uh

Alison Steadman7:32

I first heard when I was at drama school, when I first came to London,

Alison Steadman7:36

Somebody threw a big party at a very posh flat in St John's Wood, and I was pretty impressed by all this, you know, I sort of was at this wonderful party, and the party went on till about four in the morning, and I couldn't get back.

Alison Steadman7:47

To my flat. So, um, most of us stayed the night, you know, the way you do when you're that age, you kind of sleep in chairs and on the floor and all sorts. And I was kind of dozing in this chair.

Alison Steadman7:55

And somebody put this record on.

Alison Steadman7:58

And I just thought, gosh, this is just wonderful and I've never forgotten it. And indeed, we used this track in Abigail's party when Beverley

Alison Steadman8:07

Decides she's going to try and seduce Tony. She wants to put on a kind of smoochy, sexy record. She puts this on.

Presenter9:14

Sam the Man, Taylor, and Harlem Nocturne. It it sounds as if you spent your childhood improvising, really, Alison Steadman. Your your family were always saying, Getting our Alison to do a turn, were they?

Alison Steadman9:25

Yes, I mean uh when I was born my sisters were ten and twelve years older than me.

Alison Steadman9:29

And I was a bit of a surprise, I think, a bit of a surprise arrival after the war, you know, and um so I was I was really doted on. I was terribly spoilt when I was a child.

Alison Steadman9:39

And my sisters would dress me up and put makeup on me and parade me round and

Alison Steadman9:44

And I suppose I was always a bit of a clown.

Alison Steadman9:46

And it got that um my I could hear my mum now, she would say, um, Oh, you know, oh, there's nothing on television, turn it off, Alison'll do us a turn But what did you do? Well, I used to I used to impersonate Hilda Baker and um

Alison Steadman9:59

Beryl Reed

Presenter10:00

Uh

Presenter10:02

It sounds very embarrassing talking about this, but um But it was a fun household, was it? I mean that the family knew how to laugh, that's a bit more

Alison Steadman10:09

Thing that

Presenter10:10

Yeah.

Alison Steadman10:10

you know, kept us all together was this great sense of humour. My mother and my father had a terrific sense of humour.

Alison Steadman10:16

And um yes, it was always fun. And your grandmother was quite a turn as well, wasn't she? She was. I suspect had she been born in a different time, she probably would have been an actress. I mean, she was an actress really, but uh she used to dress up and she used to do extraordinary things. And she was a sort of very anarchic woman and a kind of um my mother always talks about, you know, she'd come home from school and there wouldn't be this nice meal ready to put on the table. My grandmother would have knocked a wall down in the because she fancied a door in a different place, or she'd be out in the garden and she'd be sawing wood and she'd be making a chair or a stool or something, or she was a great gardener, she'd be redesigning the garden. I mean, she was a sort of

Alison Steadman10:53

Wild, mad kind of woman. Do you see yourself in her, then?

Alison Steadman10:57

Bit, yes, a bit.

Alison Steadman10:59

I mean, I can sort of get totally absorbed in something in the garden or whatever and the kids come home and, you know

Presenter11:05

And you've noticed down on the infinite shop.

Alison Steadman11:05

And you've not done it on the

Alison Steadman11:08

So were you always the star of the school productions, then?

Alison Steadman11:11

No, I wasn't because at sort of junior school I can remember, you know, being a comic and being in productions at school. But when I got to grammar school

Alison Steadman11:20

It was quite an academic school and didn't

Alison Steadman11:23

really suit me terribly. Although I enjoyed my time there, but um

Alison Steadman11:27

There wasn't enough artistic stuff going on really. But my great saviour was that when I was 14, Liverpool Youth Theatre started, which was great because suddenly I could, you know, forget school, go to these classes, which were run by teachers in Liverpool, in a very open, free kind of way. You didn't have to audition, you didn't have to speak beautifully or whatever. They wanted kids with enthusiasm.

Alison Steadman11:52

and hopefully a bit of talent thrown in, but that didn't matter either, as long as you were there and you were enjoying yourself. And it was a terrific time for me, and opened all sorts of doors.

Alison Steadman12:00

And indeed, you know, led

Alison Steadman12:02

then to me going to drama school and the kind of drama school I went to.

Presenter12:07

Record number three.

Alison Steadman12:09

Well, I've chosen John Lennon's Imagine. It was a difficult choice because I was a great Beatles fan when I was some sixteen.

Alison Steadman12:17

I used to go to lunchtime sessions at the cavern. I was kinda too young. My mum wouldn't let me go to i to town in the evening to the cavern because she

Alison Steadman12:23

Well, she thought it was a terrible den where there were all sorts of awful things going on, and it wasn't. It was just, you know, it was terribly innocent and

Alison Steadman12:29

There was no booze. We used to have a cup of tomato soup and a bread roll and sit there and listen to the Beatles and Jerry and the Pacemakers. It was wonderful, terribly exciting.

Alison Steadman12:38

Um but in the end I decided um

Alison Steadman12:41

Not to have a Beatles one, but to have John Lennon.

Alison Steadman12:44

Partly because this is one of my mother's favourite records. My mum is a terrific Beatles fan, and particularly John Lennon.

Alison Steadman12:51

And um I'll think of her on my island.

Speaker 212:55

Imagine there's no heaven.

Speaker 213:01

See if you try.

Speaker 213:08

Go hell.

Speaker 213:09

Below us.

Speaker 213:15

Bubbles only sky

Speaker 213:20

Imagine all the people.

Presenter13:24

John Lennon and Imagine. So, Alison Steadman, would you claim, like the rest of Liverpool, to have known there was something special about the Beatles at the time, or is it now the wisdom of hindsight?

Alison Steadman13:33

All of us, I mean if I you know, if I went back now and we could get, you know, all that crowd that were in the cavern, when the Beatles started we used to sit there and like, you know, ten minutes they were tuning up, twanging, you know, guitars and checking amplifiers and we'd all be sitting, oh, when are they going to start? And then suddenly the four of them would sort of just burst into song and you felt like you were lifted ten feet in the air. It was it was a wonderful experience, just to feel the whole the unity of this whole club just kind of bopping around.

Presenter14:02

So you were no great shakes at school. You left at sixteen. You went to secretarial college. But by the age of nineteen you got to a drama school in Essex. Now

Alison Steadman14:05

When to say

Presenter14:12

Why that particular drama school? Why not Rada?

Alison Steadman14:15

Well, the youth theatre was very progressive.

Alison Steadman14:18

Again, you know, we didn't do auditions and you know we we did very few productions, but we did a lot of exercises to get the imagination going and get your body moving and all those things.

Alison Steadman14:28

And when it came to choosing a drama school I mean I'd only ever heard of Radha I think still most people have only heard of Radha.

Alison Steadman14:34

And I went along to the Liverpool Playhouse and talked to a lovely man who was then assistant director and an actor called Tony Colgate. And he said to me, Look, he said, I think you should go to this drama school called East Fifteen. It sounds like just your ticket. He said, Come back next week. He said, There's an actor here who's been there and he'll tell you all about it. And he fired me with such enthusiasm. And of course, when I talked to this actor, he said, Oh, yes, all their work's based on Stanislavski and Larben movement and it oh, you know, and I thought, gosh, this sounds just right for me. Rather than rather still had quite a stuffy kind of

Alison Steadman15:08

Feel to it for me at the time. It's not now, it's changed a lot. But then, in 1966, it was still holding on to a lot of old sort of values.

Presenter15:16

But people were telling you you were good by this stage, were they, although you hadn't done that many productions and you hadn't auditioned much.

Alison Steadman15:21

I knew that I couldn't do anything else. I had to do it. It was a burning desire and had been from about nine years old.

Alison Steadman15:28

and I thought this is what I want to do, and nobody will stop me.

Presenter15:31

So it all happened, and you spent three years there, and then four years in Rep, in the provinces, and then in nineteen seventy two, a director called Mike Lee came to see you in a play, back at home in Liverpool this was, um where you kind of booked both personally and professionally from then on.

Presenter15:48

Uh

Alison Steadman15:48

Well, Mike was just about to um to do a play for today.

Alison Steadman15:53

Um produced by Tony Garnett. B B C. B B C, yeah.

Alison Steadman15:57

And he was obviously casting it, looking out for people, came along to the theatre.

Alison Steadman16:02

I'd sort of known Mike briefly at drama school,'cause he had directed at drama school, but not directed me.

Alison Steadman16:08

But only to sort of say hello to him. And I remember thinking, oh, I like the idea of the way he works and the sound of what he's doing. And he.

Alison Steadman16:15

sort of sent me a little note backstage and said, could we meet for a drink?

Alison Steadman16:19

and have a chat. And he asked me to be in this film.

Alison Steadman16:22

And I was terribly excited because it was my first television.

Presenter16:25

Uh

Alison Steadman16:25

Oh gosh, you know.

Presenter16:26

Here I am, launched.

Alison Steadman16:27

Yeah.

Presenter16:28

But which was more important at the time, the man or the part he was offering? Oh, the part, definitely.

Alison Steadman16:33

Yeah.

Alison Steadman16:34

When did you spot the man behind the car? Oh, I spotted the man when we were rehearsing. That was took a few weeks, but um but no, it was.

Alison Steadman16:41

I liked him, but there was no way it was he was the same with me, I'm sure, it was just, you know, he wanted me in

Alison Steadman16:47

The film

Alison Steadman16:49

For my acting ability.

Presenter16:50

Oh, so

Presenter16:51

Uh

Alison Steadman16:52

Uh

Presenter16:53

Next piece of music.

Alison Steadman16:54

This is a piece of music that in fact when I was at drama school I had a little romance the way you do. And in fact the romance was a bit of a nightmare, and so was the chap. But he played this music to me.

Alison Steadman17:06

And although the memory of the romance isn't that sweet, I've never forgotten this music.

Alison Steadman17:11

And I just can imagine myself on my island.

Alison Steadman17:14

being transported

Alison Steadman17:16

to the Auvergne with this music.

Presenter18:16

Arline Auger singing Ballero, one of the songs of the Auvergne, with the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Jan Pascal Tortellier. So by nineteen seventy four, Alison, you were married. By nineteen seventy six you were improvising together, professionally, too. Uh Nuts in May was the first, I think, of the of the improvised plays, wasn't it, when you played Candice Marie, this rather gormless vegetarian on a camping holiday.

Alison Steadman18:41

Yes, that was a wonderful experience because we were down in Dorset, which was great, so we were actually rehearsing.

Alison Steadman18:46

on location for eight weeks. I think and that's in May we shot in

Presenter18:51

Yeah.

Alison Steadman18:51

sixteen days. I mean it was very

Presenter18:53

Very quick.

Alison Steadman18:54

Uh

Presenter18:54

But let's get back to to exactly how it's done. I mean you don't actually rehearse on camera, make it up as you go on camera, that would be very expensive.

Alison Steadman19:02

No. I mean, it's shot as you would shoot an ordinary film, obviously, with a master shot and close ups and cut ins and all the rest of it. So you've got to be able to repeat it, absolutely. I think improvising on camera is a very dodgy thing to do and it can look

Alison Steadman19:15

you know, very amateurish if you're not very careful. But Mike's uh work is is very much rehearsed and worked out with the actors before you ever get near a camera.

Presenter19:24

But nobody writes it down ever. He just says, What you just did was terrific, we'll keep it in.

Alison Steadman19:28

Yeah.

Presenter19:29

What is

Alison Steadman19:29

The question of um

Alison Steadman19:31

of a long process. I mean, we improvise for hours and hours and hours, weeks and weeks, with only Mike watching and maybe a continuity person.

Alison Steadman19:40

Out of those improvisations, scenes will unfold under Mike's guidance, and he'll throw a lot of rubbish out because obviously a lot of it's terribly boring and it's really only a means to an end. It's just a way of developing the characters and developing the situations.

Alison Steadman19:55

But when we actually come to film

Alison Steadman19:58

Um we might turn up on the set, on the location.

Alison Steadman20:01

Eight o'clock in the morning.

Alison Steadman20:03

And Mike will set up an improvisation. And out of that, we'll then repeat it and repeat it, with Mike saying, well, leave that out, we don't want that, add this, talk about that. It's distilled and distilled until we get to the essence. As any writer would make a first draft and maybe a second one and a third one and keep throwing stuff out. Mike is doing that, but instead of doing it with a bit of paper and a pen at home, he's working.

Presenter20:27

Yeah.

Alison Steadman20:27

On the floor with the

Presenter20:28

So it takes a very special kind of actor to be able to do that. I'm sure there are some brilliant actors and actresses who who would run a mile before they'd subject themselves to that kind of process.

Alison Steadman20:36

It is quite a frightening process and some people just don't want to let themselves be that sort of vulnerable. You have to be much more creative than the average actor, don't you?

Presenter20:43

You have to be

Alison Steadman20:47

You have to be creative and you have to trust really. And if you keep saying, Well, why am I doing this? you're lost. You've just got to say, Okay, I'll do it.

Presenter20:54

But it's one thing to do that kind of thing at drama school when that's what you're there for and as you say, it doesn't matter if you never do a production. It's quite another to do it if you've got a commission and a budget and you've got people around you, you know, and you've got all the the pressures of commercial theatre or commercial television.

Alison Steadman21:09

Yeah.

Presenter21:10

Twenty

Alison Steadman21:10

Uh

Alison Steadman21:11

Odd years ago it was completely new. People were a bit wary. Oh, what is this? You know, this modern method wave where all this rubbish used to get talked. But now people are much more

Alison Steadman21:21

saying oh fine, okay, you know, and Mike has obviously spent

Alison Steadman21:25

Years and years and years, building up a reputation, saying to people, Look, trust me, this is a new way of working, but it's mine, and it will work if you just give me.

Alison Steadman21:33

A completely blank sheet, and let me get on with it.

Alison Steadman21:36

At the end of it I'll give you something that's quite different.

Alison Steadman21:39

And I think he's proved that many, many times, and so now the backers are much more willing to say

Alison Steadman21:45

Okay, Mike Lee, his.

Alison Steadman21:46

X thousand pounds, you know, go and make a film. Record number five.

Alison Steadman21:51

This is um Rodrigo. It's um it's just a piece of music that I adore. It was a favorite of my father's, and I was very close to my dad. My dad died four years ago. Um and I have wonderful memories of just watching my dad listening to music, you know.

Alison Steadman22:09

He was a very loving kind of man and um

Alison Steadman22:12

Very passionate.

Alison Steadman22:14

and tears would kind of brim in his eyes when he would listen to something like this.

Alison Steadman22:18

And I suppose he taught me the love of music. And I just think it would be wonderful to have a bit of him with me on the island.

Presenter23:27

Part of Rodrigo's guitar concerto, played by John Williams, with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Louis Fremo. You don't seem, Alice and Stedman, to have played many of the classic roles, you know, Hedda Garbler or Lady Macbeth or so. Is that because you've turned them down, or they haven't been offered?

Alison Steadman23:43

I haven't been offered mainly, I don't

Alison Steadman23:45

I don't know why it is. I mean, I in rep obviously I did. I mean, I played Ophelia and Desdemona.

Alison Steadman23:50

But um

Alison Steadman23:52

No, I haven't been offered those pot. I think

Alison Steadman23:54

Because of Beverly and maybe Candice Marie and that sort of image.

Alison Steadman23:59

People think of me as playing more contemporary roles. But I I've never yearned to play any part. You know, people often say to me, Now, what part do you want to play? What, you know, what's really in your heart? What do you long to do? Well, I don't long to do anything until someone sends me a script and then I think, Oh, yes, great, I'd like to do that. But like Mrs. Bennett. Like Mrs. Bennett.

Presenter24:16

I'm suspended.

Presenter24:17

I mean, maybe she'll turn the tables for you in that sense.

Alison Steadman24:20

Well maybe

Presenter24:20

Hey, maybe.

Alison Steadman24:21

I think it was watched by a few people, so maybe I'll get some offers now. But but no, I've never had this

Presenter24:26

Burning desire to play.

Alison Steadman24:27

Yeah.

Presenter24:27

But you'll get all those offers

Presenter24:30

I don't know how many productions are done at any one time, but they're sort of restoration comedy, Lorxa Mercy kind of characters now, aren't you?

Presenter24:37

Well, I hope so. I mean, at least it would be nice to have the uh to make a choice, to you know, to be able to choose. Well, do you feel a bit sore about it? Your husband said such things on your behalf, hasn't he? He said that that Beverley was has been a kind of subtle albatross round your neck.

Alison Steadman24:51

Well, I mean it's yes, th I think all actors are remembered for one part. You are sort of saddled with it.

Alison Steadman24:57

For your career, I mean, for the last eighteen years, it's been terribly flattering for people to say, Oh, Beverly, I've never forgotten it, oh, I watch it, blah, blah, blah, whatever.

Alison Steadman25:06

But sometimes I long for people to stop me in the street and say, Oh, I saw you on television in another part and you were wonderful but people oh, I I wait for it, you know, and they go, Oh, Beverly

Alison Steadman25:18

You know, but I mean, it's fine, and one wouldn't wish it any different, but I'm still waiting to play the part that's going to push Beverly into the background. Extra cord.

Alison Steadman25:29

This is um Pavroti, um and it's an aria from Tosca.

Alison Steadman25:33

And again this is a favourite of my father's.

Alison Steadman25:36

And I think um this is just so passionate.

Alison Steadman25:40

I can never listen to it without

Alison Steadman25:42

Crying. I hope I don't cry now. I may do. But it's just so wonderful. I've got to have this with me.

Speaker 226:22

Teor Tara la terra, Stride a U shore at all.

Speaker 126:22

Yeah.

Speaker 226:34

Empasos Fiorava.

Speaker 126:35

Uh

Speaker 226:43

Quentra Grante.

Presenter26:48

Luciano Peverotti singing E Lucevan l'estelle from Puccini's Tosca with the National Philharmonica conducted by Niccola Rescino.

Presenter26:56

Your dad taught you to garden, Alison, so you can put that to good use on your island. What else do you imagine yourself doing to while away the days?

Alison Steadman27:05

Bit of fishing. I've got to eat.

Alison Steadman27:07

And I'd probably gather a few sticks and

Alison Steadman27:10

Try to make some sort of shell trespose. I'm I'm quite practical. But what about the marat? Can you make yourself laugh?

Alison Steadman27:17

No, I'm not I'm not very good on my own. I mean I I'd be all right for a bit, but um

Alison Steadman27:22

I get very lonely very easily. I'm not I'm not someone that enjoys my own company particularly, and I don't think

Alison Steadman27:28

I'd really like b

Presenter27:29

Bing. Totally alone. But obviously, you know, you're not frightened of your own voice, so you could impersonate you could pretend to be your own company, I suppose.

Alison Steadman27:36

Well, I c I could improvise a bit with myself, I supp

Presenter27:39

What will you miss most on your island? The family apart, obviously.

Alison Steadman27:44

Moisturizer, I think, for my

Alison Steadman27:47

I don't know, company, I think, is the main thing I'd miss. What would you fear most? Being bitten by a snake or something awful. I think

Alison Steadman27:55

Being alone at night.

Alison Steadman27:57

And um

Alison Steadman27:58

You know, being a bit chilly at night, I don't think I'd fancy that.

Presenter28:02

Record number seven.

Alison Steadman28:04

And this is um Billy Fury, Halfway to Paradise. I think it's just a wonderful record, but it it does bring back a lot of memories of um being an early teenager in Liverpool, sitting with my friend Roger, who lived three doors away, and we used to play records and drink coffee and think we were very grown up.

Speaker 228:27

To be your lover.

Speaker 228:32

But your friend is all I stay.

Speaker 228:39

I'm only halfway to paradigms so new, yet so far.

Presenter28:53

BILLY FURY AND HALF WAY TO PARADICE. I can imagine that life in in the Lee Steadman household is pretty hellish. I mean, it must be bad in any director actor household, but when one of you has a production coming up

Presenter29:04

What's it like when you're in the same one?

Presenter29:07

Uh

Alison Steadman29:07

Well we didn't work together for many years because um our two boys were small.

Alison Steadman29:12

And we couldn't both be out of the house, you know, for eighteen hours a day, which is sometimes what it involves. No, it is difficult. Obviously, with any profession it's difficult when it's so demanding. The hours are long and going away from home.

Alison Steadman29:25

So it's not easy, but as long as one of us is around.

Presenter29:27

Uh

Alison Steadman29:28

Uh

Presenter29:28

I think you know, keeping things ticking over. But if you're working in the same on the same production, it must be impossible not to take it home with you. I mean, it just takes over your whole life, which would be quite suffocating.

Alison Steadman29:38

Uh Doesn't I mean

Alison Steadman29:40

We've always had a rule that um any rehearsals always take place in a rehearsal room or on the set. I mean it would be easy to say, Oh look, you know.

Alison Steadman29:48

Can't be bothered going to that driving five miles to the rehearsal room, we just chat here, because a lot of it is talking initially. But we've always said, No, we mustn't do that, because that's kind of the thin end of the wedge, and it's unfair on other actors as well. It's always all right for them, you know, they're sort of sitting cosy at home. You've got to have the discipline of

Alison Steadman30:05

going to a rehearsal room, and also when you get home at night. It's an unspoken rule really, but we don't talk about

Alison Steadman30:12

The day's work and the film.

Alison Steadman30:14

That then goes on hold until the right time to talk about it, which is

Presenter30:18

You know, when we're actually very disciplined. What about when when you're in a production? I mean, not with your husband. I mean, you've talked about the need to immerse yourself totally in a character. I mean, it it again, it obviously uses you all up. You you must be pretty difficult to live with, if not impossible, on those occasions.

Alison Steadman30:18

So we did.

Alison Steadman30:20

We know how to do it.

Alison Steadman30:35

I don't think so, because it's nice to be able to come home and throw that character away or put it on a low light and not light. Don't take it out on the kids, then? No, I mean it's nice just to walk in the door and say, Right, you know.

Presenter30:43

I'm not worried about it.

Alison Steadman30:48

The dog comes to greet you or whatever. Forget all that work.

Presenter30:51

So you've managed to balance the twin careers, really, of mother and actress quite well?

Alison Steadman30:55

Well, I've actually enjoyed having kids and that taking me away from

Alison Steadman31:00

The pressure of having to turn up for read-throughs and filming and all the rest of it. I mean, when especially when the boys were small.

Alison Steadman31:08

I always said to my agent, Well, I'm doing this job, this is going to take me three months, and at the end of that three months, I want to have time at home.

Alison Steadman31:15

And he always understood that, so that I would have a period of time at home when I could enjoy being a mum for a bit, because it's a terrible thing to look back on you.

Alison Steadman31:24

Kids, you know, on their young lives and think, Well, actually, I missed it because when it's gone, it's gone.

Alison Steadman31:31

And I must say I was lucky enough to have the luxury to be able to do that. I mean a lot of actors

Alison Steadman31:36

listening now probably say, No, it's all right for her, you know, she was and it's true, it's very, very difficult when you've got to earn a living and you've got to pay the mortgage or the rent or whatever, and you've got small children, it's ver a very difficult thing to juggle. But I was lucky enough to be able to take the time off in between jobs to be with them.

Alison Steadman31:53

It doesn't happen for a long

Presenter31:54

A lot of people. If somebody said to you now that you could never act again, that was it, how would you feel?

Presenter32:00

Yeah.

Alison Steadman32:00

I'd be devastated, I think.

Alison Steadman32:03

it's so much part of my life that, um

Alison Steadman32:06

But I couldn't imagine.

Alison Steadman32:07

Ever being without it.

Alison Steadman32:10

Last record.

Alison Steadman32:12

Last record is um Ella Fitzgerald, Every Time We Say Goodbye. This is another one that makes me weep. I'll I'll spend all my time on this island crying buckets. I take plenty of tissues with me, I think. Nobody sings this song better than she does.

Alison Steadman32:25

And years ago, I had a great well, I've got a great friend called Barbara. We were great mates. We grew up together in Liverpool, we went to school together.

Alison Steadman32:34

And um we went through that thing that you do when you're teenagers of playing records and sitting crying, you know, whatever.

Alison Steadman32:40

And I just have a lot of happy memories of listening to Ella Fitzgerald.

Alison Steadman32:44

In Barbara's back room, sometimes accompanied with uh boys, but mainly just to sort of really enjoy the music.

Speaker 232:52

Every time.

Speaker 232:57

We say goodbye I die a little

Speaker 233:06

Every time we say goodbye.

Speaker 233:13

I wonder why a little

Speaker 233:18

Why the God's above me Who must be in the know?

Speaker 233:30

Think so little of me They allow you

Presenter33:42

Ella FitzGerald, and Every Time We Say Goodbye. Now if you could only take one of those records.

Presenter33:47

Uh

Alison Steadman33:47

Difficult choice, but I think it would have to be the Tosca.

Alison Steadman33:50

I think Pavrotti.

Presenter33:52

Well, that'll make you cry, but then so would they all. Um what about your book?

Alison Steadman33:57

My book is A Hundred Years of Solitude by Marques. I don't know if you pronounced that correctly, but it's the most wonderful book. It's the kind of book that.

Alison Steadman34:06

I could just read and read and read and never get bored with, because it's so rich. And your luxury.

Alison Steadman34:11

Now this is a bit embarrassing this actually.

Alison Steadman34:15

I I would like with me the the the flannels that that you get in um Chinese restaurant at the end of the meal.

Alison Steadman34:23

They heat them up and wrap them in those little sort of plastic covers.

Alison Steadman34:27

and um they smell wonderful fresh lemony smell and you can put them on your face and feel refreshed. And I would like a machine that provides those endlessly. But it must be the flannels. Not a lot of restaurants now have

Alison Steadman34:40

Reverted to using these sort of synthetic paper things, which are awful. It has to be the flannels.

Alison Steadman34:46

And I'd be quite happy on my island with my machine making me all these lovely flannels.

Alison Steadman34:51

Alice and Stedman, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discussion.

Presenter34:55

Yeah.

Speaker 135:03

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists archive. For more podcasts please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.