Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Actress known for her role in 'Absolutely Fabulous' and the film 'The Rise and Fall of Little Voice'.
On the island
Eight records
I don't really know. I mean, I think I I I was delighted by the fact that I could sound like her. Um and uh I mean I just l loved her voice really. It was a it was a an adoration of her more than anything.
Like a lot of my choices, um the the singers are you know have a very sad. side to them. And Ian Curtis committed suicide in I think it was nineteen eighty. So he had a very short career. And the lyrics really you know had an effect on me, I think. And it you know, this it sort of stayed with me and still is, you know, with me now, those lyrics.
I just think she's a fantastic comedian and there was always a real good story in in her comedy singing, and that's what, you know, I j I just found it hilarious.
I used to listen to this quite a lot when I was doing the film Life is Sweet because my character was massively into Bono or Bono. And um I used to listen to this particular song whilst the character was being sick.
Yeah, it's the Carnegie Hall recording, which is 1961. And it was Judy Garland's big comeback performance. And it's a fantastic record. And she seems to do hours and hours on this concert. And there's some, yeah, I mean, but this in particular is a superb recording of the song. And I like her singing it as an older woman. I'm not particularly bothered about her singing Over the Rainbow in the film, but this is it becomes much more poignant because of what she as a woman had gone through.
I Miss YouFavourite
was madly in love, well not in love, but infatuated by a guy a guy during this time that I had this song. And he was working in Australia and I had a tape made of the song and sent the record to Australia to him and it was the most romantic thing that I've ever done and I think he quite appreciated it as well. But the song sort of said everything about our relationship at the time. But it wasn't going to go anywhere basically.
Because well actually Mark Rylands introduced me to Neil Young whilst I was doing the Scottish play and that was sort of the highlight. It was a very difficult tour that we went on with that play because it was disliked and so the reception we got was not great each night and so the parties were were the bonus.
Well, Jennifer Saunders wrote a spin off with all the same actors from Absolutely Fabulous and it was called Mirabell. And uh I think I was doi I I was making an album at the time and uh I was somewhere, I think, recording the music in New York and I got the call to say, Would you do a little stint in in this one off? And they said it's it's this song which I'd never heard before and I just loved it and I loved singing the song, it's great.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:28What is it about these larger than life, pretty extreme characters that so appeals to you?
I think I've always been attracted to quirky... people in general actually. It's more interesting as an actor to play somebody who's a bit larger than life or who's a bit different or off the wall. I've never felt comfortable just playing a sort of ordinary and inverted commas person or anything particularly close to me.
Presenter asks
1:59How do you manage [morphing into great divas on screen]? What's the process?
The process is to to think them and to think their physicality. And think who what their essence is and just morph into them basically.
Presenter asks
6:44What sort of schoolgirl was Jane Horrocks?
Very shy, actually. Again, you know, that I mean, that's where it came from, me sort of feeling that I became somebody through being somebody else... people seem to like these impersonations, so perhaps I'll be the the comedian. She can carry on being the sex symbol.
The keepsakes
The book
Jamie Oliver
I like all his recipes in there. I have great admiration for Jamie Oliver.
The luxury
I blow my nose continually, and I just couldn't bear the idea of blowing it on a bit of an old leaf.
Presenter asks
Did they try to flatten or beat your accent out of you at RADA?
One of the tutors suggested that I might mellow it, and actually uh it has mellowed since I left Lancashire and when I used to go back home at in during the holidays people used to say, Why are you speaking posh?
Presenter asks
23:32Do you actually genuinely don't really get very much from Shakespeare?
Well, I mean, I understood that production because I was working on it and the director Mark Rylands made us all understand it... But when I've had to be dragged along to see Shakespeare of her friends in it, I just don't know what they're talking about.
“I think once I discovered that I could impersonate people and I could make them laugh, Through doing the impersonations, I just thought, oh, this is my territory, this is my niche in life.”
“Very shy, actually. Again, you know, that I mean, that's where it came from, me sort of feeling that I became somebody through being somebody else.”
“I don't know where to place them as me. Uh it sounds really awful when I sing as me, but um I mean, particularly doing something like Shirley Bassett, I just couldn't hit the notes that she hits unless I Think of her and place my voice in a certain way. It's just really very weird.”