Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Actress best known for her television and stage work, including collaborations with Victoria Wood.
On the island
Eight records
What I think is really funny is the thought of all these hundreds of men raining through the air. I mean, do you imagine the awful mess they'd make.
This takes me back to nineteen sixty six to the Locano in Birmingham, which was just a wonderful time.
because it's the Everyman days, and it reminds me of everybody there, and it was a wonderful time, and uh nothing's ever been like that since, really.
I like it because he's just so completely laid back. I mean, I've never known anybody like him.
I think it's beautifully produced, for one thing, and the records are also heart-rending, and I love that. I love a good weep...
I'd always loved it all when I was a teenager, and then I suddenly heard that it was John Lennon's favourite record.
I Get Along Without You Very WellFavourite
I think it's very appropriate if you were on Desert Island, don't you? I'd have to feel that. I get along without all of you. Very well, thank you.
Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do
I think she's wonderful. And it ain't nobody's business if I do,'cause it ain't.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:24Were you bright at school?
I wasn't academic, really, no, and um I was, in fact, asked to leave. … Mainly because I was never there, I suppose.
Presenter asks
3:20Did you find [nursing] rewarding?
Yes, I did. Oh, I loved it. … I liked all the junior nursing activities. … [But] I was doing it for the wrong reasons, and I thought I've got to do what I want to do now.
Presenter asks
3:44What was your ambition? What did you want to do?
I wanted to be an actress, but I didn't know anything about the theatre … I suddenly realised I could impersonate people and and that then I was encouraged to do it at home. … And from that I became interested in acting.
Presenter asks
4:57Did your parents encourage that [acting]?
No. Well, my father didn't mind. … But my mother went completely bananas when I told her I was going to be [an actress] … I had to get my brothers in to protect me from her.
The keepsakes
Presenter asks
14:49Did you find it very difficult changing your technique, having played that part [Rita] so long on the stage, to scale it down for the film cameras?
there're like an old recording at the back of your head. … All the same old things and mannerisms were coming out from on stage which you can't have on film. … so I did have to remember and be reminded to get rid of a lot of things, and that was a great effort.
“I play the piano but by ear I haven't got a piano anymore, but we had a piano at home.”
“I feel as if I'd been driving a car in the wrong gear uphill all my life until I d started doing that.”
“the Oscars were extraordinary. I've never seen anything like it in my life.”
“I haven't cooked a meal since nineteen seventy nine.”