Saturday 19 March 2011

Booked for panto

Hooray! Booked for panto this Christmas - my 12th consecutive year as Dame - "Jack and the Beanstalk" for UK Productions at Bournemouth, with Chris Jarvis (who is also directing,and Debra Stephenson.

Tuesday 15 March 2011

Best of In One Ear

More best bits of "In One Ear" - the series continues on BBC Radio 7.
Sony award-winning comedy show with Helen Lederer, Clive Mantle, Steve Brown.
It was produced by my erstwhile writing partner, Jamie Rix, and went out
live on BBC Radio 4 on saturday nights for three series (1983-1985).

Wednesday 9 March 2011

EastEnders Preview

Back as Lister in next Monday's EastEnders - 14th March 8.00pm
Here's a preview (well, it's pretty much all of it really, but there's a little bit more)
BBC - EastEnders Blog - http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/eastenders/
Back again on 21st April, 23rd May and 3rd June

Monday 7 March 2011

Joking Apart - Review

First of the reviews is in...
The Stage
Published Monday 7 March 2011 at 10:35 by Sheila Tracy

“When you’ve got friends and neighbours, the world is a wonderful place”, according to the fifties hit song, a theory debunked some 20 years later by Alan Ayckbourn in Joking Apart.The question being - is making friends with neighbours who may be a great deal wealthier than you, a wise move?

Rehearsal (?) photo from Henley Standard
It’s open house at Richard’s and Anthea’s estate and nobody is complaining. Brooks Livermore and Cal Jaggers play the happy couple with an endless supply of bonhomie who are ready to hobnob with the vicar. Harry Gostelow gives a memorable performance as the welcoming parish priest, saddled with a whining wife, played almost too realistically by Catherine Skinner and I found myself wishing all three wives would drop their voices an octave. However, Lynette McMorrough is completely in character as the mollycoddling wife of Sven, a delightful performance from Nick Wilton as Finland’s former junior tennis champion, who warns the others of the dangers of becoming too friendly with the likes of Richard and Anthea.
Which brings us to Michael Holt’s set, a garden complete with tennis court, admittedly only one end, but a remarkable achievement on a stage of this size. And yes, we do get to see the podgy Sven serving and returning the ball.
Paul Chesterton plays Brian, the friend and business partner of the owners of the estate, and a special mention of Anna Doolan who plays his three very different girlfriends and the daughter of the house with considerable expertise.

Friday 4 March 2011

EastEnders

Sally Hughes, the director of Joking Apart at The Mill at Sonning very kindly gave me two days off in the last week of rehearsals to film another episode of Stenders going out in April.