Arabella Weir: At nine my mum said, “I can’t bear the sight of you”

0:02This is a Global Player original podcast.

0:11Hello and welcome to Full Disclosure, a podcast project conceived entirely to let me spend more time than I'd ever get on the radio with interesting people. Arabella Weir, welcome. Hello. Gosh, I'm interesting, am I? Well, we shall find out in the course of the next hour. Definitely interesting. Or possibly the next five minutes, I don't know. No, whatever else is wrong with me, I am interested. You've certainly had an interesting career, which we will work our way through. But we'll begin at the beginning, if we may, which was in San Francisco, because your dad was a diplomat. My dad was a lower middle class Scotsman from Fife.

0:46And as is true of a lot of that generation, he'd never have left Scotland or had it been Wales or wherever, if it hadn't been for the Second World War. So he was conscripted in the last year and a half of the Second World War. And then they realized he was super bright, which he was. And also at the same time that the Middle East was emerging as a power. So they and my dad had learned Arabic. Why? Because when they realized he went into the RAF, his sight wasn't good enough to fly. And then they realized he was super bright. So he was trained as a spy at the school called Mikas, where if you read...

1:25I think we're all right on the interesting. Yeah. Well, it wasn't me, remember? No, but still, it's your story. So he picked up Arabic and he loved the Arab world and he fell in love with it. And he was very much part of, all a bit sensitive now, but, you know, the emergence of Israel as we know it now. And who and what was terrorism. So he was very much part of that. And then they realized he could speak Arabic, so he was invited. But, you know, he was a lower middle class Scotsman with a Scottish accent. And I don't think there'd ever been anyone in the Foreign Office that hadn't been at Eton or certainly an English public school.

2:00So my dad joined the Foreign Office. And then it was just he was being posted to Washington in the 60s. And then there was just a sort of blip. So I got born in San Francisco because we were there for a few months while they waited. But, of course, everyone thinks I'm American, which I'm not. I just got born there. I have got an American passport. don't tell the inland revenue snigger was he actually a spy then he was a spy during the but he didn't carry on being a spy after no he was invited he told us laterally no he actually said oh they've just asked me to be a spy okay by the time he was a pretty senior diplomat and he said i don't want to get into all that and my dad actually i think looking back probably was quite good at skullduggery he was certainly very secretive but i don't think he was duplicitous duplicitous.

2:47I don't think he'd have wanted to be reporting on his friends and that kind of thing. Maybe, yeah, maybe he would have said that. I don't think he'd have volunteered the information that they'd asked him to spy to join MI6 and then say, but I didn't do it. He wasn't that kind of convoluted. I like that. He wasn't a show-off then. He couldn't not be a spy because he'd find it impossible not to tell people. I've just done some brilliant spying. Oh, you've got to, listen, it's when you get a great secret and you say, I really want to tell you something that's an absolute corker, but I can't. And people are going, well, you've got to tell me now.

3:19And you go, I can't. I've been sworn to secrecy. But you know that person. Well, just think about that. And then when I can tell you, I can tell you. And then, of course, by the time you are allowed to tell people, you're going, oh, yeah, everybody knows about that. So a peripatetic childhood. A very peripatetic childhood, which every time I do an interview or someone writes about me, they always say glamorous. But I don't know if you've got children or not, But anybody who's ever been near a child, you don't want to change schools every two years. No, of course. And you certainly don't want to do that if your parents have a tempestuous and ultimately very unhappy and unsuccessful marriage.

3:57So, I mean, had they been a very strong unit and we'd gone from country to country changing schools every two years, maybe. But you're still, it doesn't matter what your parents are doing. When you start new schools, you just want to have a gang of friends and know you'll be there and stuff. You don't want to go. But I'm absolutely 100 percent confident that's why I became a performer, because I remember thinking when I was about seven at another new school, I've got to make my mark. It won't be being the prettiest girl at school and it won't certainly being the most academic. I'll have to be the funniest.

4:34So, I mean, obviously, I don't know if I was the funniest girl at every school I went to. but I certainly put a lot of effort into it. So that's the stability question then. So you could have stability in one or the other. You could have stability at home or stability outside the home but you had neither. You didn't have a... I had neither until I got or neither. I would say neither I think instinctively. I might have to think about this later. Neither, neither. Neither of them are appropriate. Yeah, it's neither for me. Neither, sorry. No, it's neither. I'm not correcting you. I'm just saying I say neither, you say neither and let's sing a song about it.

5:08I, my parents had sort of split up, but they kind of, God, this is so the 60s, thinking, you know, that thing of people thinking, well, if you don't tell children, they won't have a clue about whatever it is. Of course, kids know everything. They may not be able to articulate what it is, but. They feel it. They sort of had, they definitely hadn't officially split up, but they were sort of pretending that dad was going to work in Bahrain. He'd been posted, as they say in the Foreign Office, to Bahrain and that mum was staying behind in London for sort of some unspecified reason. But it meant that I was able to go to a school that I knew I'd be at for the whole of secondary school.

5:49And I remember thinking, I missed my dad a lot, but I remember thinking, I'm going to make my mark here and I'm going to make my family, which I don't think I articulated it in my 11-year-old brain like that. But I do remember thinking, I'll be able to stay here. Because although they did try and get back together, my mother went to the Middle East and then sent me to live with some childless friends, which was really bizarre as well. But, yeah, I remember thinking, I'm going to stay here. I'm going to be able to make my mark. And I made some really, I made a family there. I've got two friends from when I was 11 who are still my closest friends.

6:28So the first time that you felt roots sprouting out of your feet into the ground that you were walking on? Well, not roots sprouting out of my feet, more I can, you know, they were offering me a safe haven and I was able to take it. So, yeah, I stayed. That was Camden Girls? Camden School for Girls, where else? When did you realise, when did you begin to suspect that things weren't hunky-dory between your mum and dad? oh god for as long as i can remember though they were always yelling and screaming each other and there was my mother was very very self-pitting so there'd be a lot of i can't believe he's spoken to me like that and then trying to sort of enlist us um you know your mom was posh my mother they my mother was posh dad was less posh dad became posh because that's what happens in the final the knighthood must have helped with that final yeah but i didn't get that till uh till much later No, I mean, Dad quickly lost his Scottish accent.

7:22Because I don't think it's going to be like that. He had a Kissinger. What are you thinking about that? He had Kissinger. So you didn't know him with a Scottish accent? No, but what was so funny was his sister... So when you started doing Two Doors Down, this wasn't based on your dad or anything like that? No, actually, it's based on another friend's mum. No, it's based on... The accent comes naturally, because although my mother never had a Scottish accent, because she was Scotch... They were both Scots, but she was posh Scotch. I see. so she'd never had a Scottish accent but dad, what was hilarious is that you'd see dad with his mum and sister and they'd be like oh hi Arabella I saw you in the tail the other night what was that?

7:58why were you wearing that? stupid hat and you thought oh that's and then dad could drop straight into it so that was very very funny but of course dad by the time you know joined the Foreign Office it was all that sort of hello and people go your dad's got such a posh accent and then you'd go back to his family house which was very modest in Dunfermline my granny's don't wear that don't do that you look a bit fat and that out of it um so that was his background but she was posh yes so you yes i was very aware of the lack of harmony between them and so and it strikes me that it's not just geographical um moving around then you there's also a fluidity of social class i mean the sense of belonging presumably eluded you uh yes mum was posh and snobby Mainly, to be absolutely fair to her, intellectually snobby.

8:50But she was super bright. They were both super bright. Super bright. And so things like, I mean, only an oaf would read Proust in English. Wow. And you'd think, eh? Who could possibly read it in French? So, yes, she was very posh and snobby, but as I say, mainly intellectually. But I think the dichotomy that we had, my siblings and I, was that we were told absolutely that we were Scottish. And we were never to think of ourselves as English. And yet we lived when we moved back to England in London. And my brothers went to English public schools. And so, you know, I'd never been anywhere in England until I was an adult with my own agency.

9:34We only ever went back to Scotland if we were, you know, to see grannies and family. but we were told we were sort of scottish princes and princesses warriors whatever and all that sort of thing but we lived so that was that was the more of the dichotomy i don't think i ever felt yes i'm i'm afraid i'm going to say i don't think i ever felt worried about um my entitlement okay okay yes you've already alluded to you've been self-deprecating about your own intelligence compared to your parents when did you begin to think that was that you possibly weren't going to live well they told me i was they both said yeah i'm aware of how cruel your mother could be to you yeah your dad would join in on that side of no um the the only thing they united on was that i was too in a verticomers fat i and obviously must be thinner and the other thing that i was too stupid uh because the the absolute obsession well not obsession it was just a given uh you you'd go to school and everybody went to oxford as they did um and there was absolutely no chance that i was going to be doing that i think that was pretty clear um from when i was about 13 i'm not saying maybe i would have been bright enough but it it was just not something i you know i was never ever trying at school never ever i was the only thing i was trying at school was to be funny and popular and i achieved that pretty well but I mean my my absolute obsession my my sort of addiction every day was that I had to make the whole class laugh I had to make a teacher cry or a teacher walk out and I would I mean I was like a killer I mean I do not advise any child to do this but for me that was sport I mean I I realize now I was a bully to teachers not never ever to a contemporary but to teachers I mean if I smelt blood they were finished i'm quite scared but someone said now well you say that the skills never leave you do they one of your contemporaries said in fact i think that you were either people were either terrified of you or best friends with you and she was terrified of you so you were quite scary i think um i was probably scary at school listen anybody and i don't think this is bullies actually i was fearless yeah and i'd i'd sort of felt i felt pretty unloved well i knew i was unloved and i knew i was unlovable because i've been explicitly told if i wasn't thinner you know i wouldn't be as loved and so i think i had a fearlessness which i've still got which was given that i haven't got any of the things you're supposed to have then i might as well might as well go for it yeah so i do remember feeling fearless i've been frightened of other things in my life but i socially and kind of you know in public i've never felt the kind of oh mustn't do that because then people won't like me because i was coming from a base of you're not likable you're not good looking enough you're not thin enough you're not oxbridge enough so it was a bit like well i'll just do what i like then the liberty of no expectation exactly Gosh, because it could have gone the other way.

12:47You could have become crushed. Yes, that's another thing that I think is my saving grace. I remember thinking, especially after my mother and father did split up, my mother complained about, you know, what you saw was a woman of considerable means in a big, beautiful house who was, in fact, very good looking. but what she said all the time is I'm on the shelf I'm miserable I hate my life and I remember thinking but that's not what the rest of the world sees and I'm not going to be someone who spends her life going coulda shoulda woulda I am going to not be mum because I'm afraid what my benchmark was gosh I don't want anyone to think that you gloss over the way that your mother treated you because you've you've written about it and in quite a lot of depth and and it was pretty hideous even by the standards of um someone obsessed with appearances that the the way that she spoke to you and the way that she treated you was extraordinary and unique because she didn't treat the siblings as badly as she no it was just me um i think looking back and i wrote a show using my famous catchphrase does my bum look big in this i wrote a show called does my mum loom big in this see what i did there it's very clever and i and someone in an interview said have you forgiven her and i said i it's not that she needs forgiveness it's that i understand she was a highly educated highly intelligent woman who'd been very poorly parented herself very very isolated as a child she was an only child very severe scottish presbyterian parents and I think she had no idea how to parent, no idea how to love unconditionally and let's face it, you know, loving someone unconditionally when they're your child and they can be mean and whatever is, you know, does take conscious effort.

14:54And I think of my siblings, I was the one that looked like I, well, I was certainly the one fighting back most and my brothers were sent to prep school when they were six and seven. so they weren't around and my sister was much more well she preferred my sister and my sister was much more emollient uh to my mother and i think my mother i think there was i think she was jealous of my relationship with my dad i think she was jealous of my exuberance i think she was jealous of my ability to seize life uh and my kind of determination not to be her but yeah she was very very cruel and then you know she would say appalling things um what was the one of my favorite watching you eat is like having hot knives stuck in my eyes and of course everything was a joke but she um she got rid of me when i was eight and a half nine with the words i can't bear the fucking sight of you so she sent me to live with my dad in the middle east but i must have blocked it out at the time because what i believed for a bit while i was in bahrain was that i was there and certainly what she told me was because dad missed me so much but i do remember her saying i can't bear the fucking sight of you you'll have to go and live with your father i think i was a bit i was um i think she was depressed yeah i think she you know long-term depressed.

16:23I think she was an extremely badly parented person herself. And also much more importantly than anything else, she was just old enough. She was just at the right time to profit from sort of feminism, but not in a way that she would have been able to now. You know, she was ridiculously highly educated and then supposed to look good in a cocktail dress supporting my father's career i mean yes i know diplomatic wives sort of you know do good works in the countries they're in but you're just following someone around really and uh i think my mother was mainly frustrated disappointed man she was disappointed oh boy she was disappointed but and she had so much potential yes but i that was i suppose what was a big learning curve for me because i just not learning curve like a tool because i remember thinking she has got so much going for her she is so bright and she was very beautiful but she thinks she's shit and um she was also incredibly funny um she was very very funny so i probably got that off her but yeah i just remember thinking i'm not going to be spending whatever happens with my life i'm not going to be going shoulda coulda woulda some of that sounded like forgiveness yeah i mean i i i I loved my mum and I cared for her.

17:47And I could see that she was a desperately frustrated, unhappy woman of her time. But she also ought to have done a better job with me. Sure, yes. I mean, explanation can only take you so far. It can never be an excuse. So in Bahrain, what was life with your dad like? I mean, that must have been chalk and cheese, no? Well, except my dad wasn't around very much. And I quickly, well, I didn't realize because whatever, what was I, nine and a half? I can't quite remember. It was before I came back. That's why I came back to go to school, secondary school. He was having an affair. And well, I suppose it'd be called an affair, even though mum wasn't there because mum and he were married.

18:31And so and I think looking back that my dad thought he was being very clever hiding it. But actually, I was mainly very happy there. And my dad was nice to me. I mean, he would go, oh, darling, it makes me very unhappy to see you looking so podgy. So he would say things like that. And I did use, and that's, I'm absolutely sure, the grist in my oyster, assuming I'm a pearl, because I remember thinking, no, he definitely shouldn't be saying things like that. You knew that. I knew it, but I also thought, this is my life's truth. I knew and believed he was right. I shouldn't be that podgy. But I also knew he shouldn't be saying it.

19:18OK. So I did think he's absolutely right. I ought to be thinner. And girls must be thinner and pretty because that's what they're supposed to be. Pleasing to all men, including their dads. But I also remember thinking, I'm absolutely sure you're not supposed to say things to me like that because aren't I just supposed to be loved because I'm your daughter? but my my main memories of life in Bahrain with dad were very nice did you ever talk back to him when when he said things like that no because unlike my mother who would eff and blind at the drop of a hat and give you full you know report back if you ever when I mean my mother when I would eff and blind at each other all the time right from an early age but dad would do that kind of i'm so disappointed you've made me very sad guilt trip right pass not passive aggressive just more kind of i can't believe you're talking to your daddy who loves you so much like that and i think oh here we go um i remember a few times quite manipulative then well just sort of don't be horrid to daddy yeah yeah i mean yeah i mean i didn't think of it as manipulative more i can say what i like but don't make me pay the price of what i've said so yeah and it wasn't confined with your mum to private moments she'd do this publicly quite oh my god no the more people around the better you know the how fat you are and you know um and watching you eat is like having hot knives stuck in my eyes um no and mum would do it for an audience and enjoy it there's there's a bit of a i don't know what the word is here you because it's not normal what you're talking about Some of the expectations were normal.

21:04You know, as you've said, the stereotypical expectations of what a young woman would be at that time. More in your mum's era, actually, than in your era. But the hangover was still big. But this is very abnormal. So the expectations might have been relatively normal. But this articulation of those, most parents, even if they were worried about their daughter's appearance or concerned about it or whatever the word is, they never would have spoken to her like that. I don't know. when I did the live show the amount of people that went oh my mother wasn't very nice to me I think if you manage to get unfortunately a frustrated thwarted mother I think the mothers being jealous of their daughters is a bigger thing than people think but yes and their daughters in law I think sometimes as well when of course my mothers get out of jail free thing was that it was funny.

22:03And of course, when there were people around and she'd go on about how fat I was and can you really be so stupid and what peasant hasn't read Proust in French and all that, people would laugh because she was very flamboyant. And then when I'd say, mum, you know, don't talk to me like that. She'd go, oh, for God's sake, darling, you're so fucking bourgeois. It was a joke. Everything was bourgeois. I remember having no idea what it meant. And then when I found out what happened, I thought, is it bourgeois? Everything was bourgeois. Do you know those wretched people cover their lavatory roles? So fucking bourgeois.

22:41Mind you, that is bourgeois. So I think mum, dad once said about her, you mustn't pay any attention to her, darling. Rowing for your mother is like food and drink. Yes. It's just, and I do think my mother, and occasionally, I did put this in the show, she was literally on her deathbed. The hospital had said, she was in hospital, they'd said, we found out what it is, it's not good news, blah, blah, blah. My mother was amazingly sanguine about it. She said, right, well, I've had a good life. Everybody has to die of something. Will there be any pain? And the doctor said, no, I think you're probably just, you know, an organ will fail and you'll just go to sleep.

23:24She said, right, okay, can I have a glass of champagne? And the guy said, no, no, I don't think that'd be a good idea. And he said, I'm not sure it would go down. And she said, all right, fine. And then he said, we can do an operation. And to her eternal credit, because she was a socialist, she said, well, she really was a champagne socialist. She said, no, no, no, no point in draining the NHS just for a couple of extra weeks. And then anyway, so I went in to see her in these remaining days. And it was a bank holiday. And I thought I'd treat myself because it was all so miserable. and I had a coronation chicken sandwich from Bretter Morgue.

24:01And I sat there, her own of her four children, I'm the only one there, and she says, oh, God, darling, have you any idea how fattening mayonnaise is? And I went, Mum, are we really going to do this in your last remaining days? And she said, no, but look at you, great fat thing chomping through that sandwich. Fucking hell. And I just went, Mum, come on, let's not fucking do this. you know, you're going to be dead soon. She said, yes, but I can't bear the idea that you're going to carry on eating that. How old were you? I don't know, 52 or something. Whenever she died, yeah, I guess about 52. I just remember thinking, she really is going to go out fighting.

24:45But I managed to make it into one of the best gags in that show. It's almost impressive. Her commitment to being withering was second to none. So she witnessed your success? You saying she witnessed my success sets off so many bells. First of all, A, I'm not successful. B, she witnessed my success. What success? And the idea that my mother, she would say things like, yes, I've watched The Fast Show. Now, that poor Whitehouse, he's very good, isn't he? But not in a million years would she have said. And the book I wrote, Does My Bum Look Big in This? had a mother not a million miles away from her and she went don't think for a minute i don't know that's not me i don't appreciate that and i went well maybe it shouldn't have been like that then but she'd read it she'd obviously read bits of it maybe she'd read the whole thing somebody rang me up after she died one of her friends said i want you to know how proud your mother was of you and i said well she might have let me know because i don't ever remember her going well done darling or i mean because that book does my bum look big and this was in the bestseller list the top 10 for months and i mean you see and already i'm thinking oh we shouldn't have said that embarrassing what a wanker talking about her book being but the point of the story being the reason i'm telling it is because my mother went yes but i mean lots of crappy books are in the top 10 but you've just alluded to two things from from a from a long career that are extraordinary um a mega selling book and one of the most iconic television shows in living memory and the same breath of saying that you're not successful well i obviously know i've got a nice house and i don't have a mortgage so i obviously i know i am successful in some ways but i don't it's how you measure it isn't it i've had the admiration and of my peers and that's the thing that felt closest to success people saying to me oh you're in that i like that and me thinking well i like you so um that's that's great but you know in in my world there'll be plenty of people going oh i'm never seen that oh right that was years ago that's a bit rubbish or you know um and you go oh yeah thanks uh i don't think i think the very nature of performing will be that you never ever go yeah i mean i think i pretty much arrived now i'm pretty much it yeah that's me because you'll always go no she's really good yeah and you're always conscious of of the next job i suppose

27:18let's rewind to camden girls i see your childhood is clearly split in half isn't it There's pre-school and... There's pre-Camlone School for Girls and then there's Camlone School for Girls where I found a family, well, really a tribe, and I absolutely flew as the naughtiest girl at school, which may seem not something to be proud of, but I was inordinately proud of that. And the fact that I was naughty and that I could make an entire room laugh, and I had my tribe, you know. But you also, people might be surprised to discover that your mother was a teacher there. Yes, one of my proudest moments.

27:55Again, you've got to put this into context. I'm 13 years old. She said, I was in the staff room today and they were all talking about you and how awful you are. I couldn't hold my head up. And I literally went, yes, I get in. But was that genuine? Yep. Genuine pride. It wasn't like brave face pride. It wasn't strapping on, you know, the old therapy suit of armour, the survival personality. You were... I was absolutely thrilled. I'd upset my mother. Tick. teachers were talking about me and saying how awful I was tick and then I'd made my mark and I remember thinking and then the added bonus was that she was embarrassed I just remember thinking also I mean I have to say it wasn't a school where there was any prospect of being kicked out so I didn't suddenly think oh my god oh my god I thought oh yes and then I got suspended so I was extra pleased what did you get suspended for?

28:46something minor in those days like going to buy sweets out the back of the thing But no, no, no, not. I mean, we did used to smoke weed and everything at school, but they never caught us doing that. Did you enjoy any of any of it? Like the stuff you're supposed to be doing at school? Yes, I loved English literature. And I remember loving reading and having to hide that from my mother because I didn't want her to know I loved reading because that was her subject. Because she'd ruin it for you. No, because then she'd go at last. Oh, I see. You're finally you've seen Jane Austen. It's taken me this long.

29:17I can't believe. So I would read in secret. And also, I loved the sixth form. Everything else felt like something you had to do. And I've never been very good at following the rules. But sixth form, you were doing voluntarily. You were doing subjects you'd chosen rather than everybody must have a maths O-level, which I don't have. And all the other things. And you were doing a subject. I loved my teachers. I loved the subjects. And I loved – that seemed really interesting. Maybe I was too clever for GCSE. Yes, for the broader curriculum. Wasn't there a hiatus? Didn't you leave school and then come back for sixth form?

29:53No, no, no. School for Girls, you can go to now in the sixth form, but you couldn't in those days. You just went all the way through. So when did Bazooka Joe come about then? When I was not paying attention at school. I had a friend who said, my brother's got a band and they want a girl singer. And so I went, yeah, all right. And I was, my God, I think I was 15. it's hard or maybe I was in the sixth form maybe I'd just turned 16 anyway so I went and met this person Daniel Clyman still one of my closest friends and I had to sing a bit and then and he had a band called Bazooka Joe and the Lilettes very nice which was me and another girl singer and we would do all kind of they were all art school so the boys were two or three years older than us and they would do you know you'd have sort of Hampstead Town Hall and And I mean, it's embarrassing now, but, you know, public school dances like Highgate and UCS and stuff.

30:55They do kind of dances and they'd hire this band, which was basically in North London. I mean, we did quite a lot of pub gigs, which also seems incredible because most of us weren't allowed to be in the pub. But yeah, that was very good fun those years. So how did you frame a performing ambition then? I mean, was it just a complete coincidence? No, I knew I wanted to be an actor by then. Right. And did you do any acting at school? Oh, I was in Antigone once, and that was a big mistake. Really? Because, of course, all the productions we did at school were sort of serious, you know. Arch. Sophocles or whatever, and don't write me a letter.

31:28I know Antigone's not written by Sophocles. Or if it is, still don't write me a letter. Sure.

31:35And I can't believe you went on that show and said Antigone was written by Sophocles. My mum's still with me, and my dad. I only know the Jean Ennui version. Oh, okay. It was that one then. It was that one. And probably in French, obviously. So, yeah, I've done a bit of acting. So where did that come from then? So if you hadn't done much? Because the class clown often, but not always, thinks that you can segue effortlessly from performing in front of all your mates to performing in front of theatres. Well, when I was 12, a girl at school knew a boy. she'd been obviously we were at a girls only school and she knew a boy she'd been at and of course i hadn't been at a london primary school but a girl at school had been at a london primary school with this boy called toby rice and he and i formed a friendship at 12 and he took me because he stayed at weekends with his his parents were divorced and his dad was a film director called carol rice k-a-r-e-l um who was a czech um i was going to say wunderkind but i mean something much more he was a kinder transport and uh carol and his american wife betsy instantly took to me when i was 12 so i would spend a lot of time there and they were my surrogate parents because my mother was now single and at her most sort of unhappy and crazy and certainly no food um in the house so i would uh that was probably the first time i'd ever been fed in front of adults and not and no one said anything about the amount I ate or how fat I was or how unentitled I was to the food or how watching me eat was disgusting because I was so fat and and so I spent a lot of time with the Rices and they were she was an actress and he was a film director and they were very encouraging of it so I think it was probably a lot to do with Karen and Betsy and them encouraging me and it was a world you know round there you'd meet you know I met christopher reeve and meryl streep and because carol directed a film her first big film um french lieutenant's woman and um so i i just remember feeling that this was a world in which you could be safe and accepted even if you were kind of a bit of an outsider so then as you as your a-levels approached that you're thinking that's what i'll do next i'll try and get a training i'll try and go to drama school okay so why didn't you i did go i failed to get into every reputable drama school Rada Central all of them all of them every single one Guildhall every single one rejected me more than once because I retried and I ended up going to a pretty crappy drama school in Golders Green where I looking back probably learnt nothing except for maintained my belief I was going to do this well that's an achievement yeah they were very encouraging the Rices and then Carol I left drama school and Carol I've got an embarrassingly small part in The Franchal of Tenants Woman and then I just became a jobbing actor and I remember thinking this is I mean the statistical odds are anyway awful but for me I got rejection after rejection but I was also people were going you're great but you're not right for this So you got an agent?

34:55I got an agent through Carol Carol asked a very grand agent to take me on and I'd never have got that if it hadn't been for Carol. But so you were going up for stuff and you weren't getting it, but people were still in. No one told you to pack it in. No, but just so that people get the full picture in those days, and this must have happened to me, an absolute minimum of, I don't know, 20, 25 times, I would go for jobs, I'd do well in the audition and then they would say absolutely openly, so this is the late 70s, you're very good and you're very pretty but you're too fat so we'd like you for this but you'll have to lose weight I did put this in my live show as well because I obviously never had the gumption to say it at the time but I used to think she's a doctor's receptionist too too fat what to answer the phone I mean I know fat people can answer the phone I've seen them do it and and I but all I really was was in a sort of desperate position so I never had the gumption to go I tell you what why don't you go fuck yourself I remember thinking no they're right because you didn't see actresses they my generation of actresses looked like Greta Skacki and Joanne Wally and they were all gorgeous and long blonde hair and lithe and you know that very English look and it never occurred to me that I could be not thin.

36:29But you stuck at it despite, I mean, I suppose in a way your mum had prepared you for rejection. Yes, I stuck at it and then some good people would cast me and I began to get jobs and stuff. But then quite early on, I realised I was funny. and then I thought oh and I always felt like a bit of a phony you know going up for I don't know Juliet's friend in Romeo and Juliet and I'd be thinking oh this is all a bit silly because I'm pretending to be a Shakespearean wench or whatever um whereas when I did comedy I thought oh no no this is this is where I belong because this isn't pretending funny isn't it people say that comedy is much harder than tragedy much harder but you find it very easy well tragedy you know i tell you something awful you know that's just happened to me and you'll be thinking that's so awful i can't believe but you if you say to me right make me laugh in the next 10 minutes it's going to be a lot harder than me going well you don't know is that my friend did this and then that happened and you know so then i mean that there's a difference between playing comic roles and within a bigger piece and and and setting out just to do specifically funny stuff i mean to do like performing and starting to write your own stuff or does that come a bit later well i met some people i mean i've always been very fortunate i well i've been always very very gregarious and i'm always prided myself well i've been determined to be good company because i had this constant thing of nobody will want you in the room because you weren't at oxford you're not thin enough and you're not pretty enough so you'll have to work 10 times harder than anyone else because you've got no other no there's no reason for you to be there no one's going to want to talk to you about yeah um proust that's him again um uh la recherche de tom perdu i do know it's called that and um so i knew that i'd have to do that sort of performance thing of being witty and entertaining and good company so i met lots of people and then somebody asked me to start writing a bit for their magazine and so then i started writing the odd article and then i just i do sort of comedy parts on television and then comedy parts in in pieces or comedy parts in sketch shows no no no sketch shows you know i was doing a comedy part in a terrible sitcom that was a brilliant idea but it wasn't very well executed it was called lay girls and it was about a cheesy down-at-heel model agency not a sort of so you know the models were the people that you'd see in a cardigan or on a stanner lift not kind of top models and on that a guest star was alexi sale and he and i hit it off and he said oh come and come and work with me on my sketch show and then i do you know literally woman in sketch and then alexi and i got closer and alexi said don't know why don't you write some stuff so i wrote a double act for two lesbians of which alexia was one of them who ran a bike shop in the little known at the time stoke newington called the menstrual cycle and it was i mean quite quite i mean it's odd that you come up with something so groundbreaking from a standing start well no because i i'd always been funny so i suppose my whole life had been, I just now had to kind of condense the funny into a sketch.

39:58And I'd been hanging around with funny people. And I knew I was funny because I'm just, you know, people laugh when I spoke. There's lots of clues, aren't there? To whether or not people find you funny. And I also knew the thing I did know, I've always, always preferred. What's it called? Confessional comedy. And therefore Jewish comedy, American comedy. And I'd always bet Midler. And, you know, when she was doing well it was in her case it was comedy and singing but i'd always been drawn to these people and may west the little i'd seen of her and stuff and i knew that my forte would be to get ahead of any criticism i mean that's where does my bum bum not my bum if only does my bum look bigger than this came from because i thought i'm not going to be funny and then have someone and go yeah but you're fat i thought no what i'll do is i'll embrace everything that most terrorizes me and make that what so i'll be funny about myself uh looking back i wonder if i'd i mean i am pleased that younger female comedians don't do oh look at me i'm so shit comedy which is less fashionable now and quite rightly too because of course what looking back generationally I was probably playing into the if you don't fancy me that's okay because I know I'm fat or if you think you're going to be able to say something about me that will make me crushed you won't be able to because I'm going to make a joke about it before you do which I suppose is Jewish comedy in a way the sort of well the confessional self deprecating yes so I mean did you do comedy clubs Arambella you never did that I never had the nerve I wish I had I never had the nerve to do but so and then you this kind of after working with Alexi you kind of build momentum and then I worked with Alexi and then it was a very small group in those days and then Lenny and I knew the guy who wrote Lenny's stuff John Cantor and so then Lenny would get me but I was still only doing woman in sketch or girlfriend in car but you were supporting yourself by your mid 30s no no no I was also temping still temping oh yeah and then uh and then i i can't remember i knew harry enfield harry got me to come and do some stuff with him but i knew paul whitehouse and charlie hickson separately and then they were obviously around on harry's show and then they went very very casually one day um oh we're going to do our own thing you're quite funny do you want to come with us and i went yeah all right i remember exactly where we were we were in a very in those days i know life's all gone about glamour now but it was a very cheesy sticky carpet bbc bar and we were just standing around after doing harry's show and they went oh you know come and do this with us and i was like all right but i didn't realize it was going to change my life i'm glad you said that because as an interviewer it's a bit of a um it's a bit of a fence to get over whether it was sort of how big a deal was it or what did it no it was all very casual but but in terms of changing your life if there were gears you didn't even know your car had and suddenly you'd moved into them.

43:13And that was when I never did temping again after that. Right. Well, I did during the first, when we were recording the first series, The Fast Show, because I wasn't doing enough on it. Right. And then by the end, I was earning enough and doing enough and thought I have got to do this full time and stop temping to pay the rent. Because, of course, people think I, you know, I didn't get bought a flat or given any money. So they both had money, but the idea of giving their children any money, they'd never have done that. Not in a million years. Just got to make your own way. Oh, yeah. So about 15 years of schlepping before that came along, or is it more?