Jan Ravens: “I lived with a nameless dread”

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0:42Hello and welcome to Full Disclosure, a podcast project that allows me to spend much more time than I'd ever got on the radio with interesting people. Jan Ravens, welcome. Thank you. I'm researching this like a proper professional. Well done. Thank you. and I was struck by the Venn diagrams no one's ever sort of done comedy family trees have they like they did rock family trees but quite a few people who've sat in that chair relatively recently like sort of Culshaw and Alistair McGowan but also Hugh Laurie I mean loads and loads of possibly more connections than almost anybody else that's ever come on Full Disclosure which is not by any stretch of the imagination the most interesting thing about you we will find out what is in the course of the next hour we begin um in on the wirral in hoi lake in hoi lake um which is also where glenda jackson came from well that's who i wanted to be when i was growing up and like uh you know a lot of the guys around that i was hanging out they used to call me glenda because i you know i i wanted i wanted to act and i thought you know and glenda jackson was like in our absolute heyday when i was a teenage you know she was doing elizabeth r you know on the television she was doing touch a class in hollywood doing um the rsc you know doing peter brooks productions at the rsc and uh and so yeah i wanted to be like proper actress like glenda um already discovering such some of the talents that would sort of set you on your on your adult course but i was struck by the contrast between that that kind of um fun and comedy and what was most of the time a far from funny home life i mean it was it was tough your dad was yeah my dad my dad um suffered from um well my dad was hospitalized quite a few times he tried to end his own life uh a number of times and um he was hospitalized and he was you know i i later learned i mean i knew nothing about it as a kid of course but he was diagnosed as schizophrenic and it's quite interesting sort of looking back on that now i mean interesting and sad but interesting because i think a lot of people were diagnosed schizophrenic who in fact were probably bipolar but i don't really know you know what he was but he i know that he wasn't happy yeah and he was on like is it librium or lithium he was on he was on drugs his whole life and he was a lovely guy he was kind of a bit eric morcomy kind of dry scouse sense of humor you know all right john you know but a bit sort of you know very much sort of don't put your head above the parapet you know he was a kind sort of gentle sort he was quite sort of baffled by life really he was a government clerk when he did that I mean he was a clerk it sounds like Bob Cratchit doesn't it?

3:31Yes it does a bit you know you don't expect your dad played by Tom Courtney probably and also it's kind of the sort of thing that you expect a young person to be somehow a clerk you know because he did do you know he was like as people were then like he was put in to be an accountant you know my mum was put in to be a secretary and uh but he you know he couldn't hack the exams and uh and both my mum and dad their pair their mother died when they were about 13 14 and then their dads married women who were not like the wicked stepmother but were you know not as warm and kind of uh you know edged them out kind of thing and i think my dad my dad ran away to join the navy when he was you know a year younger than he should have been kind of thing drew them together maybe that sort of show yeah maybe yeah your mum became a nurse later after being a secretary yeah so what was home like i mean not to dwell unduly on on the bad bits yeah when did you discover your ability to entertain your mum or your dad or both of them I don't know it's interesting that you know what came first you know the kind of the the kind of thinking of like I better try and give everyone a laugh or you know was I just like that I mean both my mum and dad had a great sense of humour and my mum you know my mum had all these fantastic sort of Lancastrian expressions like you know if she thought somebody was a bit sort of overly proficient or enthusiastic in the bed department, she'd say, I bet she's a bundle of joy in a bunk.

5:10And if somebody had a bit of a grumpy expression, she'd say, she had a face like a fried shoe. That's a lovely facility with words. I mean, it's just like, I mean, I don't know whether they were hers or whether she'd pick them up from somewhere. But also it's the way you tell them as well. I mean, they've got to land. Well, I always sort of say that, you know, my mum was the first impression I did. but she also sort of morphed into uh patricia routledge after a while because because we're from we're both from the same neck of the woods you know patricia rout was born in tramir and um and that sort of uh you know when when my mum was like went for coffee with her friends well i went for a coffee in morrison's you know with uh ted and gene jelly fred and barbara bickerstaff and bill and bunty burton sure you know it sort of sounds like an alan bennett play and you pick up on what rhythms or you know that these things just make people smile these because that's just not funny you read that written down yeah it's not it's not charming at all it's just a it's just a diary but something in the delivery the combination of the words the accent the voice the tone and some magic some sort of magic happens well i think that i think part of the magic of that it's something it's quite alan benety isn't it it's quite victoria woody and um and i think it's it's that sort of um i think there is something in that in those northern rhythms and those northern characters that that i mean i i had the very very great privilege of doing a couple of the alan bennett talking heads monologues just before lockdown in fact they were shut down by what's in whatford yeah gosh you have done your research um that's the only reason i said that and uh and oh my god I just felt like I'd come home you know it was like this is just like my totally my you know this is this is like my area of expertise I've totally got this and it was so lovely to do because there's not only the rhythm of his jokes and the rhythm of the of the language but also the the sort of pathos of it and the the underscored sort of loneliness and you know insecurities and doubts of of those characters as it was just wonderful but but so we did have a lot of laughs in my house it wasn't like it was it was all bad but there was there were a lot of rows which I sort of knew weren't like rows in other people's houses you know where my dad would end up crying and uh and my mum would threaten to leave it and you know there was a lot of all I mean, I guess it felt quite sort of perilous.

7:49And I always had a sort of feeling of, what did I used to call it? Anyway, it was a sort of something I didn't know what it was, but a sort of a nameless dread. That's what I called it. Wow. Like a nameless dread of what's going to happen, you know, what's wrong? Something's wrong. So you didn't feel safe? No, not really. No, I didn't. I was quite a nervous kid and, you know, I was very much a sort of, you know, a bit of a victim, actually, as a lot of people were, of that sort of thing, of there being like a sort of, you know, this is like in primary school, like a girl would say, we're not friends with you today.

8:31You know, in that sort of Margaret Atwood cat's eye way where there'd be, you know, you know, the gang and the sort of psychological bullying. and that would hit you much harder I often wonder whether the kids that did that remember they probably don't it's just that some people are tuned differently yeah so your sensitivity given the lack of security at home is going to make you much rower yeah to those moments yeah maybe if you met her now she probably wouldn't even recognize the person she runs a cleaning agency now not that you've checked um because I am in touch with a couple of my friends from school and she's in touch with this bossy girl.

9:09But it hits, doesn't it? It does hit, yeah, it really does. And it wasn't really till I went to grammar school that I started, like I did impressions of the teachers and all that, you know, palava. When did you first realise that ability that people who haven't got it find absolutely extraordinary, but people who have got it have never really not had it, so they don't find it anywhere near as extraordinary as everybody else does. But was it just your dad would say, you sound just like your mum, or do you have siblings, Jan? I've got a brother, yeah. my brother is um a couple of years younger than me and he's um he's in the building trade and when did when did you first realize you could do this um i suppose it was the teachers really i mean i i i kind of uh yeah i i think it was probably the tea i remember doing a a variety show when i joined the guides i joined the guides for about three weeks because i thought it was all a bit military lining up in patrols and things um but i did a variety show and i remember doing an impression of this Horlicks advert that was on the telly where there was this Scottish woman extolling the benefits of having a cup of Horlicks at night.

10:14And at the end, she said, and you should see what a cheerio like we are in the morning. And that was the first one I sort of remember doing. But yeah, mainly it was the teachers. And when I look back on it now, I sort of think it must have been a bit weird for those teachers because they must have been, you know, So judging from, you know, my past, they must have been quite good impressions. Yeah. So it must have been quite weird for these teachers to see this little, you know, 13 year old girl coming. Nailing it. Yes. Yeah.

10:47Let's back up a bit. So at primary school, you must have been good with your lessons because you got into grammar school. So were you conscious of that? And was there pressure from home to do well at school or not? No, not really. I think they were just sort of grateful. Neither of them had excelled at school. I think my mum was probably dyslexic. Right. And, you know, she was one of those kids who was left-handed and they tried to make her right-handed and all that. And my dad was very bright but, you know, not able to, didn't do well in exams. Sure. And he, yeah, so I was clever and I liked that.

11:27I kind of liked schoolwork and I found it sort of relatively easy, you know, certainly at primary school. I mean, I was never any good at science, but yeah, I did like it. And I felt in myself, I felt quite competitive once I got to grammar school. You know, I wanted to be in the top five. And there was always one or two girls who were number one. And it was a foregone conclusion that you get into grammar school. You weren't one of those kids who kind of felt a very heavy weight of expectation and contrast between the secondary modern. No, I mean, and I don't actually think. I mean, my brother went to the secondary modern.

12:06And, you know, I mean, now like my son and his four kids have just moved back up to Liverpool, which is so great. And they've got into this primary school at Sefton Park and it's great and everything. and uh but uh the oldest one the boy he's he's just been into such pressure because the 11 plus and then next year his little his little sister is going to be doing the same thing and there's all this coaching going on i mean it's absolutely extraordinary and it's it's very odd because the grammar schools are only in these like pockets of the country aren't they and yeah it's uh i mean the whole uh yeah was there class involved then so when you went there did was it posher than your primary school would it have more uniform no not at all it was just no plenty of kids from your primary school went up yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah definitely um and um you know we'd had a uniform at primary school we had uniform at the grammar school i mean i i guess um i guess there were more kind of you know slightly dodgy kids at the secondary modern you know and there was a bit more kind of leery behaviour going on there but not to sort of yeah.

13:21And it was all girls as well It was all girls, yeah. The doctor's daughter would be there and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, I guess, yeah but yeah, not many I can't think of many doctor's daughters, I mean because like the Wirral always has this thing about, you know oh you're from the Wirral, that's posh. Yeah, that's certainly my understanding. Yeah, but it's actually really not, I mean lots of the Wirral is like, you know, Coronation Street you know, in terms of the sort of little terraced houses and all that and Hoylake itself is has got those little roads and little suburban semis and little terraced houses and all that and um estates but it's also got you know the Royal Liverpool Golf Club and the big houses down on the prom and you know all that and so dad's reluctance to put heads above parapets didn't rub off on you necessarily no I kind of despised that about him You know, I kind of, I kind of, God, you know, why don't you, you know, why don't you rebel?

14:14Why don't you, I mean, not why do you, but I kind of felt, yeah, that there ought to be a bit more kind of. Where do you think that came from? Maybe because I, I don't know, maybe because I saw that he wasn't happy, that he felt kind of hemmed in in some way. And he had been hemmed in. he'd been hemmed in by his illness really yes um and uh so from a place of love then really wanting more for him yeah yeah yeah i mean um i mean it was it it was just as hard really if not more hard for my mum because in those days nobody you know she she couldn't tell anybody because of the shame stigma and i can remember people saying to me you know your dad's in the loony bin and uh but she couldn't tell anybody and her dad uh eric who would work for the eric uh was in um had been in the grenadier guards and uh he was like you're the daughter of a grenadier guard you know you don't you don't reveal in any of this and um and also when my mum married my dad he had already tried to um end his life uh when he was in the navy when he was abroad and his family or him hadn't told her.

15:38So she married him thinking he was this very jolly, lovely, kind bloke that she'd met at Threlfall's Brewery in the office. And, you know, six months into their marriage, he was in hospital. Another episode. Good Lord. Yeah, that is tough, isn't it, for everyone, really? And then she couldn't tell anyone as it went along. and so she was like having to to work because you know he wasn't earning that much she had to look after his dad who lived with us she had to look after us and and cope also with you know the fact that some of the time he was you know miserable didn't want to do anything you sound quite low down on that list you and your brother just in terms of size of challenge size of responsibility I mean she you know she was on edge she you know she she got quite cross and stuff but I mean she was also very loving and and and he was loving in a kind of he did what he could you know and he'd um bring back sweets on a Friday night you know from the office it's such a funny thing he used to go to the pub on a Friday night and the Salvation Army would show up you know with the rattling a tin and with their magazines and he'd say I brought you back a young soldier.

16:54It's just the magazine of the children's magazine that you used to give out or sell in the pub. What would you laugh at as a family, on telly or on the radio? Well, my dad, not that much radio, really. The radio was more kind of for music. But telly, my dad, I mean, Morecambe and Wise, you know, and what I suppose, Dick Emery. I loved Dick Emery my dad was really keen on Spike Milligan and Peter Cook and Dudley Moore and the Pythons and he got me into reading PG Woodhouse and Billy Bunter and Jennings and Derbyshire and all those funny school books so he really and he loved the Beatles my dad my mum was more into Elvis but my dad loved the Beatles and so you know he'd get me down from bed if there was some sort of thing where they were all doing you know all you need is love or whatever you know those famous live recordings um he'd get me down to watch so you were I mean it's still a bit of a leap isn't it to thinking that you could be a professional performer yourself we haven't seen the early sides I never yeah I never really thought that I did I mean we had um there was one of my dad's cousins who was an actor and he'd gone down to london with len rossiter and some bloke who used to play the interviewer in the dick emery show um in those fox popsy bits at the beginning oh you are awful yeah exactly yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah him um and and he played bit parts in zed cars and you know that kind of thing and uh and he was very sort of like oh you know i don't think janet should go into show business.

18:42You know, the casting couch, you know, was kind of writ large in his kind of... And it was, you know, he did all he could to put me off. I don't, you know, which I found a bit sort of suspect looking back on it. You know, it's kind of like, you know, well, you've had all this fun at it. You know, why shouldn't I have a go kind of thing? Yeah. But yeah, the idea that, I mean, it was sort of partly Glenda that made me think, well, you know, maybe... can't be what you can't see and you could see one of the most successful actresses coming from yeah and her dad was our builder you know really yeah tom jackson yeah he used to you know so it's feasible yeah that's i mean that's half the battle isn't it with access and mobility feasibility is probably half of it yeah um and and i think you've described it as being the first time you realize you had power in a room which makes more sense now we know a little bit about what home life was like was when you started doing sort of little moments at school.

19:39But never, I mean, class jester is a phrase you've used to describe yourself. But never, I don't think, to the point of being problematic for the teachers or anything like that. No, no, no. I mean, I was cheeky, I think. Yeah. But I remember, actually, when I was at primary school, some teacher saying to me, Janet Ravens, you know, don't get too big for your boots. and that was another sort of, you know, don't get your head above the parapet, you know. The thing about you, Janet Raymond, is you're too big for your boots. Which meant that you were confident. Confident, cheeky, yes, and kind of, yeah, making people laugh, I suppose.

20:15And did you develop good friendships at secondary school, at grammar school? Did you become more popular, as it were? Yeah, I mean, I wasn't, like, unpopular at primary school, but it just was, it always seemed to be in flux, you know yeah at grammar school I was kind of one of the cool girls I became one of the cool girls and and you know and also when I was I think 12 or 13 I was quite ill for about three months I had quinzies which is like tonsillitis only much worse so your tonsils swell up like this so you actually can't speak and it's really painful and you know you have to have it about you know six times before they'll take your tonsils out.

21:02And so I was off school on and off for a whole term, and I was quite chubby in that sort of pre-teen, 12-year-old kind of way. And I suddenly sort of emerged, you know, because when I was in this chubby phase of probably 13, it was all the rage to be a skinhead. Right. So I was a skinhead girl. and I remember walking along Hoy Lake Prom in my Harrington jacket and my Trevira skirt and my boys broke shoes and there was this boy who lived along the road and he seemed quite sort of hard and he was called Jamie Lancaster and we used to call him Jamie Wankfaster and I sort of saw him coming towards me on Hoy Lake Prom and I was there with my hands in my pockets and my Harrington jacket freezing because, you know, the Harrington jacket was like, you know, hardly anything.

21:55Anyway, and he walked towards me, and as he walked past me, he said, Janet Ravens, you're too hard for me. And I remember after I lost all this weight, and I was at the school disco, so I was probably about 14 or something, Jamie Wankfaster asking me to dance, and I sort of thought, yeah. It got you. Yeah. It's a turn around. Got you. It's a win. did it change the way that the girls treated you as well when you came back from that what would we call it a confinement yeah um not really i don't think i mean we all had our you know some of us had acne and some of us had you know it's a it's a you know it's a problematic time isn't it but yeah we went we went to lots of discos at the rugby club and um you know uh we we sort of we had a good you know i mean i did this program a while ago called my teenage diary on Radio 4 and I had these diaries and this brilliant producer Harriet Gilbert, she read them and I said, well you know, I wasn't very confident and I didn't know and she was like, bloody hell, you know snogged Gary on the thing it was much more eventful than I remembered and yeah we had a great time you know, all that and we loved dancing and planning our outfits for the weekend and all that part and and and never i mean however rebellious you were even in your skinhead phase and never to the point of of ceasing to care about schoolwork i mean you've always no no no i mean it was purely a sort of you know a costume sort of pose did you stay in that top five did you breach the yeah the way you described it you were never the top one or two no but always the top five yeah yes um did you do plays at school what did they yeah yeah my Did you shine?

23:49Well, no, not really. I mean, annoyingly. And it's sort of kind of a pattern, really, playing the kind of character parts as opposed to the lead. But I had this brilliant art teacher called Mary Metcalfe, and she'd stomp around the place on sort of, you know, stiletto heels. And one of those teachers, I don't know if you ever had any of these teachers, that would get a dress pattern and make about, you know, six dresses from the same pattern, you know, with their sewing machine at home and in all different fabrics. Hers was very sort of fitted on the waist with a sort of swirling skirt and high collar.

24:22It was very sort of, and she had this dashing auburn hair. And she would direct the school plays and she would do this thing of directing like two casts so that more people got a turn. Oh, wow, okay. But like in, you know, we did Caesar and Cleopatra one year with the boys grammar school and I was Charmian the maid, you know, I mean, I'd never have got Cleopatra. So I was Charmian, Cleopatra's maid. and then we did The Snow Queen, a musical of The Snow Queen with music by Grieg, which was great, actually. So, of course, I wasn't The Snow Queen. I was the front legs of the reindeer. So no sense here of the future thesp, then, really?

25:01Well, no, but I did love it, and I did go in for drama festivals, and Mary Metcalfe really did encourage me, and she, it was. She didn't encourage you that much? She made you the front legs of the reindeer? Was it a speaking role? It was. and I had a song. Oh, well, I'll take it back then. Good old Mary McCall. I had a number. Yeah. And so, yeah, and she encouraged me to do all these drama festivals and I think I, we did do a sort of reading of The Merchant of Venice in which I got Portia. So, yeah, but she was very encouraging and she it was that said to me, because I really, really wanted to go to drama school.

25:40Oh, okay, already. So this is what, 15, 16? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I always wanted to go to drama school and I didn't do, I mean, I'd been very good at languages and I didn't want to do languages for A-Level because all I wanted to do was go to drama school. Well, that's come out of nowhere, really. Just that kind of... Well, not really. I always... No, I mean in terms of this conversation, not in terms of the life that you live. What? You're telling me off. No, I mean, apart from, you know, being good at impersonating your teachers and loving the storytelling and the books and watching stuff with your dad.

26:14I mean, drama school's a big deal, I'd have thought, for someone at that school at that time. It would be a little bit like, what? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it was, I mean, you know, Careers of Ice was absolutely shit, you know. It was kind of work in a bank or be a teacher. Back to Glenda again then. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A little bit. A bit more of that kind of, well, that's what I'm going to do. Independently of what everyone else is doing or what everyone is telling me I should do. Yeah, definitely. You couldn't get a grant to go to drama school. Because it wasn't a degree. Because it wasn't a degree.

26:47And I think some authorities, you could sort of audition for the authority to... Yeah, you could. And anyway, I don't think we could do that. Or certainly it wasn't ever... I didn't know about it. It was LEA specific, I think. I've interviewed a lot of actors. Some local authorities would just wave you through. And other ones you'd have to dance for them. and other ones it just wasn't an option at all. Yeah. So that got dashed by the policy, by the government. Yes, yeah. It's not an option. Parents aren't going to find the money to send you. Well, yeah, but I mean, it's so much worse now, isn't it?

27:21Yes, it is. Anywho, Mary Metcalf said, what you should do is go and do drama at Homerton College, Cambridge, where I went. Ooh. And she said, marvellous, you know, punting on the backs and, you know, all that. and she kind of mentioned the footlights and all this. And so I went to Cambridge thinking, you know, knowing that there was a big sort of theatrical scene there and a bit about the footlights. And, you know, my dad sort of knew, I think, kind of vaguely about that. He never saw Jonathan Miller era, wouldn't he, if he was a big dog. Yeah, yeah, it was kind of like, I mean, yeah, he liked um and he he liked Monty Python and um you know yeah and the the Beyond the Fringe so there was no don't get too big for your boots Janet here then from home or from school well I think that I mean like you know it's extraordinary because like with my kids you know I'd be kind of you know we'd be having chats about you know what GCSEs they were going to do whether they want to go on to college you know whether they wanted to go to music or what happened you know which what What way do you want to go?

28:28And then, you know, can you help me with this essay? Yes. You know, have you tried this? I mean, the input that, you know, my generation of parents, our generation of parents have with their kids is so much more. Like with my parents, they had no clue. Just leave it to it. Just leave the school to it. Leave the school to it. And, you know, I think they definitely were happy, much happier that I was going to teach a training college. because, you know, OK, you want to be an actress, but, you know, you'll have something to fall back on. Yes, of course. Something to fall back on. Yeah, and so I think that kept all of us happy to some degree.

29:12So quite a neat trajectory then, really, through school and grammar school and then off to Cambridge to do what you kind of wanted to do or that was the best possible compromise all the things that were vying for your potentials and enthusiasm. But you genuinely wanted to be an actress. I mean, that was it. That was what you wanted to be. Oh, God, I had no thought of being a comedian and certainly not an impressionist. That never crossed my radar at all. And it's funny because lots of the male impressionists I talked to, that's what they wanted. I mean, like, you know, Rory Bremner from a very young age, you know, loved doing all the voices and thought, you know, I can make people laugh.

29:55I can make a go of this. And Louis McLeod, you know, he used to do all the voices and the sound effects. And, you know, and John, I think as well. I mean, John got into it, as you know, sort of through DJing, really. And but I think they had this thing that they, you know, they thought they could make a go of. Whereas I never even never that never crossed my mind for a minute. And also, you know, I love literature. I love poetry. I love the language. And so to sort of, you know, be immersed in that, you know, was something that I really, really hankered after, you know, because this teacher training college I was at, it was kind of part of Cambridge University.

30:37So you did the Cambridge Shakespeare tripos. So, you know, you got taught by all these brilliant people like Christopher Ricks and everything. It was such a kind of fantastic opportunity from that point of view. And you threw yourself into it. well I did not quite hard enough because I was too busy doing all the plays and the footlights but not well I meant that as well yeah yeah yeah yeah I didn't throw myself into the you know I got a tutu I got a sort of you know theatrical tutu um so yeah I didn't throw myself into the academics side of things quite as but but uh but I loved it I absolutely loved it and and it bolstered your belief that this is the life this was an access life for me what was your Footlights audition like can you remember because I've heard conflicting stories not about yours but people who found it really harrowing and of course I always get the universities a little bit mixed up but I think Maria Margulies has very little nice to say about the people she was in the Footlights not surprisingly I think I mean it was still very male dominated when I did it I can't remember doing an audition because I think I'd done lots of plays with, I mean, Griffith-Rees Jones had directed Bartholomew Fair for, you know, the Ben Johnson play.

31:54And I'd done Ursula the Pig Woman in that, which was great fun. And I'd done, you know, plays with Jimmy Mulville, who now runs Hat-Trick. And the first play I did was directed by Nick Heitner. It's insane, isn't it? Yeah, I know, it's absolutely insane. so I think the people that were kind of involved in Footlights knew you know had sort of seen me around kind of thing and I can't remember auditioning for Footlights to be honest but you slotted straight in but I slotted straight in I mean I do remember Emma Thompson coming to do her audition for Footlights and being in the Footlights club room and I'd been I suppose I'd been sort of in it sort of for a year and then emma arrived on the scene that that that year later and she walked into the uh the footlights club room and i thought oh my god you know i'm fucked here you know because i mean she was like so self-possessed because you know she i was like you know a grammar school girl feeling a bit fish out of watery and all the time all the time at cambridge i was trying to sort of you know keep up sure to some degree whereas emma was so kind of you know uh urban and kind of you know london north london kind of high you know uh and uh yeah she she sort of swanned in and um i think were you directing it that year is that no not that year no but i mean we became you know we became good friends and everything but but uh yeah i always remember she just had a kind of gloss on her you know and and you never know i'm below the water her little flippers might have been going like that but i doubt it really i think she was probably very very much born to it i think yes yeah um and so now i mean footlights is comedy it's not straight actor i know you were doing the straight acting as well but here you discover your funny bones is this where you really discover funny bones well i think i'd you know i'd been doing like funny character parts in the plays yeah i mean i was never playing the sort of you know um gaunt uh heroin addict characters you know was there a frustration there would you like to have done yeah i would like to have done a bit more given your love of the literature it would be natural to want to try to play the no i really did heavier part yeah no i i definitely did uh want to do that although you know something like in something like johnson um the the sort of the the posh characters the straight characters are much less interesting yes um obviously in shakespeare it's different because you know there's the all the psychological complexity but in in johnson they're sort of like engines aren't they they're kind of um you know that they're all symbolizing something uh but yeah it would have been and also the modern you know the modern stuff um anyway i had to wait you know a good many years for all that but you didn't have to wait to make to make a splash here you you became i think the first woman president of footlights of the review of the yeah yeah yeah yeah that speaks of a certain um ambition i think it speaks yes it speaks of I think it speaks of daring I mean I was so terrified about the whole thing and yet I kind of made myself do it I dared do it and I'd done things like I directed the Gilbert and Sullivan Society in HMS Pinafore and choreographed it all myself what was I doing?

35:09Not studying is the short answer yeah but yeah I was the first president and it was kind of a moment because the guy who had been president the year before me was this guy called martin bergman who was like a sort of 45 year old entrepreneur you know even then yeah in his vibe and uh he's now uh married to and sort of manager and writer of this american comedian called rita rudner right and they live in orange county and you know he's sort of doing what he was always meant to do but but he always had an eye for you know I mean we me and Emma and Sandy Toksvig did this review in Cambridge which was the first all-female review um called Woman's Hour and and I and you know it was 1980 uh 1980 it was 1980 so I mean you know so feminism was was very much you know around and you know we all sort of had you you know, hairy legs and dungarees and everything.

36:13And, you know, a lot of that going on. And I think he sort of thought this would be very good publicity to get the first woman president. And once I had become president, I thought, I don't know why they didn't get a woman to do this before, because actually it's a load of sort of admin and slog. It's a real schlap. So what year did you do the sellotapes? Was that 81? And were you president then? No. That was before. I'd left Cambridge. Oh, OK. So you came back to direct this. So that was a sort of tradition that, you know, a previous alumna or NUS usually would be invited back to direct the review.

36:54So that's another big deal. So that was another huge big deal and huge pressure. So Hugh Laurie, you know, I'd gone to London to seek my fortune and was working in a designer knitwear shop in Kensington and got this letter from Hugh, which I've still got, actually, saying, you know, footlights headed notepaper saying, you know, we'd like we'd like you to direct the review. And and Stephen and Hugh had already emerged as a very strong, you know, partnership, writing partnership and performing partnership. and they were quite intimidating actually. And then there was Glossy Emma and then there was gorgeous maverick Tony Slattery.

37:36And so it was a big, big deal. There was three of them. There was the first president of Footlights, the first woman to direct the Footlights review and then because that review had such fabulous people in it and such good material and was such a success and won the first Perrier Award and all that, Then I was asked to be a BBC radio comedy producer, which was another very well trodden path for people from Footlights, but not for women. And so I was in, you know, I had like three years or whatever of this pressure of thinking, God, if I fuck this up, they're never going to ask another woman ever again.

38:13I'm fucking up for all of us. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was a lot of pressure. Oh, yeah, of course. And I, and after being a producer for about 18 months, I think I thought, you know, you know what I've really, really want, always wanted to do is perform. So, so I left. Well, that's quite daring as well, right? Because you've got, you're on a nice path now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, John Lloyd was here not long ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, producers can be stars in a sense, although they're never going to be the kind, I mean, it is, it's an itch you had to scratch. You wanted to be in front of an audience.

38:47Yeah, yeah. And I think it's my strength as well. I wasn't I wasn't I don't think I was a I'm quite a good director, but I'm not a very good producer because I'm just not I haven't got very good attention to detail where all the admins concerned. So so you're back then to trying to make your fortune in London. You come out of the BBC. Did you have anything on the horizon when you did? Did you have a job in place? Did you have a role? No, but I got an agent because this, you know, quite powerful agent, Vivian Claude. had seen me doing warm-ups because when you're the producer you do the warm-up in the radio theater and she'd seen me do that and I said to her you know I wonder you know I'm gonna leave and I need an agent you know have you got any advices to sort of the sort of place I should go she said well I'll take you on and it was like wow yeah so so that was a good agency and it had like a voiceover department and all that and because I was versatile that was a really really good thing so i did i did quite a few commercials uh in my first year and then um which were very lucrative then yeah much more than they are now yeah yeah they were so that was so i got you know like three or four of those and that was good and then um my then husband and i we did a review together called ha bloody ha with a another guy called nick wilton did it in edinburgh sold out in Edinburgh and Nick was already in Carrots Lib on the telly and so Jasper came to see the show and uh and so I got put in the next series of Carrots Lib and that's where I started doing impressions because I did so did did everyone at Cambridge know you could do impressions or was it just something you'd kept yeah yeah yeah they did right they did but it wasn't a big part of your contribution no I mean sometimes I would do people and you know I can remember Hugh going Christ, that's extraordinary, you know.

40:39But I never even thought to... It was more of a party trick. Yeah. Then? Yeah, yeah. Okay, but then, so Jasper Carrot spots that this is rather more than... Yeah, I think in that show, in that Ha Bloody Ha, I did Claire Rayner, Victoria Wood, and one other, I can't remember. But anyway, so yes, because Carrot's Live was topical, there was a bit of all that involved. and then following on from that got asked to do Spitting Image. So you were on the telly? On the telly. What did mum and dad make of that? Oh, they loved it. They absolutely loved it. Yeah, they were absolutely thrilled. Yeah, they were.