| What are you up to these
days? I'm doing a TV show in
Scotland called Barmy Aunt Boomerang which is a
15-part children's comedy drama. I play the ghost
of an Australian soap star that can walk through
walls and stuff like that. It's filmed very much
like a soap opera. It's wonderful in that it
parodies a lot of things that you see in soaps.
It's very funny and it's incredibly enchanting.
How did you
research the part? Did you watch Neighbours non-stop?
Well, the thing
I found about Neighbours is that they no longer
sound Australian; they almost sound anglophile.
When I was a child, we had Skippy the Bush
Kangaroo. And Skippy had (adopts really deep
Australian accent) a really deep Australian
accent. I thought, if I was going to play an
Australian soap star with an English accent, the
children weren't going to get the cultural
differences. So I based my voice on what I
remember from Skippy. So my accent is slightly
coarser than the ones you get in Neighbours.
Have you
managed to hold your accent throughout the
series?
I think so. No
one's said anything about it. But I've had so
much fun doing it because an Australian speaking
alongside a Glasgwegian accent makes it even
funnier; even lines that have no humour become
funny, because of the timing of the words.
Had you acted
with so many kids before?
No, that was a
brand new challenge and I have to say I was
dreading it and it's been absolutely magnificent.
The kids we've had have been so bright and tough
and sassy that I've spent many a day just sitting
listening to them because they're really on the
ball and very, very funny. And just full of a
lust for life.
You've done an
impressive range of work in the course of your
career: music, films, theatre, TV, panto...
Well, I've been
around a long time. But that's the way I like it;
once I've done a job I like to go right across
the spectrum to do the next one.
Like presenting
The Good Sex Guide Late one year and then doing
Songs of Praise?
That's one of
my proudest achievements. I have a very forgiving
audience. And funnily enough, I had no trouble
doing the Sex Guide at all, but my loyal fans
were slightly horrified when I did Songs of
Praise. My take on it is that everyone has the
right to tread a spiritual path, and just because
you've presented Songs of Praise doesn't mean
you've suddenly become a happy-clappy or dogmatic
religious person.
So how did you
handle making the transition from sex symbol to
sex therapist?
I tell you what
I was most nervous about with the Sex Guide: I'm
incredibly shy, and I don't like men making
passes at me. It's the one thing I can't handle.
And I was really, really worried that men might
think I was readily available and start hitting
on me. But it didn't happen and I was so relieved.
|
They were probably quite
scared of you. I think I like the fact
that men are scared of me and I want to keep it
that way. If anything, I could be walking down
the street and someone would stop me and tell me
about their marital problems, which I found
really sweet. There was this wonderful man on the
show called Dr Ian Banks whom I adored, and he
got surrounded by a whole gang of rastas on a
tube train. He thought he was going to be mugged,
but all they wanted to know was what to do about
impotence!
Maybe they
should get them on to Songs of Praise.
I don't think
sex and religion work that well together. People
that watch Songs of Praise tend to be over a
certain age and they're not so interested.
You and your
husband Robert Fripp are said to have one of the
most stable marriages in showbiz...
That sounds
like an ominous curse.
What's the
secret?
The secrets are
things that people wouldn't be willing to follow.
We don't have children and I think children do
change a marriage. Neither of us wants a family.
And I think because our careers are so separate
and our lives are so separate, a lot of our
friends say we're still having an affair, we're
still dating. We see relatively little of each
other, so the time we spend with each other is so
precious that we spend a lot of it laughing
rather than arguing. The other side of that coin
is that one day we will actually live together,
but will we actually get on? We've never done it.
You'll just
have to keep travelling and working around the
world.
Yes, because
there's no way I'm washing his socks. He actually
has a lady that does all his washing, but I think
life's too short to spend washing people's
underwear.
Finally, how do
you feel about the current Eighties revival?
I don't feel a
part of it. I've had hundreds of offers to do
concerts, which is great, but I still do quite a
lot of live shows anyway. But I'm not being
included on any of the compilations, and that's
partly because the record company which owns my
material is reluctant to re-release it for some
reason. It's great to have all these offers, but
I don't quite feel a part of it. I mean, I'm so
happy for Culture Club. I think it's working for
them. They're good writers, and I think Duran
Duran have always been good writers. Those two
groups in particular, I think it's lovely to see
them around again.
Sunday Herald -
2000
|