TALK KING
British Broadcaster Dominic King talks to friends from the entertainment industry about their lives in and passion for the arts.
Many of our long form episodes have been recorded at the homes of our guests who Dom has known and/or worked alongside for many years, offering a unique and more personal perspective than most other 'celebrity' podcasts.
Music composed by Jonny Easton
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TALK KING
Agents Don't Call On A Saturday: At home with Actors Linda Regan and Brian Murphy
In Episode 2 of the new season of 'TALK KING' - Broadcaster Dominic King meets Actors Linda Regan and Brian Murphy at their home in Hayes near Bromley.
Brian is best known for playing George Roper in 70's sitcom George & Mildred and Linda for playing April in 80's British holiday camp sitcom Hi-De-Hi!
Linda is also a bestselling crime novelist with nine books to date.
TALK KING is a Laughing Frog Production.
Also check out: 'Watching The Detectives':
Find out more about Laughing Frog Productions at www.laughingfrogproductions.com
Hello, I'm Dominic King, this time on Talking.
Speaker 2:Oh yes, perhaps I should switch mine off. Has anybody seen? Is that mine?
Speaker 3:I don't think I've got mine on. Agents won't ring on Saturday.
Speaker 2:Agents won't ring at all, darling.
Speaker 3:Settle down in the studio. Please Be quiet now.
Speaker 1:Two actors who, on screen, have given us some great British comedy moments. Brian Murthy played henpecked husband George Roper in the 70s sitcom George and Mildred, and Linda Regan Yellowcoat April in the British holiday camp sitcom of the 1980s Heidi High, you are here with tea and cake for us as well.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And a guard dog sitting under the table.
Speaker 1:You live here in Hayes, part of Bromley. Yes, bromley, is it Kent or London? Well, I don't know.
Speaker 3:The address says Kent.
Speaker 2:Well, it always used to be Kent didn't it? And people write Kent on letters all are male from the under sort of thirties of Greater London and you know that somebody's written to you who's over fifty if they say Kent.
Speaker 1:When did you meet?
Speaker 3:We met playing husband and wife didn't we yeah down in Eastbourne, Down in Eastbourne Summer season.
Speaker 2:Wife begins at forty. The play which was written by Sultanan and adapted by Ray Cooney.
Speaker 3:How dare you say you was?
Speaker 2:I was 40, not quite.
Speaker 3:Not quite. Oh cool, I'm a big one.
Speaker 2:No, no, I wasn't quite. It was about an older, shall we say, a mature, sort of set in his way as husband, with a kind of young wife who was sort of getting a bit bored and wanted to go out and do more. And so she started doing that, which was all sad, and then the end of the play she realised that she was very in love with her husband and we came back.
Speaker 3:Obviously for summer seasons, most of the offering was always light and funny for a mixed audience, and so this turned into a farce, because I remember I lost my trousers.
Speaker 2:When you lost your trousers in the third act, which was hysterical laughter from the audience, you know we went together then. We were just actors working together. When you met in the theatre in the evening, but that day my dear husband had been sitting under a palm tree sunbathing. So when he dropped his trousers he looked like a thing of toothpaste because he had red and white stripes on his legs and I had to come down the stairs backwards while the audience were seeing him and they were in hysterics and I kept thinking what's he doing? Because I was coming down the stairs backwards and I turned around and my first line was you look lovely. No, you said you look lovely. And I had to say so do you? And then you said you look lovely. And I looked at say so do you? And then you said you look lovely. And I looked at the audience and burst out laughing and said I'm supposed to say so do you? And you were standing there and you looked like a tube of toothpaste.
Speaker 3:Thank you very much. Ray Cooney was very good at producing farces.
Speaker 1:It was real laugh-out-loud belly comedy.
Speaker 2:It's a very funny play, but they're not writing, sadly.
Speaker 3:Not at the moment anyway, no, not at the moment.
Speaker 2:But what I do want to say about that play that we were in together. I'd worked a lot with my father when I was younger, doing a kind of double act, and you know I had great timing. It's a bit like dancing in tune with someone when you're and Brian had the same with you, sir. But when Brian and I met just as jobbing actors well, he was a star, I wasn't. We had that same. We suddenly didn't we. We just Comedy just seemed. I knew his timing before you said it and you knew mine.
Speaker 3:There's a thing which we're sure about, and it's called chemistry. When people get on and you don't have to even look in their eyes, you know it's all going to be there Throw a ball, they catch it.
Speaker 1:And Linda made that point about, you know with Euther Joyce and you had that with her in, obviously man, about the House first of all. Then comes that spin-off series of Georgia Mildred the success of us in man About the.
Speaker 3:House. That's not boasting, it's just an actual fact. We both said to each other we're relatively seasoned performers. It could have been any other two actors who could be regarded as better than us in whatever, because I don't think. When people cast people for, for plays, they can't think or anticipate what the chemistry is going to be like amongst the actors. They're just hoping for the skills and talent for which they're known by?
Speaker 1:did you even have an inkling that it was going to be the success as a spin-off from a man about the house? No idea at all.
Speaker 3:We were told by the head of light entertainment then at Thames, said that you do realise there's a lot of mileage to be got out of your characters. This is sometime into A man About the House. And we nodded out of you know wisdom, born actors saying oh, yes, we've heard that before. But we didn't say that, of course. We said, oh, that would be nice, yes. And then I think we were about to go into the last recording of the man About the House series and one of the carpenters came up to us and he said it's great, but George Mildred, and we said what do you mean? Because we'd heard that there's a possibility. And he said, well, george Mildred. We said oh, yes, it most certainly would be nice if it happened. He said what do you mean would be? He said we're building the set now. So he said, oh, really.
Speaker 3:And that's when, of course, we knew for positive that it was going to be. And then we said to the writers, brian Cook, and we said please, there will be other people in it, won't there? Because he said man about the house, we weren't the only ones, we weren't the leads, and there was Richard and two girls. And then there's us. They will be. He said, yeah, it's all right, we're going to write Neighbours. And of course they did, and we were going to have a store amongst us. Who was mad about it? That was Roy Kinnear. So Johnny Morton and Brian Cook knew what they were doing and, with the spinners off, with the right requirements, and of course the success of it was almost built in because the audience loved what they were watching.
Speaker 1:And Linda. I think that's the amazing thing. Isn't it about this era of television that it created these programmes that were the go-to, the must-watch?
Speaker 2:I think that we got in those days the kind of sitcoms that we loved. We got to know the characters and we really liked the characters and we'd all sit down and watch that, but we were taken, I mean, like George and Mildred. We loved those characters, we loved the character next door, we loved everything that was going on between George and Mildred. It's the characters every time and I would I'm going to put my head on the block and I would sadly say no, we don't have that strong characterisation in our comedy and that's personally what I feel. I mean I can talk about the one I did, the Heidi High. That I did.
Speaker 2:You know, everybody in England that I ever met or wrote to said to me is it possible, I would love to meet Ruth Maddock. Everybody said that to me, everybody in the studio. I mean, they loved, they all had their favorite characters. Of course they did. And Sue Pollard you know, let's not forget how popular Polly was. But it was those characters and I think that's what we go to and I think again, in the Dad's Army that was our number one across the world, isn't it? It's the character you know and will we ever forget, darling Ian.
Speaker 1:Ian Lavender, and that was seeing his face up on the screen. How many people across Britain went?
Speaker 2:Don't tell them, Pike, Don't tell them.
Speaker 1:Pike. These characters became part of the landscape, with April as a role. That whole kind of idea that you've got all these people in a place that everyone in Britain understood because they went to Bognor Regis. They went to these places Canberra Sands, at Pontins yes, well, I certainly did.
Speaker 2:My dad was a red coat, um, so yes, I don't know if they still have the kind of things that we did. You know the knobbly knees, you know that that's what they knew and and. And they recognized him also when I was in hidey high and my character. The kind of letters I got were always from children. Children liked my character and that goes to show that the family sat round and I think you've said this many times and watched the shows.
Speaker 3:Families were depicted as families too, weren't they Are. We allowed to say they would be the father and the mother, and sometimes the indoors and such, but it would be a family unit and there was a very strict censorship, in fact, back in those days about what could be suitable at a particular time when it went out on television that it wouldn't be offensive, not to the degree that we have now. You mustn't say this, you mustn't say that it's just a respect for the age group of people watching the television, and sitcoms in particular, were family generated, and they showed families too, weren't they?
Speaker 2:So it made it easy for the comedy to flourish, and there were lots of sitcoms about families, weren't there Just?
Speaker 3:suddenly saying that I mean there were Butterflies.
Speaker 2:Bless this House.
Speaker 3:It's a different structure then, of course, wasn't it Because we had television companies that were pretty strict, like Thames, who were flourished. But what they did is different from today, where everything is mostly filmed. We were in studios and we played back our end product to a studio audience, even the idea that you have got an audience who are watching as well.
Speaker 1:What is it Watching you? Watching me. You know that whole idea of that happening Did it give you energy as well?
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:And timing.
Speaker 2:Timing Because if there's going to be a joke, and there's going to be a reaction to the joke hopefully at home.
Speaker 3:there was one in the studio, and so we could pause gently to allow the laughter to.
Speaker 1:Hope it came. So in a way was that more like theatre. It was both. It was totally different.
Speaker 2:It was both. You had to have your really your. You stay very, very sharp the whole time. I mean, we had a very strict director producer in Davy Croft, who was wonderful, magnificent genius, and I bow to that genius, but we weren't allowed to do a second take. He said if you blow your joke, you know it's your own fault.
Speaker 1:Because the audience won't react.
Speaker 2:The audience won't react in the same way. And I mean, I had been to audience, other audiences where, um, the walmart man would say, well, we're going to do that again, so can you laugh in the same place.
Speaker 1:But I I always felt the laughter was never the same as the first time linda, because of your dad and the background he had in in the theatrical world, that he was already part of that world. Was that a natural instinct for you, because of what you were seeing around you and growing up with, to feel that you wanted to become an actor? Was that in your head?
Speaker 2:Do you know it wasn't. I didn't want to become an actor first. That was never my first choice. I loved dancing but because my dad was such a wonderful stand up comic, he was an emcee, a comedy emcee. He had a comedy show band and his timing, when I look back and think of things, his timing was that I actually wanted to be a warm up person. That was always in my heart but they never in my day. Then there was no warm-up women but that would was my first love.
Speaker 2:And when I was expelled from school, you know, when I was 16, with no kind of O-levels or anything I did, I did start doing stand-up comedy but wasn't like it is now because there weren't women. But I had a troupe of dancers and then I just kept auditioning, got into rep and I had worked before, as when I was younger, because I look young, I sound young and I look young, so I've always played younger parts, um. So I got into rep quite quickly playing juvenile parts and I went from there. I did 11 years of rep, um, and, you know, then fell in love with certain parts I wanted to play yeah, because that's the thing, isn't it the draw of a particular role?
Speaker 1:and, brian, for you, was there a point where, as a kid, that you were, you a storyteller was that were you the person in the room that people would hear from?
Speaker 3:my parents loved the theatre and they were amateur performers and they used to take well, didn't take me, I mean I went with them once a week to Variety Theatre. I'm going back in time now when there was such a thing as Variety and Variety was more or less suitable for all ages. So it's quite a case to take children and I used to love it and I used to get the whiff as everybody said I must have got the whiff of the smell of the grease paint and I wanted to be a Variety performer at some point. But I obviously wanted to go on stage. But there was also then Weekly Rep and our local theatre. We lived in London, ballam, I seem to remember, and there was at the local theatre. There would be Weekly Rep, but sometimes all the year round, sometimes just for a particular season, and I loved watching that.
Speaker 3:And so as soon as I was able to be at school in one of the drama classes that was held, I did that. And soon as I was able to be at school in one of the drama classes that was held, I did that and of course I was off. I just wanted to be an actor. But eventually, when I got older and I went and did national service and met the delightful Richard Bryars and encouraged him. He said it was my fault that he became an actor. I'll happily admit to that then. But we both wanted to be the loves of our lives which were the serious actors on the stage. They were the leading actors of their time and we adored them and we wanted to be our ambition, to be the old Vic and be a serious performer.
Speaker 1:Just by chance we drifted both of us mostly into comedy, but isn't it funny that there's a thing in itself, isn't it funny? The point is, comedy is undoubtedly I mean most people, I think, who actually really understand it would say that it's one of the hardest things to do. Most people, I think, who actually really understand it would say that it's one of the hardest things to do because you, in comedy, can create an emotion unlike anyone else.
Speaker 3:Yes, there's the laughter, but there's also the sadness, the tears. Yes, you couldn't just be a stand-up comic. There's lots of stand-up comics now who go in to be actors or are actors as well, and very good ones. It wasn't just being I mean, I remember seeing the look on I won't mention names but basically a stand-up actor, comedian who was in one of the plays that I was doing and he was almost desperate for laughs. If they didn't come, he would say I know it's a nudgy message, it doesn't matter, there's plenty of choice for laughs later on. It's the character that they're actually interested in. And that was a good playing in theatre, wasn't it? Yeah, being a rounded character, and if you got laughs it was obviously sometimes from being serious.
Speaker 2:It was also about reaching out to the audience, yeah, and poke it. Well, if I say like poking their heartstrings in a way, whether it's emotion. I mean I've done an awful lot of drama as well, certainly on stage, and you know, you know when you've touched their heartstrings, because you can hear a pin drop, you can hear the silence, and that's very satisfying you think I've served the playwright. That's my job, and working with other actors is a joy, isn't it? Yes?
Speaker 1:of course, Because you get to over the years, you get to know so many different people. How do you look at each other's acting? So I'm interested about you two, for example. How have you expressed to each other over the years about how you both acted apart? Are you each other's critic? Are you each other's support? We're both.
Speaker 2:Oh, we're definitely each other's support.
Speaker 3:We're both each other's fans. That's definite. Yes, that's definite.
Speaker 2:But he is the most wonderful director as well, not because he's my husband, but the fact. And I remember when I was playing Lady Macbeth, I would never have got there without Brian, because I nearly lost my nerve. I was terrified of that part. And no, he's absolutely wonderful. He's so supportive and he's got such a keen eye. He picks things up and he picks me up on things and he's got such a keen eye he picks things up and he picks me up on things and he's always right.
Speaker 3:Well, I had wonderful training because I don't know how much the name of Joan Littlewood would mean to listeners. But you know, I join as a 22-year-old youth, Joan Littlewood's company, 22-year-old youth Joan Littlewood's company.
Speaker 2:But I know, sorry to interrupt, that doesn't make you a great director with the great eye that you've got.
Speaker 3:It gives you experience. Of course it does and opens.
Speaker 3:But you've got that extra eye, it opens your eyes because she points the way, or had pointed the way, for my audition for Joan at the ripe old age of 22. I did my Hamlet because I had played Hamlet with a semi-professional company and we'd gone to Poland believe it or not and played it. So I got all sorts of funny reactions Because she was sitting in or standing in the auditorium, which was dark, and I was on the stage at the Theatre Royal Stratford East and I gave my all as I thought, and then eventually onto the stage came this little I think almost so elderly she wasn't, obviously with a knitted hat on and whatever, and very, very warm and very, very welcoming and say, yes, very good, brian, very good, what else are you interested in? And I said, well, I like drawing and things and I'm not too bad at it and I have been given some training as an architect. She said, hmm. She said well, you're very young. She said what I said 20. She said, well, you're very young. She said what I said 20. She said I'm very young. What you really need is a lot of experience as a person, as a human being, not as an actor, as a human being. She said you know, the more experience you get in life, the more you can bring to this funny craft that we're involved in. I said, oh right, and then she said so I think what you should do is come back and see me at some later stage. I said, oh right, that's a big elbow.
Speaker 3:That was Friday. Saturday I got a telegram that tells you what time period it was and it said Brian, dear Brian, join us on Monday. So I joined on Monday and I never really got to the truth of the matter because I said to Joan at one time did somebody die? But she never admitted to anything at all and I think she was a bit company short. Of course it was a wonderful experience. It was what I would expect was a bit company short because it was a wonderful experience. It was what I would expect from a university, what a university should be.
Speaker 1:And in fact, that's the thing, isn't it about the training that you get in life that then helps you with your roles that you have Should do?
Speaker 2:The experience you have in life, the pain you suffer. You know the pain you suffer when you lose a pair.
Speaker 3:Nothing is wasted, is it?
Speaker 2:Nothing is wasted. It goes into that little emotional bag.
Speaker 3:It's quite funny, isn't it sometimes, particularly when you're doing theatre, emotionally, when you're doing theatre, that something comes to you while you're doing it and you think I wonder where that came from.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and that's been tucked away and kicks you into getting that right emotion. Absolutely. Yeah, I agree with that.
Speaker 1:Brian, what do you learn about Linda from the roles she's done and the experience that you've had? She's described you as the greatest director.
Speaker 3:Well, and actor, it's because, working for so long with you two who I'd known before, we became a funny couple and appreciated her ability and everything like that and the ease in which we got on with each other and I thought, well, I don't know if I'll ever find that again, but somehow or other that's what came about when I worked with Linda. She's much younger and I wasn't all that keen to do the piece. So I was working on a Ray Cooney farce and I wanted a break. But my agent said oh, come on, you must do this for John Newman and Eastbourne and you like Eastbourne. I said okay, so I did it and met Linda and we struck it off whatever it's called and I appreciated the performance insofar in a selfish manner that we got on so well and that I could do things and Linda would respond to it without me thinking, oh God, where is?
Speaker 1:this which is actually a really key part, isn't it, of chemistry on stage, because if you don't feel like you've got the connection with the person, oh, yeah, yes, definitely.
Speaker 3:That makes a battle that doesn't serve the play at all. Really, if you don't get on. Sometimes you're very astute at that. Sometimes you look at something that's happening on the television and it's a she doesn't like him or he doesn't like her.
Speaker 1:Is that right? Can you see it? I sense it and it's perfectly true later I say oh, they're not hiding it enough.
Speaker 3:She's a very instinctive actress, which is what I like and appreciate. There are so many people who do it by numbers, as it were, and Linda doesn't. She trusts her instinct.
Speaker 1:When did you both know that it was more than just a great chemistry of an acting relationship? When you knew that you liked each other?
Speaker 3:Same summer season, wasn't it?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, it was that summer season, but after we'd opened the play, on the day after we'd opened the play, we decided to go to one of the pretty villages near Eastbourne and have lunch. And I was absolutely determined that he wasn't going to buy me lunch, because I didn't want that. I wanted, you know, my own independence. So I said I will pay for this, I want to pay for this. So, you know, he argued a bit but eventually I won and I paid for the lunch. You know it wasn't a great thing, was it? A bit of cheese and pickles. But there you go. Anyway, I managed, I paid for lunch and he very kindly said to me well, you know, during the season I'll take you back out somewhere. And I said, yes, that's fine, no worries. And we got on terribly well. As I said, we worked together.
Speaker 3:And round.
Speaker 2:Well, squabbled, squabbled, squabbled, and then, towards the end of the season, he said oh, I'll take you to Luigi's, which was the nicest Italian restaurant for supper after a show. And I said, oh, that would be lovely. So we went to Luigi's. Where was Luigi's? Luigi's is in Eastbourne, in Eastbourne, yeah. And this was after the show. And he was very, very gentle and he said I will walk you back to your flat. And I said, no, it's okay, I'm fine. No, no, I'll walk you back to your flat. Well, what we didn't know was, as he walked along, we were followed by a big seagull and he just sort of hovered a bit on top of Brian and I kept thinking, oh my God, shall I say something? And suddenly, you know, the seagull decided he didn't like either of us, but he managed to land his droppings on Brian's head.
Speaker 3:Bald head.
Speaker 2:And Brian was being rich. He said, no, no, it's fine. I said, well, I wish I'd brought an umbrella. So that was sort of the first. So you know, we got on very well then and we had a lot of laughs.
Speaker 2:And then, of course, the season ended and I thought, well, he was bound to ask me out. And he didn't, and, um, so he went off home and I went off home and then the next day, um, I was going to meet my girlfriends at Walthamstow dogs, dog racing, and Brian was rehearsing at Stratford East the Invisible man and I thought, well, I'll just go past and see. And he was looking out the window. So I drove in, and you can't miss my pink car. And I drove in and he came running out and he said, what are you doing here? And I said, well, I'm on my way to Walthamstow, going to meet the girls for a night out. And he went, oh, I said, well, um, would you like to come to tea one day with me at my house? And he said, yes, that would be nice. I said, well, when would you like to come? And he said, well, I could come today. And I said, all right, and he's been there ever since he never moved out did you yes, yes, it's funny.
Speaker 3:It's like good roles that turn out to be the good roles that you play in theatre. We met together and we were obviously hit it off At one time, but we did used to argue quite a lot and there was one period when one of the other actresses said to us are you sure you are two, not really married? And we said, oh, yes, yes. Well, they said you didn't want me to wear a miniskirt.
Speaker 2:But you were right. Yes, yes you see, you were right then because I thought, oh well, it's because he's a lot older than me, he doesn't want me in a miniskirt. But in fact the fact of the matter was I think we talked about the play earlier she was getting frustrated in the role she was, and after she decided to start going out that's when she should have come on in a miniskirt, not before she should have had the kind of dress you know, frustrated. So you were right and I wasn't.
Speaker 2:Yeah and things like that, but I just squabbled back.
Speaker 3:And of course we both, although we were in television and arguably obviously made our names in television, we both loved theatre and had both done weekly rep and such and training. So we were serious, serious actors in one respect.
Speaker 2:Serious comedy actors.
Speaker 1:And I want to say that the seagull my dad, former seaman, would have said that that was just lucky. You were being blessed.
Speaker 2:The thing is the butterfly story in the theatre, which we all know. If a butterfly flies around on the first night, your play is going to be a success, Whereas if a butterfly lands on the person, it means you're going to get married or have a whatever. Well, on the very first night of Wife Begins at 40, a butterfly landed on my hand. Do you remember? I kept going like that to you to say look the butterfly's on my hand. I had no idea we were going to get married.
Speaker 3:No, there's a lot of superstitions in theatre.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:Oh, there's a lot of superstitions in theatre. Yes, oh, yes, there are, and based on some vague form of fact. It's amazing, oh, but there are ghosts in theatres.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, I heard one at York.
Speaker 1:Did you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's one in the. She's apparently a walled-up nun, because it used to be a convent, I think the Theatre Royal. I was in rep there for two years and you have to go. The dressing rooms are on one level and then you have to go up this sort of windy staircase to go to the laundry room and you leave all your laundry there at the end of the show and then you can go to the pub. We used to take it in turns to take all the laundry up. This was my turn and I was working with lovely Sue Hodge who went into Alo Alo. Mimi in Alo Alo, most wonderful actress and fab fun, and so it was my turn. I took all the.
Speaker 2:I was on my way up the steps and I heard this kind of murmuring and I thought I thought it was Hodge. I thought it was. We just called each other heartfelt. I thought it was Sue Hodge sending me up and I went do be quiet, it's bad, I'm nervous enough as it is. I looked around. It was all in dark downstairs. I said turn the lights on, and then there was nothing. I said come on, that's enough. And there was nothing and I carried on up and I dropped the stuff. And then I ran downstairs and ran into the pub and she was there. She'd drunk half her drink and I said, did you not? You were not frightened. She said no, of course I'd never do that, and so I had heard the walled up night.
Speaker 3:You are a bit psychic, though Perceptive.
Speaker 2:Yeah, obviously, but that freaked me out.
Speaker 1:These places, they are full, aren't they of history, Absolutely.
Speaker 2:There's another one, isn't there at Wimbledon? Oh, they're all baths.
Speaker 3:Those old theatres have got some. Yeah, yeah, they have With ghosty story, I think the ghosts are kind of quite kind to us though.
Speaker 2:I don't think I mean that. Walled up, none.
Speaker 1:I don't know the story behind it, but I don't think I want to you haven't written that one yet have you, Linda Regan and Brian Murphy with me on Talking here and it is interesting. And I wanted to touch on just something you said about comedy earlier, about the kind of comedy that's done today when something like Benidorm comes along, do you think that you look at the writing on things like that and go, oh, there's the sense of where we used to be.
Speaker 2:Well, I love. Again. I will always say the most important thing about any story, any show, anything for me always has to be character. Everything has to be character-driven. If we like that character, we want to see them, we want to journey with them. So, yes, I like Benidorm and I believe the characters are very strong and very good. Having said that, my hubby was in it. Yes, I did. You did an episode, didn't you? And Polly did I did one, but they're all nice, strong characters.
Speaker 1:And what's it like Brian with that ensemble strong characters. And what's it like Brian with that ensemble, because you both have that from both of your careers. Ensemble seems to me to be everything, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it is, isn't it?
Speaker 1:I like the ensemble you lasted some a while. Alvin Smedley, wasn't it? Yes?
Speaker 3:It's the comradeship and the faith and trust and assurance amongst a group of people that have been working together for a long time and not just doing a job and moving on.
Speaker 2:And the fact you know each other. You know each other's timing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there is something warm, and theatre obviously is much more automatic in that respect than television, particularly the way television has changed now. Because, don, as you mentioned earlier on, much of television when it first started was a direct movement from the theatre. We rehearsed and we did all those things. But not now. It's more like making films now. So somebody once said to me you've worked with Annie Guinness, you know, played with Annie Guinness on television. I said yes, yes, I was before. What's he like? I said I've no idea, I never met him. They said but you must be, you were in. And I said yes, but I never had a scene with him, so I never met him at any stage. And so you don't have the same connection in television, do you?
Speaker 3:No, sitcom, we did because we used to rehearse those.
Speaker 2:And work in front of an audience. No.
Speaker 1:I suppose that's interesting about that the dynamic of everything. And you're both storytellers. You've always been able to do that clearly in your jobs. But when did the point come where that story became more on the page? We talked about Brian, with directing as well as acting, but for you, Linda, you and I have known each other in more recent years because of the books, this incredible breadth of what are you? Nine books now, Nine crime thrillers yeah. I just wonder how much the acting side has really helped you to develop characters.
Speaker 2:Absolutely 100% there. Crime thrillers, yeah, I just wonder how much the acting side has really helped you to develop characters. Absolutely 100 there. The, the, the two work together so well. I mean, as an actor, your characters are so much, I think, so much stronger, um, and clearer. Because you are a character, you invent characters. You've I've always done that since I was a child. I was acting as a child, as we know, so I've always invented characters. So just putting them on page is something that I adore doing, but I don't find it hard. Some writers come to me and say I'm crucified about finding a new this, that and the other policeman, and I can't do this. And I find that you know, and I think that's the crux of a story, I've said it. I think we said before driven by the character, I would always say name me a book, any book, and that the character, if you like the book that you like, you will find it's because you want to journey with that character Exit character.
Speaker 3:It's perfectly true Because when Linda started to write I liked reading crime novels and things, but I was brought up on, obviously, Agatha Christie and such and I read Linda and I was held because of Linda's connection with the characters. Sometimes books are about the manner in which they're written. They can be very clever and things like that, but if the character is carrying you, you don't want to put the book down.
Speaker 1:But there was actually a confidence thing at the beginning. Wasn't there between you when you were first writing? You didn't know, linda, whether it was any good.
Speaker 2:I still don't. I mean no, I don't, she threw them all. Good, I still don't. I mean no, I don't, she'd throw them all away. I don't, I mean, I don't. How do you know, when you're sitting with yourself for hours writing and you've got then to hand your book over, which is the hardest thing in the world? Oh, it must. It's terrifying and wait for the phone call to say what your agent or what your publisher thinks about it. It's terrifying. If anybody out there is writing, you are not alone. You know you are not alone and I've written, as I said, nine published, but I've actually written 13, still trying to sell the others, but you know it never gets any better, the first one she threw in the rubbish bin outside.
Speaker 2:Yes, I did.
Speaker 3:I mean not our rubbish bin, the bins that are collected, you know, across the road by the railway station where we lived and I said where's your book? She said I've thrown it away. You haven't. She said I've thrown it in, you haven't? She said well, where have you thrown it? She said. I've thrown it in the closet. I went over and scrabbled around and I found it, and thankfully it was.
Speaker 2:And that won a competition, which was what actually started getting me published.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:So I mean I'd thrown it away. I thought what a load of tosh. So you can't judge your own work, but you always do.
Speaker 3:That's why you need a director as an actor.
Speaker 2:That's why when we do self-tapes as actors, when we're auditioning it's you know, we've come to the place in our lives when self-tapes are the way we we get work and that they ask us to do them. But I'm going to say this very loud and I think I'm speaking on behalf of every actor in England we don't have a director to say change that. To that we know you're capable, just change that, because an editor doesn't will do that will give us that note. A good director will give us that note. But when we're on our own self tapes, we don't know what you want. We're only trying, so know. I think the sad thing about self-tapes now is that we're judged. We're not judged as well as we could be.
Speaker 1:It could be an iPhone and you're looking down the barrel of that and then sending it away and hoping for the best, but no kind of conversation.
Speaker 2:No, and you never get a feedback. No, you never hear. You don't expect to hear. But I mean, you know, and they do say to you say, can you do this and do that? Well, no, because I'm not a lighting technician, I'm not a director, I'm not a cameraman, I'm a simple actor and you know, I don't know where to put the lighting ring thing that I bought on Amazon for £29. It's to make my kind of light, my way in this self-tape. I don't know whether to put it in front of me behind me or on my head like a halo A bit lazy really, I mean, we don't know.
Speaker 2:And people to say please do it, please make sure that your lighting is correct so we can see you. We're doing our best.
Speaker 1:So where do things like acting jobs come from these days?
Speaker 2:well, my agent will phone up and say a casting director's asked you to do a self tape, for last week I did one for which will pearl tv series, which is wonderful.
Speaker 3:Somebody might ask for you?
Speaker 2:I've never heard another word. But the casting director would have asked for me, um, or my agent would have suggested me. And then they come to me and say here's the script which you print down. So you have to have a printer. Can you please do self-tape by tomorrow? Learn it, please. Do learn it word for word and please send us a self-tape by tomorrow 12 o'clock.
Speaker 1:Brian, is there something you would still do? Be happy to be asked to do? Henry IV and.
Speaker 3:Part I or II for Justice Shallow which was a part which I would have adored to have played and an old man reminiscing about their future, their past conquests of young girls, only to discover that of course, they've all died. It's a very funny interlude in the play I would have loved to play, but I'm so ancient now that the idea I would not have the energy to be able to continue that period of rehearsal and then perform. It's an awful lot of energy expended, however big or small a part is in the theatre.
Speaker 1:How do you have that capacity to remember everything? How do you do that? How do we do that?
Speaker 2:I don't know. I think training from years ago and he's still got a brilliant. He brilliantly learns stuff. I just think when you start to do it young, it's something that stays with you, you know like riding a bike, Muscle memory. I think so.
Speaker 3:But you do things darling which you've got to remember how to do. I didn't see you referring to any pieces of paper.
Speaker 1:No, it's funny, isn't it? I've got pieces of paper down on the right-hand side. I don't need to look at it because we're having a conversation. That's what talking is all about.
Speaker 3:You know where everything is technically and you know you've done it and you set up and you look around and that's all. Through your experience and learning, some people do find it very, very difficult. Yeah, people do, but I never have on you.
Speaker 2:No, I don't think I have, and I had a slight dyslexia at school. I was always saying the wrong word and I could only write backwards for years. That's because I'm Irish, I guess.
Speaker 1:But doesn't that also actually show, after nine novels, that you can overcome anything in life? Absolutely, absolutely and also, I know, with your health as well. You know you've overcome cancer three times three times yes yeah, yes, I have.
Speaker 2:So you know, and I say to anybody. I mean, I'm heartbroken about Princess Kate, but she will. She'll be absolutely fine.
Speaker 3:And the King. We have the same problem.
Speaker 2:Yeah, everybody. And medical. Oh gosh, it's gone forward so quickly now and people are doing so well with it and cancer is not the fear it has to be. I mean, it was terrifying to hear, I'm afraid to tell, you've got cancer. Of course that's the most terrifying thing you can hear. I've heard it rough. But you know, here I am to tell the tale. You know, I think I'm okay, bounce about, I can still get my legs in the air.
Speaker 1:I do yoga, sorry but the one thing you both have with each other is this incredible, vibrant, upbeat, positive support of each other, and you know people don't say enough love.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we do. We have a deep love for each other. We're very, very fortunate in all aspects that we found each other.
Speaker 3:Apart from obviously the illnesses and things.
Speaker 2:Well, no, we're fortunate because we've overcome them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, flesh and bones are inherent to whatever Shakespeare said, aren't they? We're heirs to all sorts of things as human beings.
Speaker 2:But no, we're fine, we're fine, it's a positive, we have a beautiful doggy as well as part of the family.
Speaker 1:Who's been sitting alongside us? Yes, she's watching.
Speaker 3:We're very fortunate. I still think one of the richest times and periods of learning and things was the theatre Going and being able to be a rep and learn all sorts of things, even if it's not necessarily drawn on now in television. I enjoyed doing the television and the sitcoms, which were rather like doing theatre, but it isn't the same. Is it Exercise? We don't do it in order I can't think of the word now.
Speaker 2:Well, we don't have rehearsal, which is a shame, because rehearsal is where you grow, isn't it?
Speaker 3:It's technical, yeah, but for young people, that's what they want to be able to do, isn't it? They want to come off the streets and be themselves, which is what more or less they're asked to, because when we went into radio, they used to say now, how many accents can you do? Right, yeah, couldn't you?
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:You know that, yeah, and you'd go through them all.
Speaker 2:No, you can't.
Speaker 3:And they'd take off the ones that weren't so good and they'd say, yes, ok, that's all right, but now they wouldn't use you unless you were.
Speaker 1:From all the things, though, that you do, you continue to do, and the writing which is you know, I can imagine the scariest part of throwing that manuscript through, still from the very first day, of Brian rescuing the first story from the bin to you physically going down the post office and putting it in. I mean must be cathartic too, because you create a story and you send the story and then people around the world read the story. That must be phenomenal.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's lovely and getting. I mean, I think I've been lucky that they've all been reviewed. Well, Nobody more surprised than me.
Speaker 1:The Burning Question is the latest book and you get some great feedbacks from, not the internet, but whatever the social media is.
Speaker 3:From a reader which is very important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, they do do very well, Not a critic but a reader.
Speaker 1:But the reader who has done exactly what you both started this conversation with, which is connect with the character, is the audience that you see out there in the theatre. They're the same people. They are, yeah.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and they're the ones that count. And the nice thing is when they, like when we did the Talking Pictures Festival last week people come back and they say I bought one of your books last year and can I buy the rest of the set? That's absolutely, isn't it. That is. That's the icing on the cake for me. You feel like giving them to them, but it's so exciting. You know you write to please, so yeah, having said that, you know I've got to get my next one out.
Speaker 1:There we go. There's always a thing, and then the next thing, and that's the same for any job, presumably.
Speaker 3:Linda's never seemed to be sure. She said when are you going to have a break? I don't know. I've got another story. You have to keep all these stories running in your head, but you're never short of them are you?
Speaker 3:No, no. I think that's amazing because somebody said do you write? Well, I have done some sort of writing, but if I had to sit down with a wad of paper with nothing on them they set lines I wouldn't know what to do. I'd be panicking because I wouldn't know what to do. I'd be panicking because I hadn't got an idea.
Speaker 1:Quick fire question to you both. You mentioned, by the way, about the icing on the cake. I've been staring all the way through this conversation at a piece of cake that you gave me. Yes, and I still haven't had it, so I'm going to in a moment. But out of all of the TV or film or on-screen roles or theatre you've done, is there one character who never left you, who never actually stayed on the page? They became a part of you in a major way. Maybe it's not the one we think.
Speaker 2:Well, I have to say that I think playing Marilyn Monroe was a major I don't know what to say. She hit me so hard because I think she was such a sad, she had such a. It was sadness even. I don't think she was ever happy, even at the height of her fame, uh, and I think she's rich. She stayed with me for a very long time because it's also about a working actress. But I had to get inside that person of that really famous actress and do you really does every actress want to be as famous as that? I don't. But the fact that she was so determined and all she went through and everything that happened to her and her story I don't think has ever left me. She hit me very, very hard playing her every night. I mean, it wasn't one of my favourite parts. In a way it was because it got me so hard.
Speaker 1:It's the one that stayed with you, yeah.
Speaker 3:Brian, it's funny, isn't it? Because that was playing somebody who existed, and I feel the same way. I played Arthur Lukeman who played Old Mother Riley. You know, mr Knocker, daughter, daughter, and I used to do that as an imitation because my parents had taken me to the Varieties I said earlier and I'd seen Old Mother Riley on stage and so I loved playing her and then the opportunity to play her and him, arthur, as well. That meant doing somebody that existed and that brings all sorts of things into your mind and whatever.
Speaker 3:And it's never gone away. No Other characters I loved and played and said, oh yes, I did like them.
Speaker 2:But they weren't real. Were they? We invented them.
Speaker 3:They weren't real, these people were real.
Speaker 1:That's real and actually that brings me, finally, to the idea of both of you are recognised for these roles that you've had on British TV I was just thinking about. I mentioned during this, I think I said once my late dad For me, Brian, that character of George, George Roper, my dad worshipped that programme.
Speaker 2:I reckon he probably sent that seagull.
Speaker 3:And the reality of the human beings isn't it? Because how many people have come up and said what they said to me? You know I love children. We've got a George living next door to us, oh yeah. It was never them or their husbands.
Speaker 2:It was somebody that lived next door to us and how many people come up to me in the park and say, oh, my pets are called George and Mildred.
Speaker 3:Yes, there are lots of people that we've got two goldfish and they're called George and Mildred.
Speaker 2:We went to that vet. Do you remember our first vet when I married Brian?
Speaker 1:I've had loads of dogs.
Speaker 2:Brian hadn't. So I bought him a fox terrier and we called her Mildred Millie and we took her to the vet for the first time and the vet, who was Australian and the show is massive over there said I've got two dogs, they're called George and Mildred.
Speaker 1:How many people get to go into people's lives and they form part of that memory of someone's life that will stay with them to their end day. And I want to say to you both thank you for what you've both given.
Speaker 2:Thank you for what you've given.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we were doing a job and sometimes we actually got paid.
Speaker 1:You've been listening to Linda Regan and Brian Murphy. Thank you for being with me on Talking. Thank, you.
Speaker 3:Thank you Bye-bye. Ag you for being with me on Talking. Thank you, thank you, bye bye.
Speaker 2:Asians, don't call on a Saturday.
Speaker 1:Where's the phone? Thanks for listening. The music to Talking is composed by Johnny Easton. Talking is a Laughing Frog production.
