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
I'm Still Rita - At home with Cheryl Baker
In Episode 3 of of 'TALK KING' - Broadcaster Dominic King meets Cheryl Baker at her home in Kent.
Cheryl is best known for her her television work on shows including children's BBC TV Show Record Breakers and as one of the founding members of Buck Fizz - she continues to tour as The Fizz.
Find out more about Laughing Frog Productions at www.laughingfrogproductions.com
Hello, I'm Dominic King, this time on Talking Television presenter and singer Cheryl Baker, a member of the 1981 Eurovision-winning Bucks Fizz, born in the heart of the East End, now living in a Kent village of just 350, and that's where we met at her family home.
Speaker 2:You're going to hear my dog panting in the background.
Speaker 1:Cupid is a massive dog.
Speaker 2:Cheryl, he's beautiful, isn't he? He's a long-haired German shepherd. He breathes very heavy. So if anyone listening to this here's heavy breathing, it's not me, it's my dog.
Speaker 1:I've known you on the air as Cheryl Cheryl Baker, yes, but actually I also know that that is not your actual name.
Speaker 2:No, no, no. Well, that's because in 1975, I joined my first band, and these are the exact words. I saw an advert in the Melody Maker for a girl singer required for a harmony band, and this is not Bucks Fizz. This was six years before Bucks Fizz and I rang the number and I spoke to a manager. His name was Slim Miller.
Speaker 1:What a great name.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he was a comedian and then he turned, you know, changed his career and made himself an agent. He used to look after the New Seekers, actually, and the an agent. He used to look after the New Seekers, actually, and the band that I was hoping to have a job with, which were called Mother's Pride at the time, and so I rang and he said Slim Miller and I said oh, I'm ringing about the advert in the Melody Maker. And he said what's your name? And I said Rita Crudgington and he said well, that'll have to go Crudgington.
Speaker 1:And he said well, that'll have to go, so, rita.
Speaker 2:Crudgington, rita Crudgington.
Speaker 1:Cheryl Baker, welcome to Talking.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much. I auditioned for the band, I got the job and they said you have to change your name. So I did. I changed it to Bonnie Silver and I was Bonnie Silver for two weeks and then they said actually we don't like that. That's you know where.
Speaker 2:Rita Crudgington wasn't stagey enough. They thought Bonnie Silver was too stagey, so we came up with Cheryl Baker and Dom. I tell you this without a word of a lie. I don't even remember who came up with the names. It might have been me, it might not have been. The band were in summer season in Blackpool, and so I had to go up to Blackpool and learn all the songs. I was replacing one of the girls who was leaving and stayed in a house. They had a house share, and so of an evening they were working and during the day they were rehearsing with me, and I remember all of us sitting around in the lounge of this house in Blackpool coming up with ideas for names, and I think I might have chosen Baker, because it's oh you know, when you have to spell Crudgington to people.
Speaker 1:How much do you use that? Well, obviously not now and because of being married. But and well, there was another thing as well. So, uh, with Steve, what's Steve's?
Speaker 2:Stroud. So I am now Rita Stroud, but I didn't get married until I was I was just before my 38th birthday, so, um, so I stayed Crudgington until I was almost 38, um, but Baker, we changed it to Baker. I don't think it was me that chose Cheryl, but I don't really remember. And I said to my mum, I rang my mum and I went mum, change my name again. And she went oh, what am I going to call you? And I went mum, I'm still me, I'm still Rita. And my friends from school, who I still see to this day, they went oh, that's going to be really weird calling you by something else. And I went you don't have to call me something else, it's still me, I'm still me. Cheryl Baker goes on stage and that's how I've kept it done all those years. And it's going to be next year. It's going to be 50 years that I've been in this industry, 50 years of being Cheryl Baker, but in my heart and in my head, I'm still Rita Crudgington from Bethnal Green.
Speaker 1:You have a very grounded start because you're a very sort of tight-knit community. Was that very much part of your family life growing up?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I knew nothing. I didn't I. The first time I went abroad I was 19 and I went with my aunt Ive and uncle Bert and me, cousin Lorraine. I've never been on a plane before. I've still somewhere. I've still got the photos of me going on the plane. You know, wow, my life was very much surrounding Bethnal Green and just beyond. So when I left school I got a job as a secretary in the city, so I could get the number eight bus to Shoreditch, or you know, or I could jump on the train to Liverpool Street and, and you know, there were jobs ten a penny in those days for shorthand typists, which is what I was Pittmans, by the way I could still do it.
Speaker 2:Hello, I don't know when you're going to need a proper job.
Speaker 1:At any stage. It could happen, couldn't it? But that in itself is like that's amazing.
Speaker 2:It's like a blast from the past for so many people, because they'll say, oh, the pitman's typing test, amazing well, when I, when I do my shows on the ships, I do a story called my life, sheryl wake in my life and I talk about, you know, the early days, and I say that I used to be a shorthand typist and I say pitman's, anyone do pitman's? And so many of the women say, yeah, well, I do pitman's, but anyway, so that was it I. I used to get the bus or the train to Liverpool Street to go to work, which really, you know, is probably a 45 minute walk. I could have done it in and holidays we only ever went to Laysdown on Sea, on the Isle of Sheppey. And so that was it for me Laysdown in the summer, with my family living and working and school in sort of East London and EC1 area or EC2. In East London and EC1 area or EC2. And that was it.
Speaker 2:I did nothing. That was my life. My life was in a tiny little area. And then, when I auditioned for this band in 1975, I had to get the bus from Victoria to Blackpool and my sister came to see me off. I was 21, and she was crying because I'd never been anywhere, I'd never done anything, and it was a massive step for me to do. It was a massive risk. I'm doing something on my own. I'd never been away, never left home. I still didn't leave home. I didn't leave home when I was in Bucks Fizz.
Speaker 1:It was frightening, I guess.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but also I liked being at home. I had a fantastic family life. My mum and dad especially my mum was just glorious. Sang from you know. The time she woke up to the time she went to bed Was very untidy, a bit like me, but always busy, always making food. I love cooking. I get that from my mum. I get a lot from my mum, actually Her cooking and her music definitely, and her untidiness, I'm afraid. Not that she was lazy and not that I'm lazy, but if she peeled potatoes she would leave the peeling and go on to do something else, and so the peeling was left there and then she'd do something else. She'd do the Brussels sprouts and she'd leave the trimmings of the Brussels sprouts, and so she used to leave this debris behind her wherever she went. What?
Speaker 1:was your mum's name.
Speaker 2:Well, her name was Florence, but everyone called her Dolly, and my dad was Edward and everyone called him Ted. So my mum and dad were called Dolly and Teddy.
Speaker 1:That's genius, isn't it? They were lovely.
Speaker 2:There they were. My dad was a shoemaker and I tell you what my dad worked. I bought them a house in the end and that was when he stopped working and then I had to buy my own shoes. I remember going into wherever it was going how much? Because he used to make them for me. You know he wasn't a cobbler as such, but he was also. You know he was born in 1915, so he was 23 when he went into the army and in the Second World War and he was a sergeant major in the Second World War and when he came back he still was. You know he used to march like a sergeant major and he was very regimented and everything times and you know, just like people in the army are.
Speaker 1:you know, so, um, so we're completely different from him, um, you know you said about buying a house, was that through bucks fears and the success that you've had?
Speaker 2:that was my primary thing that I wanted to do. We lived in a council flat in Bethnal Green and and I must say, I loved it. I really loved it, and I was born there. I was born in the front room of that council flat, so it's all I'd ever known. And when I won the Eurovision I was 27. So all the neighbours I knew. You know, people didn't move in and out. You know, if you were born there, you stayed there, sort of thing, and that's how things were in Bethnal Green then. And so all of the neighbours, all the people in the blocks of flats either side, I knew everybody. I didn't want to move out at all. And then we won the Eurovision and suddenly I had some money coming in.
Speaker 2:My dad. At that time he was past retirement, he was about 66, 67. And I thought he's going to be kicked out. They're going to say, ted, you're too old and old, and what's he gonna do then living in a block of flats? He loved gardening, he used to grow tomatoes in the uh, just in the windowsills and things. And I thought, what is it? What is my dad? My mum will cope wherever she is, but my dad won't. And so I thought I've got to buy my house and I, you know, I was very fortunate that I could afford to. So it was great, it was fantastic. I just I went and found the. So it was great, it was fantastic. I just I went and found the house. It was in Basildon and the reason I chose Basildon was because it's an overspill of East London. I didn't want them to feel like out of their depth.
Speaker 1:So again, it's that kind of like Metropolitan Kent. It's just near Essex, it's that kind of almost crossover point.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I came in. I remember coming into it and saying Mum and Dad, I bought you a house, do you want to see it? And it was a semi-detached little house, small garden, but round the corner there was some shops and there was a little club where my dad could go.
Speaker 1:And that's where they finished their days in that house, so it was great At the time. We're talking you just mentioned about Eurovision I was thinking about, you know, it's the 50th anniversary of ABBA winning at Brighton. Those years and the year that you won with Bucks Fizz, they're kind of this golden age of music, almost in the sense of certainly for Eurovision, I think, and it's a bit like being in the Olympics, isn't it in the sense of once you've won one? Or once you've won an Oscar, a BAFTA, you always have won an Oscar, a BAFTA. You guys will always have won Eurovision for you, is that kind of a kind of mixed blessing about Eurovision, or are you proud of it?
Speaker 2:I'm incredibly proud of it. I mean, it was something that a child would dream. When I saw Sandy Shaw in 1967, and I thought, funny, you should mention the Olympics, because I wanted to be an Olympic runner. I loved running, I loved sport, I still love sport and I thought I was going to join Victoria Park Harriers, which was the local sports club. But I couldn't afford to. Yeah, I wanted to be an Olympic runner. And then I saw Sandy Shaw win the Eurovision and I thought actually that's what I want to do. That's like winning the Olympics, but in music.
Speaker 1:So that became I still want to win an Olympic gold, obviously yeah, of course do you think you win because you've got a song that just can talk to everyone yeah, I do.
Speaker 2:I think that that's what happened with Making your Mind Up and I say, oh, it's not my cup of tea. Making your Mind Up Never has been. You know, I like James Taylor and Joni Mitchell. Can you imagine James Taylor singing Making your Mind Up?
Speaker 1:It would be amazing, yeah.
Speaker 2:Lyrically not so much, but yeah.
Speaker 1:But you don't like that song?
Speaker 2:No, but how can I knock it? It changed my life. I met Sandy Shaw for the very first time last year up in Liverpool and honestly I said to her you don't know how much you mean to me. You changed my life. You gave me the incentive not just to be a singer but to do the Eurovision Song Contest, and she was very nonchalant about it and almost sort of brushed it off. But I thought you just don't know, you just don't realize what a difference you made to my life. And it's funny because I know that that's happened with us. I know, for instance, this is going off piste here. But oh, what's her name?
Speaker 1:Rekha, oh, oh, bianca, bianca yes the character Bianca.
Speaker 2:Yes, her real name is Julie and I knew her as a little girl because her mum and dad ran a pub and my boyfriend at the time. We used to pop into this pub Patsy Palmer Patsy Palmer, but her real name's Julie. But there was a Julie Palmer, I think, already. So we used to go into the pub because it was en route to his house and she was so excited because I was in Bucks Fears, you know and she had this beautiful red hair, as she has. Anyway, she wanted to come. She was a big fan and she wanted to come and see us.
Speaker 2:And I don't know where we did it Hammersmith, apollo or Dominion or wherever and she was in the front row and I got her up and she met the guys either before the show or after, I don't remember it, don't remember doing it. And then I bumped into her at an event after she'd become a big star in EastEnders and she said you don't remember meeting me, do you? And I went, no, and she said my mum and dad used to run. I went oh, they run that pub, that's right. And she went. But do you remember inviting us to a gig? And she said you'll never know how much that meant to me. She said I cried. I cried because I was over overwhelmed with emotion, because and I thought blimey, you know, you can't, you don't imagine that you could mean that much to somebody, but and yet you aren't, you do what was it like to be surrounded by musicians from all over Europe all doing a similar thing?
Speaker 1:What was that feeling like? Do you remember that period, especially with that song?
Speaker 2:Well, I did Eurovision twice. I did it in 1978 as well, in Paris with the band that originally were called Mother's Pride, that eventually became Coco. Same band, slightly different line-up. It's a bit strange, to be perfectly honest, when you're surrounded with people that are talking different languages. And and I went up to liverpool, I was very much involved in liverpool last year, um, when it was in the uk. And then again, you know, you've got all the different um countries all their own. They've got all their own different areas and they keep to them oh right yeah, it's a.
Speaker 2:It's a. It's not like a big party where everyone mixes.
Speaker 1:Because that's what it feels like when you're watching it on the telly. Yeah, so it's not.
Speaker 2:No, no, they do kind of keep to their own tribe. If you know what I mean. It is very tribal Eurovision, but I mean some of them. I mean, when we did Eurovision in Dublin as Bucks Fizz, we were very, very friendly with the Irish contingent. They were great, the Irish band, they were absolutely lovely, but not really anybody else. And in Paris I don't remember having a conversation with anyone other than our own party. So no, it's a bit weird really.
Speaker 1:Olly Alexander is our entry for this time round. What do you think about that? Almost having people who are known for their own pop career and getting them to, or a YouTube star like Sam, you know, getting them to be the voice of Eurovision now, rather than it potentially being people who are unknown in the past. Maybe that then become really big.
Speaker 2:Or known. I think it's fine. I think it's the way things have moved. You know, eurovision has moved on dramatically, massively, compared to how it was when we did it and certainly compared to how it was when ABBA did it. And in fact I spoke to a Bucksfizz fan. We did a little gig a couple of weeks ago in Tunbridge in the old fire station. It's tiny and you can, it only takes about 80 to 100, but it's the real ardent fans, the fans that want to know every, every detail of everything. They don't want to hear making your mind up and make believe. They want to hear the obscure album tracks and stuff like that. So anyway, I remember talking to someone there who said that it's been suggested that for Eurovision events now they should only go back to the year 2000. So because and if you think about it, I mean that's 24 years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but when you said that, my brain was like well, that sounds a bit that 20 years old, I mean 24 years.
Speaker 2:But it eliminates well, it eliminates every single British entry that's won, every single one, and it eliminates the likes of Waterloo and so many other great songs. But I do kind of get it because, as I say, it has moved on so much and the songs are so dramatic now and the production and everything I mean making your mind up, if mean making your mind up, if you put making your mind up in the Eurovision now, we'd get nil poids. You know it's moved on.
Speaker 1:When that comes up as a track list on a song for you at an event that you do when you know it's coming and you don't really like the song. Is that tough to do?
Speaker 2:No, I mean, I don't like the song because it's not my kind of song, but I love performing it. I love it and I'm the one who introduces it. And I always say, oh, I suppose we'd better do that silly song, haven't we? And I don't even have to introduce it. They all go yes, and the scream goes up and they all come out with their phones, ready to get the moment when the skirts come off. And yes, we still pull the skirts off.
Speaker 1:I think I've said to you over the years about the Velcro you know, because I think in those early days getting that right was quite a thing, wasn't it?
Speaker 2:What we did with the skirts when we did the competition. To make sure that the boys didn't miss, we put a brooch so that they could grab the brooch, and if you got the brooch then the skirt's going to come off. And it worked.
Speaker 1:It was a treat, wasn't it? It was really really good. The music industry itself. My dad would always say, you know, got the t-shirt. I mean you would say got the duvet as well, which I don't know what that was all about. But you know, you, this has been a really interesting part of your life. You know, I look around this room. There are guitars up everywhere. I know you're a music family as well. That's really has always struck me. I know your two daughters who have loved music over the years. Was it ever a question for you to say to them about the music industry and whether it's a good thing or a bad thing to be involved with Did you ever have that conversation?
Speaker 2:yeah, we did. In Steve's words he said to the girls I want you to either be a vet or a knee surgeon.
Speaker 1:And I said just good job though, weren't they?
Speaker 2:yes, they are. I said to them, just to have something else that you can fall back on, like I did. You know, I studied, I wanted to be a singer, but I thought it might not happen and so study as a secretary, you know, and so you've always got a job. But they both ignored me completely and they just went down the music route which is what kids do, yeah yeah, I didn't, I was I. The reason I didn't was because I didn't think that I would be successful.
Speaker 1:You know Rita Crudgington from Bethnal Green who would want to work with her but Natalie and Kyla both had a great um rapport with each other musically, which I've seen, obviously, and Kyla and in her own solo world as well, doing great things, again under a different name.
Speaker 2:Lakey, because she was going to go out as just Kyla. But there's I think she's Thai a girl called Kyla and quite successful, and so Kyla had to change her name. So she chose Lakey and I thought, oh, I'm not sure about that, but I don't know.
Speaker 1:It seems to have worked it really has worked and to a modern age group. I guess you know, um, we're not the right age for it, uh, but the modern age. I love the music and and I like the way when I work with them, both, you know, in a studio, they just know their stuff and they're very talented and you must be so proud of what they've achieved because that's been their ability to kind of probably soak up a little bit of you guys.
Speaker 2:Do you know about Public the Musical Kyla wrote? In lockdown Kyla started writing music. She decided that she was fed up a bit with trying to make hit records and things. She loves musicals both the kids. I've raised them, you know.
Speaker 1:much to Steve's dismay it's all right, he's in the other room. He can't hear you.
Speaker 2:My rock star bass playing husband. Yeah, I've raised them to love musicals. And so she, kyla decided that she wanted to write a musical. Kyla is gay for a start. She's all about equality and diversity and everything. So she wrote all of these fabulous songs and then she wrote the storybook with Natalie and Natalie helped her with the lyrics, and it's about four completely diverse people. One is an activist, another is a gay man who suffers from anxiety, another one is non-binary and the other is a very macho, you know man's man. And they get locked in a gender-neutral toilet.
Speaker 2:They did Fringe in 2023 and took it by storm. Amazing, it was the hot ticket, and can I tell you how I know it was? Not only did they sell out from day one, they sold out every single show. I walked into the venue and I saw Gail Porter and I know that Gail has got a son or a daughter roughly Kyla or Natalie's age, because we used to do little events for the children and we'd both be there. And she went oh, cheryl, we had a hug. What are you doing here? How are your girls? And I went well, funny enough, they've written this musical.
Speaker 2:She went what's it called? And I said it's called Public the Musical. And it called. And I said it's called public the musical. And she went oh, oh, hang on a minute, public. And she called over a friend, happy birthday. Happy birthday, who happened to be Claire Grogan from altered images. And she went Claire, what was that show? You told me I've got to see. And Claire said, oh, she said it's the hot ticket, but you can't get one. They, they've all sold out. It was a publicly musical. And I went ah, my daughter's wrote it. So honestly, dom, it's going to be. I've just been talking to the girls today about it and it's going to be touring, we think, in spring of 25.
Speaker 1:Amazing, so yeah, but what did you say to them about whether they should or shouldn't go into the music industry?
Speaker 2:I said. I didn't say don't, I mean you can't. The thing is you're born with this. This is not a proper job, you know. This is not work. This is play. We love it. We love what we do. If you're born with music in your soul, there's nothing you can do about it. It's there, it's part of you, and so I couldn't take that away from them. But all I said to them was just be sensible and have something else up your sleeve that you can do, and I suppose Natalie has, because Natalie trained as a dancer and now she teaches, she choreographs, she teaches dance, she directs. Actually, if you look on YouTube at some of the videos that the Fizz have done, like TOTP, you can see Natalie in TOTP and also Winning Ways. There's quite a few, actually. She choreographed them so and she's fantastic. She's so great at what she does. So they're both yes, they're both in the industry and this is their life. Now. That's what they're going to do for the rest of their lives.
Speaker 1:Over the years you've done such a variety of things in the entertainment industry. The day job, if you like, has been that music side of your life. But you've also been on our TV screens as a presenter and we've seen you on different things. I want to take you back to the days of that show Record Breakers with Roy Castle, you and Norris McGuerta, with the records from the Guinness World Records book which still, unbelievably, comes out every year and still being bought by millions of people. Amazing, but that show. What was that period of your life like, having that kind of? You did the music, but you also were, you know, on the front line of our entertainment industry. You were there, you were one of those faces, yeah.
Speaker 2:I started with Record Breakers in 1987, I think it was and so I was still in Bucks Fears, I was still gigging with Bucks Fears, but we'd had the hits, the hits had dried up. The last hit, the last top 10 hit we had was in 86. And so I was still with them and we were still working. But our work was getting less, you know, and less exciting sort of thing, and the television for me was taking over. And when I was doing Record Breakers, shortly after that I did a series called Eggs and Baker and my television career was taking off. So by the time I left Bucks Fizz, which was December 93, literally I regarded myself as a television presenter. I didn't regard myself as a singer anymore.
Speaker 2:But my record-breaker days were glorious, especially working with Roy Castle, and I feel sorry that you know there are people like my children. They don't know who Roy Castle is. The last time I saw Roy was after I'd given birth to my girls and Natalie was very poorly. She was in intensive care and he came to see her and that was the last time I saw him before he died of cancer. But it was the most fantastic series to work on, because you're working with extreme people. You're working with people that want to be the best at what they can do, and some of the records were silly, but some of them were extraordinary and life-threatening. You know, they would risk their lives so that they could be the best at what they were doing.
Speaker 1:It was like watching a show at the same time as Blue Peter, these kind of shows that were really their heyday that you felt like you were watching adventure live. You know this was in your face, there was a jeopardy about it, there was a sense of I, I think with the Norris McGuerta character obviously coming in as the expert, and I mean I would I have to say he, um, I, he felt quite, um, uh, school head teachery to me and you guys were the, you know that, you were me, you were both, um, the school kids playing in the in the room, almost, you know that. And and there was a great chemistry between you and Roy and that sense also of um, from my own memory of there was a lot of laughter on that show.
Speaker 2:I tell you what Roy had the most fantastic sense of humor, and quite a wicked sense of humor as well. He would, he would, he was very naughty. We'd stand at the back of the studio while they were trying to break a record in front of us and he was going go on, you can do it. And he would whisper to me they're never going to do this, you know. And uh, and it really used to make me laugh. He was lovely, he was glorious to work with did you?
Speaker 1:because you even said there at the beginning about when we're talking about it. You even I almost could hear the music playing in the background, the voice of roy as well.
Speaker 2:It was a really great voice, wasn't it he was an all-rounder, he was the archetypal all-rounder. He could sing, he could dance. I've always thought that he should have been Bert in Mary Poppins.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, he would have been perfect.
Speaker 2:But you know they wanted an American to appear.
Speaker 1:But he would have All right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Of course he would have had the right accent and everything, rather than Hello Mary Poppins. Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1:And you're like from Bethnal Green going, what the hell. But those kind of shows, they're hard work too, aren't they we?
Speaker 2:did have in the studio. We did have autocue for that. But when I started presenting television there was no autocue and in those days they used to, you know. Now you see them with their script in their hand and they'll refer to their script.
Speaker 2:Well, in those days when I started my first television presenting was in 1984, with a show called how Dare you, and it was taboo to have your script in your hand. So sometimes I'd write notes on the palm of my hand, you know. But you had to do your homework and so the night before recording, or the night before if it was a live show, you'd spend hours before going to bed just going over your script and going over, reading up on people and learning about them because you're going to interview them. And yeah, it was. It was a hard job but I did. I did enjoy it. But I know you mentioned you said about music industry like my music career being my day job. I didn't class that as my day job. My day job was the tv presenting, because that was like going to work, getting it done and coming home, whereas the music I, to this day, I just love. I love going on stage and performing.
Speaker 1:That's not work for me whether it's in front of a tv camera for a presentation job or whether it's performing on a stage as the Fizz and having that connection with an audience. Is it something you're always nervous about before you go onto the stage? Is it a giddiness? Is it almost an over excitement? What is the feeling?
Speaker 2:Right depends if I'm going on stage with Fizz, like for instance, this weekend we're doing an 80s weekender at Bogner Butlins. I don't get nervous at those. I don't get nervous because they are chomping at the bit for you to come on stage.
Speaker 1:They love you being there.
Speaker 2:They do, they really do. And we go on stage and inevitably there'll be four people. There might be several four peoples, if you know what I mean. Four groups of four dressed as Bucks Fizz. They've gone to the, they've gone to Smithy's or whatever it is, and they've hired a Bucks Fizz outfit. Yeah, brilliant. They've ripped the skirt off at the right time and everything. It's hilarious, honestly.
Speaker 2:And so I love those gigs and I don't get nervous. I just I revel in them. I walk, I revel in them, I run on stage and the cheer goes up and I just can't wait to perform and get them going and everything. Then there's other things. There's musicals. I've done lots of musicals there. I pace up and down in the wings, going over my lines and hating myself for being so nervous. Now, with television and when you've got autocue, my eyesight has failed now my distance eyesight has failed, and so I really have to find myself squinting, which you don't want to squint on telly, you know. So it's that Television, television. Yes, I did used to get nervous. I don't do so much of it now. I'm more of a guest. Now you do panel shows and stuff. Yes, I did used to get nervous, I don't do so much of it now. I'm more of a guest now.
Speaker 1:You do panel shows and stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just did one a few days ago. I did House of Games, house of Games, and before that I was in Dictionary Corner on Countdown. This is in the last couple of weeks, so yeah, I get invited to do those kind of shows now, but I'm not at all nervous about those, although quiz shows are a bit nerve-wracking, the chase especially oh my goodness, I was really nervous about the chase but I did get eight in my in my cash builder, so I was very pleased.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I musicals. I've said to my agent I can't do musicals anymore because my nerves can't take it. I get even. I did footloose musical for a year and even up to the last day of that year I was still before going on stage, pacing up and down, going oh, don't forget your lines, reed, don't forget your lines, just talk to myself, rita. I did. I did do another one after that. Actually I did happy days musical.
Speaker 1:I might have done a few after that did you find it easy to learn the lines? No, no that terrifies me, that idea of that. I loved doing plays school. There's always been a thing when I've talked to actor friends about how on earth do you just keep that in your head all the time?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But isn't that the same as you knowing how a song sounds? I?
Speaker 2:don't know Songs. You can, I don't know you can fit the words in and just kind of. I remember songs quite easily but I watch. We watch a lot of dramas me and Steve on telly and I think to myself how do they know their lines, how do they remember them? And with musicals, I have done plays as well, some of them even serious plays like Dial M for Murder. I did once and I dried on stage. I was sitting on a sofa and I had to be terribly, terribly posh. I had a terribly posh accent and I was sitting with my co-actor and I looked at him and he knew that I was blank and he said my line for me. It frightened the living daylights out of me, dom. And I've done it a few times, actually in different musicals. I did it once in the West End when I was on Footloose. I did it in the middle of a song. I completely forgot it.
Speaker 1:What did you do?
Speaker 2:I stopped and the pianist went. I went can you find it in your heart to forgive her? And then nothing Didn't know what the next line was, and the pianist looked at me and he went, bong bing, bong bing. And I went bong bing, bong bing, and honestly it was awful. And Steve McGann, who's the doctor in Call the Midwife he was playing opposite me, he was my husband in the show and he went, oh, and he stood up and he came and hugged me and I went, oh, oh, oh, and I started crying, but I was, it was just nerves, I just couldn't remember it. It was awful, I can't bear those times. And so I said to my agent I don't want to ever do it again.
Speaker 1:So you won't do it it depends.
Speaker 2:It'll be either because it's a show that I really, really want to do, although I can't think of one off the top of my head, or because I'm really poor.
Speaker 1:Finally, you know you've been part of this soundtrack to our lives too. You mentioned earlier about, you know, loving James Taylor and Jenny Mitchell and all the influences that we've had. You know me being on the radio and playing all the music that I've played over the years as well. What is it about us as human beings? Do you think that we just really Music is not just an accompaniment to our life? I don't think it is. That's not just for people who are really enthusiastic about music. I think for everyone on the planet. Music is it, isn't it?
Speaker 2:It takes you to a place and time in your life. When we do these 80s weekends of festivals throughout the summer, you know, you know that you're taking that audience back to a time when they might have been, you know, teenagers or even younger, and for that moment, while you're on stage, they're not thinking about woes, they're not thinking about woes, they're not thinking about troubles, they're not thinking about work, they're just in the moment and having a great time. And I think, for me, music takes me not just to another place and time, but also it makes me happy, it makes me sad, it makes me think. You know, I hear a song my mum used to like. That makes me think of my mum. It's, it's, it's so important to me in my life and, I think, to most people. And I'd hate, I can't imagine what it would be like to not have music in your life. I cannot comprehend a life without music.
Speaker 1:Cheryl Baker.
Speaker 2:Rita, thanks for being with me on talking it's a great pleasure, always, always, dom Always, to see you.
Speaker 1:And how good was.
Speaker 2:Cuba. I know he starts off a bit, you know. Hang on a minute, let's get to know this bloke. I'll give him my ball. See if he wants to play with me. He always does that. A new person comes in, they get the ball treatment.
Speaker 1:I love it. I love it, thanks, I love it. Thanks for listening. The music to Talking is composed by Johnny Easton. Talking is a Laughing Frog production.
