How are you?
I'm fine thank you, just coping with a few building disasters here, we're trying to renovate a very old cottage and put a very modern extension on it and it's all going terribly wrong this morning!
Tell me about the new series of 'Green Wing' – what's the plot?
Well, we're not allowed to answer that one, but obviously at the end of the last series we ended on a proverbial cliffhanger. All the characters, my character in particular, have reached various crisis points and that does continue into the second series and the madness and bedlam continues from that point onwards.
Does anyone find out your big secret?
Oh it's all horribly embarrassing at the hospital, yes I think my office staff are realising the burgeoning family I have working with me at the hospital, and the horrific age that must make me if they're all my children. The revelations for her vanity and ego are as disastrous as ever.
What do you think of your character?
Oh she's a ghastly, terribly old, slutty, egotistical, angry, whore, which is great fun to play. It's great to have a character that touches on so many elements of what women hit at this age, but hopefully turning them around and having a laugh with them. And yet underneath all that, although the playing of it is great fun, there's also that idea of the sad old lonely whore who's not going to end up with anyone – it's quite a pitiful state that she gets herself into.
What do you think she finds attractive about Dr Statham?
Nothing. Nothing at all - I think it's complete desperation! I think basically he's the only one who'll have her. She does try it on with several others in most episodes, especially in the first series. In the second series the crisis deepens a bit and she's not quite so sexually obsessed, although she would be if she got the chance. It's just that he's the only one who shows any interest in her, so although it's always of continuing embarrassment to her that the great pompous git of the hospital is the only one who shows her any interest, as a last resort he's always there. As the series develops there is also a Christmas special where the relationship goes off onto a new tangent, so there is some poignancy as well as the really broad comedy of it.
Do you identify in any way, shape or form with Joanna? Even a tiny bit?
The horror of the ageing process, that's what I identify with. Mark Heap (who plays Dr Statham) very kindly said to me that it's great that I'm not at all inhibited as a performer, and that I don't mind looking absolutely dreadful, but having seen the first episode at the press launch the other night - oh my god, my forehead is beginning to look like a map of the London Underground. Most people are having botox left, right and centre while I'm making a living out of the number of wrinkles I'm getting.
But no, it's sad, that sort of menopausal desperation – are you still attractive, are people still interested in you and all those things that just completely undermine your youthful confidence. I find myself quite jealous of all the young performers who haven't reached that age where they suddenly become much less confident in their own abilities and I think Joanna's hitting all of that, so those bits I'd connect with.
That's a lot more than I thought you'd own up to! How does working on 'Green Wing' compare with your previous roles?
Well it's very extreme and physical, which I really enjoy. I've always really enjoyed that, right from theatre school. I'm very into the way we use our bodies and the way they show what's going on in our emotional and psychological state. I love the scope that 'Green Wing' has given me for that sort of physical humour, although it's very uncomfortable to play because Joanna is riddled with so many neuroses that it does sort of come out in her body. Both Mark and I, we've found that we're real physical cripples by the end of the show because our shoulders are always hunched and tensed and there's lots of ridiculous striding about at bad angles in very high heels. Doing that for nine months is not very good for the body, so I've had to resort to my yoga quite a lot in order to try and ease out all those aches and pains.
What are the rest of the cast like? Are they as wacky in real life?
They're just fantastic. It's been the best ball working on it because when you get all of us together in a group there's not one face in the cast that I don't look forward to seeing. Whether it's in the make-up chair or in the green room at lunchtime – they're just the most fantastic crew. I know journalists are always wanting to hear some little intrigue but we just have such a laugh. We usually work in specific groups of characters, so when we finally do get a few scenes when we're all together, they are just a complete riot and there's a lot of difficulty controlling us. There was one particular day when we shot a really wacky sequence at a power station down on the south coast and we were just unstoppable. We all had different costumes and we all looked quite different. I won't say anything more about it because I'll give stuff away, but I'd love to work with any one or all of them again and again and again!
