course.
When Michael and I were first approached to do that television series, Trevor Nunn said, ‘Oh no, don’t do a situation comedy, that doesn’t get bums on seats.’ Well, I think he wouldn’t say that now. I think it is our business to do as many things as we can, and my goodness it teaches you something. People should not demean situation comedy, it is the most difficult thing in the world.
We played Mike and Laura, a middle-aged couple who are both very shy and fall in love. Bob Larbey had written the scripts, and I was so nervous about it that I asked if the director could be James Cellan-Jones, as I knew how good he was at directing comedy. Michael read it and said, ‘You know, this would be hugely good fun.’ The other couple were Susan Penhaligon as my young married sister, and Richard Warwick as her husband. We all got on so well that we used to arrange day-trips to France for the cast and crew just as an outing, and everyone else thought we were filming. ‘Oh no, we’re just here for pleasure.’
What I quickly learnt was why situation comedy is much more difficult than anything else. You have just five days to rehearse it before the recording, and then you have to come out and talk to this big studio audience before you start. I never got used to that; Michael took to it absolutely without a hitch, but I was all over the shop. Every performance that we did, I stood there saying, ‘How have I got myself into this?’ I love people coming, but it is just so unlike me to have to go and say a few lines as myself and meet the audience, I loathe it. It is like my worst nightmare, like walking into a roomful of people at a party that I don’t know. I dread it, and people just think you are affected if you say that. Making a speech, oh crikey! But why should it be anything like acting? Acting is the antithesis of making a speech, because what you are doing is being another person, saying lines that somebody else has told you to.
You have to come out and say, ‘Hello, so nice to see you here, do clap, do enjoy your evening,’ and then you have to suddenly think about what you are doing in this scene. There is always the risk of things going wrong, and Michael was a very steadying influence. You have to stop, and say to the audience, ‘Sorry, we’re going to have to go back on this,’ and you go back on it and get it right, and the audience go absolutely mad because you have got it right at last, and then you have to say, ‘Don’t do that, because we can’t have that kind of reaction suddenly in the middle of a scene for no reason.’
In the second episode of A Fine Romance I had to pick up some glasses of beer and take them over to a table. In rehearsal I took two in each hand, but when it came to the take I tried to lift all four in one hand. Why would I do that? Fright, it is fright that makes you do it.
We rehearsed in a church hall near Waterloo Bridge. I was walking to the loo and back, singing, and I met the vicar, who said, ‘Don’t sing in church.’ I thought that was a rather rum thing for a vicar to say. We were there on our wedding anniversary, 5 February, and Michael, unbeknownst to me, went over to the man who used to sell flowers underneath the bridge, Buster Edwards, who was one of the Great Train Robbers, and said, ‘Could I have a dozen roses, please?’ Buster said, ‘A dozen roses, mate!! Do you know what time of year this is? Pull yourself together.’ Michael was really told off.
The programme was very popular, and for years afterwards people would ask, ‘Why don’t you do it again?’ After four series we decided to call it a day, and the Head of London Weekend Television, John Birt, tried to change our minds. He took us out and asked us why didn’t we want to do more. We said we wouldn’t do more on television, but why didn’t we make a film of it? But nobody seemed at all interested in pursuing that idea.
A Fine Romance appealed to an audience that had never
When Michael and I were first approached to do that television series, Trevor Nunn said, ‘Oh no, don’t do a situation comedy, that doesn’t get bums on seats.’ Well, I think he wouldn’t say that now. I think it is our business to do as many things as we can, and my goodness it teaches you something. People should not demean situation comedy, it is the most difficult thing in the world.
We played Mike and Laura, a middle-aged couple who are both very shy and fall in love. Bob Larbey had written the scripts, and I was so nervous about it that I asked if the director could be James Cellan-Jones, as I knew how good he was at directing comedy. Michael read it and said, ‘You know, this would be hugely good fun.’ The other couple were Susan Penhaligon as my young married sister, and Richard Warwick as her husband. We all got on so well that we used to arrange day-trips to France for the cast and crew just as an outing, and everyone else thought we were filming. ‘Oh no, we’re just here for pleasure.’
What I quickly learnt was why situation comedy is much more difficult than anything else. You have just five days to rehearse it before the recording, and then you have to come out and talk to this big studio audience before you start. I never got used to that; Michael took to it absolutely without a hitch, but I was all over the shop. Every performance that we did, I stood there saying, ‘How have I got myself into this?’ I love people coming, but it is just so unlike me to have to go and say a few lines as myself and meet the audience, I loathe it. It is like my worst nightmare, like walking into a roomful of people at a party that I don’t know. I dread it, and people just think you are affected if you say that. Making a speech, oh crikey! But why should it be anything like acting? Acting is the antithesis of making a speech, because what you are doing is being another person, saying lines that somebody else has told you to.
You have to come out and say, ‘Hello, so nice to see you here, do clap, do enjoy your evening,’ and then you have to suddenly think about what you are doing in this scene. There is always the risk of things going wrong, and Michael was a very steadying influence. You have to stop, and say to the audience, ‘Sorry, we’re going to have to go back on this,’ and you go back on it and get it right, and the audience go absolutely mad because you have got it right at last, and then you have to say, ‘Don’t do that, because we can’t have that kind of reaction suddenly in the middle of a scene for no reason.’
In the second episode of A Fine Romance I had to pick up some glasses of beer and take them over to a table. In rehearsal I took two in each hand, but when it came to the take I tried to lift all four in one hand. Why would I do that? Fright, it is fright that makes you do it.
We rehearsed in a church hall near Waterloo Bridge. I was walking to the loo and back, singing, and I met the vicar, who said, ‘Don’t sing in church.’ I thought that was a rather rum thing for a vicar to say. We were there on our wedding anniversary, 5 February, and Michael, unbeknownst to me, went over to the man who used to sell flowers underneath the bridge, Buster Edwards, who was one of the Great Train Robbers, and said, ‘Could I have a dozen roses, please?’ Buster said, ‘A dozen roses, mate!! Do you know what time of year this is? Pull yourself together.’ Michael was really told off.
The programme was very popular, and for years afterwards people would ask, ‘Why don’t you do it again?’ After four series we decided to call it a day, and the Head of London Weekend Television, John Birt, tried to change our minds. He took us out and asked us why didn’t we want to do more. We said we wouldn’t do more on television, but why didn’t we make a film of it? But nobody seemed at all interested in pursuing that idea.
A Fine Romance appealed to an audience that had never
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