Alison Steadman on the pressure of bringing back Gavin & Stacey

The actor talks about the return of the popular BBC show, stage fright and her happiest times with her family.

Image credit: Alamy

By Saga Magazine | Published - 22 Oct 2024

Growing up in Liverpool, I had two sisters, Pamela and Marjorie. They were good fun, but they were ten and 12 years older than me, so when they married and left, I was alone and isolated. We didn’t have a landline telephone until I was 15, which sounds crackers now.

A lot of the time I was alone I’d pretend to be someone else. As I got older my enjoyment of acting grew. My first stage role at 23 was as Sandy – a 14-year-old in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie who poses as a naked model for a teacher.

The tight bodystocking they gave me to cover my nudity squashed my boobs and made me look like a sausage, so I thought, "What the hell. I’ll just do it naked!"

I was on a chaise longue; my back was to the audience and so all they saw was a bit of my bum and my legs. Then I looked up and there was a guy hiding in the lighting rig, looking down at me. He turned out to be a local journalist who had got in via the stage door.

Traumatic times

In my memoir Out of Character, I’ve written for the first time about a terrifying experience I had with a teacher at the Liverpool Youth Theatre.

One night he offered me a lift home but instead drove me to Sefton Park. It was dark and no one was around when he parked up.

He started to talk weirdly and ran his finger around my hand. We were in his bubble car that you climbed in through the roof, so I was trapped.

I kept saying, "I’m going to tell them at youth theatre what you’ve done."’

And he said, "Don’t be silly. You are a schoolgirl, I’m a teacher. Who do you think they are going to believe?"

And then he said, "I could do anything to you. I could murder you and nobody would know it was me because nobody knows you are here."

After about an hour, he took me home. My instinct was to run into my mum’s arms and cry, but I knew if I told her, she wouldn’t let me go back to youth theatre.

Years later, I was on a train and he was in the next carriage. I saw him get off and followed him, shouting his name. He turned round and looked flustered and red.

I said, "You know who I am don’t you? You got me in your car and took me to the park and threatened to rape and murder me. I’ll never forgive you."

He ran off terrified.

Playing Pamela

I’m looking forward to being back as Pamela in the Christmas special of Gavin & Stacey. The expectations have grown, so everybody I see in the street says, "Can’t wait for Gavin & Stacey!", which makes me think, "I hope I don’t let you down".

I love playing Pamela [Gavin’s mum] as she has a warmth to her, she’s quirky, and has her little rows with her husband Mick.

I’m also about to appear in another season of the BBC drama Here We Go, in which I play granny Sue Jessop.

Stage fright

In my late sixties, I stopped acting on stage. My nerves were overtaking me, and it’s also retaining all those lines. Your brain changes as you get older. I can learn lines, but it takes me forever now.

There were tears because acting on stage was always my favourite thing. I was thrilled to get an OBE from the Queen, and then to meet her a second time at a party she attended at the Royal Academy of Arts. She emerged from a room where a rock band was playing and said to me, "Aren’t the microphones loud nowadays?"

I don’t think I’ll be made a Dame. When I was in leading theatre roles and getting award nominations, I probably would have done.

Home comforts

I’m happiest when I’m with my family – my two sons [with her ex-husband, director Mike Leigh], Toby, 45, and Leo, 43, and my grandsons, Freddie, six and Milo, six months.

Mike and I have been friends since we met at acting school in Essex and always will be.

I’ve been with my partner, the actor Michael Elwyn, for 28 years. Marriage isn’t necessary for us. We are quite content; we don’t need that. We both love bird-watching – I couldn’t live without the feeders at the back of my North London flat.

I’m 78 and sometimes feel a bit down. Then I say, "Stop it. You have got a good life, you are still working and you are healthy." I am very lucky.

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Alison Steadman on the pressure of bringing back Gavin & Stacey

Traumatic times

Playing Pamela

Stage fright

Home comforts

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