Farewell Pet! Brenda Blethyn is saying goodbye to Vera
The actor on why she’s hanging up the famous detective’s hat after 14 years – and what’s next.
Image credit: Sophia Spring
The actor on why she’s hanging up the famous detective’s hat after 14 years – and what’s next.
She’s played the TV detective Vera, whose catchphrase is ‘farewell, pet’, for 14 years, but that’s exactly what Brenda Blethyn will be saying to the much-loved character when the final series airs.
"Filming our last scene was quite emotional for all of us," says Brenda, who has now played the curmudgeonly Northumbrian detective for the last time.
"We all had a glass of Champagne and there were speeches. I got a bit choked up, thanking everybody."
ITV’s Vera is one of the UK’s best-loved crime shows, attracting huge audiences here and around the world, so why has Brenda chosen to make January’s two-parter the last?
"Well, I shall probably regret the decision soon," she says with a sigh, "but Vera takes up quite a lot of my time. Filming a series means six months of the year away from home. The people I work with do feel like a family, but I've also got my own family down south."
She met husband Michael Mayhew in the mid-Seventies, although they didn’t marry until 2010. That was the year she started filming Vera, and the newlyweds, who had been together for 35 years, had to learn how to spend half the year apart.
"I suddenly realised last year that I haven’t had a summer at home for 14 years and maybe it was time to think about that," she says. "Michael’s face lit up when I told him [I was going to stop].
"I could tell he was kind of pleased I might be around a bit more, though he wouldn’t have imposed that on me."
"She was like a bag lady," says Brenda,about the first time she read a description of her – a great, shambolic woman lumbering into a church with two carrier bags. "I read the description and went: 'Oh, why have they thought of me for this? I’m normally nicely turned out.
"She’s not dependent on lipstick. She doesn't look like she strode off a catwalk. Nobody’s sitting at home lusting after her.
"When I’m Vera, I’ve got boots on, I’ve got layers and layers of clothes to bulk me out a bit more."
Although Brenda’s intention was to spend lots of time at home after wrapping filming on Vera, Michael didn’t have to wait long before she was off again as she was swiftly offered a part in a new film, The Nest.
"I’d only been home five minutes and the agent rang saying, 'Do you want to do this film? It starts next week.'”
"I liked it, so said, 'Well, here goes. I won’t bother unpacking my bag.'"
The Nest is about two women in Yorkshire who strike up an unlikely friendship after one sees the other being treated badly by the people who are supposed to care for her.
So was it a challenge to adjust to being in each other’s company every time she came home after six months?
"Yeah, it takes a little while, right? Because both people are used to being on their own, having whatever they want on the telly, having the heating turned up.
"That’s him all over. I’m turning it down and over near the windows," she says with a chuckle.
"So that goes on for a little bit, you need to get acclimatised to each other."
The secret to keeping a long relationship healthy is to give each other space, she says.
"Two bathrooms. Two different rooms with a television too, so you can watch whatever you want. No arguments. You don’t want someone rabbiting on while you’re engrossed in an episode of Vera do you?"
Brenda – who received an OBE for services to drama in 2003 – is one of our most accomplished actors, with a Golden Globe and a BAFTA to her name.
She came to acting fairly late, but by her mid-thirties she was at the National Theatre.
"My parents were so very proud. I remember taking them around the corridors backstage and Dad saying, 'Cor, this must’ve cost a million pound.' I said, 'Oh, it was a sight more than that, Dad.'"
But they couldn’t quite get their heads around what was happening to their daughter.
"I was late to meet Mum once and when I got there, I said, 'Oh sorry, some students stopped me outside the National because they wanted my autograph and to take photos.' Mum said, 'Isn’t that marvellous? Who did they think you were?'"
Brenda thinks that’s hilarious, even now.
Brenda answers very carefully. "She has to make a decision prompted by somebody she meets in the final episode who has an influence on her and who makes her think a bit more about things that are important to her."
So, she’s not going under a bus? It’s not the absolute end of her?
"Oh no. And in any case, she lives on in the books."
The final series of Vera airs on ITV1 at 8pm on Wednesday 1 and Thursday 2 January.
Vera... Farewell Pet, will be on ITV1 at 9pm on 3 January 2025.
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