Alison Steadman
Headline:
Britain's lady-in-waiting
Synopsis:
From prostitutes to neurotic mums, there’s no role Alison Steadman hasn’t slipped into. So why hasn’t she conquered Hollywood?
The first lesbian kiss on British television was performed by Alison Steadman in Girl, a 1974 BBC play that her mother couldn’t bring herself to watch. “Don’t let anyone tell you it was on Brookside,” says the actress with a proud little laugh. “My mum said, ‘Oh, Alison! Your father and I couldn’t look. We’re so upset.’ ” Later the Liverpool housewife would concede that it was a good play “aside from all that kissing business”. When Steadman went on to play a prostitute, she rang her father to warn him. “He went, ‘Oh God!’ Then he said, ‘Are they paying you well?’ I said, ‘Quite well.’
He said, ‘Oh, well, do it then!’ ”
Since those days Britain’s favourite character actress hasn’t outraged suburbia, merely punctured its vanities with her hilarious, and mercilessly observed, women. Not that there is anything remotely sharp or satirical, or even urban, about her; she is dotty about foxes, refuses to swat flies (she opens the window for them, and possibly knits them bootees), bird-watches in Trent Park, is a stalwart member of the London Wildlife Trust. When she tells me about joining the Bumblebee Conservation Trust and going on a “bee-walk”, however, I wonder momentarily if she had been researching a reprise of her Candice-Marie role from Nuts in May, but no. “It’s just so nice; you’re with people who don’t have an ego. They’re just interested in nature. They can teach me something.” ...
- Publish date:
- 30 November 2008
- Author:
- Lesley White
- Source:
- Sunday Times Magazine
- Media:
