From the cobbles to treading the boards

“I haven’t done a lot of theatre in recent years because I’ve been doing mainly telly. Even before Corrie when I had my kids I went into telly. But I have been lucky enough for Corrie to let me out and do theatre like All the Way Home by Ayub Khan Din at the Lowry in Salford last year, which I really wanted to do.

This year with Rutherford & Son, it was the play and the chance to work with Sir Jonathan Miller.

Before they auditioned there was a bit of a buzz that he was going to direct. I thought I can’t turn down the opportunity to work with him if I get offered a part.”

Tell us about the cast meet-andgreet before rehearsals began.

Jonathan Miller very kindly invited us round to his house for a reading of the play and to meet everyone before rehearsals began. I have to admit, I was in awe of him. He’s just a lovely guy. A very interesting, clever man.

You find yourself thinking ‘I could listen to him talking forever’. There was all the business of what to call him. He said ‘don’t call me Sir’.

Were you familiar with Rutherford & Son?

I didn’t know the play. I read it before I went to the audition and read a book about Githa Sowerby who wrote the play because it’s something I knew nothing about – that story of industry in the north at that time. It was really interesting to read her
background because she was from an
industrial family.
The play was done in New York
off-Broadway quite recently which I find
amazing. I wonder how they would have
coped with the cultural differences
because the play was originally set in
Teeside. They supposedly attempted
Geordie accents. I would have paid
good money to see that! Blake Morrison
has edited the text for Northern
Broadside so the production is more
Yorkshire than north-east.
How would you describe your
character Ann, sister of industrialist
John Rutherford?
She’s great, I really liked her when I first
read the play. She’s stuck in the previous
century. She’s stuck in her ways and has
a real sense of loyalty towards the family
and company. She’s very old school and
can’t get to grips with the young people in
the story. She has that real northern
dourness and tells it how it is. Without
knowing it, she’s very funny. She comes
out with some cracking lines. She looks
after her brother and her family. That
has been her job all of her life and she has
been very happy to do that but now she’s
thrown by all the goings-on in the family.
Is she anything like Aunty Pam?
No, she’s very different. You could get
typecast being in a soap. Obviously for
the very long established characters in
Corrie, that’s why they stay there.
Deirdre, for instance, will forever be
Deirdre. As much as they are very
good actors, I imagine it would be hard
to do anything else.
How did you get the part of Aunty Pam
in Coronation Street?
I went up for a part, but wasn’t really right
for that character, but they’d just got the
character breakdown for Aunty Pam. They
said I wasn’t right for the other role –
somebody’s mum, I think it was Tina’s
mum – but could be a good Aunty Pam. I
do remember walking in and getting it
horribly wrong, wearing a T-shirt and big
earrings, but had a great audition with
the director.
Why did they think you were right for
Aunty Pam?
I do think they had an idea of how they
wanted her. Physically, I know I was not
what they were looking for at the time,
but when they saw me they obviously
saw something. She was this wheeler
dealer character. I was only meant to
stay for six months, but as soon as they
started looking at storylines around
Molly, Kevin and the affair, they thought
that Aunty Pam was a good character to
be involved in that plot.
The writers of Coronation Street
are so brilliant and, once you have
been there a few weeks, they write with
you in mind. They know how the
character is going to speak. The longer
you are there, the more formed it
becomes. Hopefully I’m going back at
some point. The storylines go in
swathes. That’s quite nice because it
gives you the chance to do things like
Rutherford & Son.
Are you looking forward to
touring?
I haven’t toured for years, but am quite
lucky in that we are doing a lot of
places up north which means I can stay
with my parents or my mates in
Manchester. And we’re doing quite a
few dates in the south near my home.
On tour you don’t have any
responsibilities of home life, you don’t
have to worry about shopping, cleaning
and paying the bills.
n Rutherford & Son is playing at
Theatre Royal Winchester from
Tuesday to Saturday.